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Three British IMOCA sailors go into the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre with high hopes. Armed with tens of thousands of ocean miles under their belts after competing on The Ocean Race, they should be especially well equipped for the tough conditions usually encountered on the opening phase of the race to Martinique.
All are among the alumni of the demanding Figaro one design circuit where they trained with the British Artemis Academy before progressing from the 36 footer to the IMOCA.
Since his first ever Transat Jacques Vabre challenge in 2011 – on Concise 2 a Class40 which had to retire after six days due to delamination problems – Briton Sam Goodchild has sailed or raced every class represented in the Transat Jacques Vabre, most recently finishing third in the Ocean Fifty on the last edition.
Now a dozen years on from his first TJV, Goodchild is back in Le Havre, fresh from racing The Ocean Race on HOLCIM-PRB, armed with For the Planet, the IMOCA which won the 2021 race in the hands of Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière.
After a trio of third places he tops the IMOCA Globe Series standings and is tipped by the French media for a podium finish with French co-skipper Antoine Koch, a talented naval architect who is the co-creator with Finot Conq of For People, the new IMOCA for Ruyant whose team TR Racing Goodchild races with.
With such comprehensive, diverse racing experience now and a reliable quick boat, it would not be a surprise to see Goodchild and Koch win into Martinique.
“I feel good.” Confirmed Goodchild just before Sunday’s start was postponed, “We are well prepared. I want to get a good result and the first part of the year has now put the pressure on a bit because we want to keep on doing what we have been doing but it is obviously all about Vendée Globe qualification. We have to do all that we can. And if we don’t break anything we will be fine. We do this to race but just because we have a well proven boat nothing is a given.”
He recalls, “ When we turned up at TR Racing to take on the boat the first thing they said was ‘Just because this boat has finished one Vendée Globe it does not mean to say it will finish another!” So we are going to have fun on this Transat but we are not going out saying that because we have finished third in the races so far we have to finish third again. We will just try to sail tidily and not make too many mistakes and see where we are at the finish line.”
Of his co-skipper Koch he considers, “Antoine is very calm, very calm and I like that. I like calm. He knows IMOCAs very well as he designed Thomas’ new boat here. He sailed this boat four years ago and the new boat is very much designed based on this boat. So there are some radical differences yes, but there are similarities. And he is very aware of the problems of IMOCA sailing. He is very up to date. He is a bloody good sailor and we have the same way of functioning.”
He continues, “We work together with the same goal. We have strengths and weaknesses which we know and work to. And everything gets discussed whether it is a sail change, a manoeuvre, a tactical move and work well together. And of course this is a two boat programme. But we have done nothing really since getting the boat in terms of further optimising. We have just used the boat pretty much as is. But my number one thing is the boat has to be reliable and making the maximum of what we have got rather than spending money, time and energy on things that might not benefit us. And really even then there is not that much time. There are two Transats now and two early next year so that does not leave time to do much.”
And predictably, given his low key nature, he plays down suggestions he could be the first British winner in the age of the modern IMOCA, “I am not thinking about winning. We will just go out and do our best and see what happens. There are 40 boats and we have seen since the start of this year that the new boats with experienced skippers are always at the front.”
And The Ocean Race allowed him to accumulate valuable miles and experience with a great team, “
The Ocean Race was a great. A year ago I had not really sailed a modern IMOCA with foils, so I learned all about the limits, the sail choices and lots of technical things. This boat is the same designer but two or three years before Holcim PRB so there are lots of things in common, and sailing the boat crewed with Kevin who has so much experience of the IMOCAs. That gave me a massive head start. There are things I learned there that are fundamental that I am still adapting.”
Compatriot Will Harris who is co-skipper of Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia heads into their second Transat Jacques Vabre as part of what is probably the duo which has done most ocean miles together, having first raced together in the 2019 race. They have probably the most robust, reliably proven VPLP design which is best designed for the big south, as they proved by winning the longest Ocean Race leg through the Southern Ocean.
And while Harris is a perfect foil for Herrmann, he definitely has ambitions to be on the next 2025 Transat Jacques Vabre start line with his own boat, heading towards the 2028 Vendée Globe.
Harris evaluates, “We are pretty confident for this one just because we have the experience of The Ocean Race, 37,000 miles or something like that. That is a lot of miles to have done in a relatively short period of time, so there is probably only Sam, Alan Roberts and Paul Meilhat on Biotherm, us and 11th Hour in terms of boats which have done miles. So come what may it should be, should be a bit less stressful for us than for some of the others. We can focus on the race and making the boat go, rather than focus on the details of what makes the boat go.”
With Herrmann they have hopes of a top five, “For me this race is a bit of a proving ground for me. We did not take quite the right strategy last time I think we have a real chance to make the top bunch. I’d love to prove myself with a super good result in this fleet, especially with us knowing the boat and knowing each other so well. Our weakest spot in the middle conditions. Storms help us out. But we need to make the right strategy calls. We know we have the speed to be up there.”
Of the key strategic moves possible he explains, “ There are these main depressions. Tacking one or two hours earlier or later can make all the difference. These can be significant a week later when you get to the trade winds, so these calls can be key. They can define the race later. The last bit to Martinique we don’t know so well. And so you have to be careful there, you can get a bad cloud and be stuck or slowed. It is not going to be over until the finish line. I think the hierarchy can be shaped by the time we get to that Sao Paolo archipelago. But that will just determine what pack you are in, maybe, and then after that it will be decided in the final stages. The last 1000 miles to the finish are likely to be really tough. “
And he asserts brightly and firmly, “ I want to be here in 2025 with my own boat. A big goal is to be on the Vendée Globe in 2028. I think I am in a good place with my profile from The Ocean Race to be in a good place to have my own boat in the future. As far as my sailing career for the future goes I am in the best place I can be.”
Ex high performance dinghy champion Alan Roberts served his time sailing six editions of La Solitaire du Figaro before he was selected to Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm team for The Ocean Race. On the back of that, and sailing a Transat earlier this year with Canadian IMOCA rookie Scott Shawyer, he was chosen by Alex Thomson Racing as co-kipper to Clarisse Crémer on L’Occitaine en Provence.
Heading into his first Transat Jacques Vabre Roberts enthuses, “I am pretty excited to be honest. Our approach is to get to the finish line. For Clarisse it is an important part of the qualifying for the Vendée Globe so the decision as to where we put our cursor in terms of risk management is the key thing. We have no real performance goals other than coming out of the race feeling like we have sailed well, have made rational, good decisions. We have done a fair bit of training now, going offshore for five or six days at a time. We did the Fastnet and the Défi Azimut. The boat only went in the water two and a half months ago and so we have had a limited period to learn the boat. It is quite well sorted now but we received a boat with no much data. And we have been learning how to operate as a duo, as well.”
He muses, “I have done more than 20,000 miles this year and this will be my fourth Transatlantic since December last year on four different boats. The accumulation of fatigue is there in the background, yes, but there is a level of sailing fitness really is there.”
L’Occitaine is the former Apivia of Charlie Dalin, Roberts compares it with racing Biotherm, a Verdier design that is three years newer, “ This boat is similar in some ways, but very different in others. It feels more like it is on suspension this boat which is good, I think the foils might be a little softer. The boats are very similar in shape.”
But like Harris, and indeed their Ocean Race winning Brit/Aussie counterpart Jack Bouttell also ex Artemis Academy who came in as late replacement co-skipper to sail with Sam Davies, Roberts also wants to graduate to his own programme after this 2024-25 races,
“ I want to be on the Vendée Globe start line in 2028 and right now will be supporting Clarisse all the way through this cycle. This gets me a lot of good experience, a dry run if you will, gets me through the processes. If I am not starting then I might as well learn all I can and do as much sailing as I can.”
