© Eloi Stichelbaut

They crossed the line during the night of 14 to 15.

Charlie Dalin - Apivia, 2nd

"It was a full-on finale for the race. Yesterday afternoon, I decided to reposition myself to line up for the wind shift but in the end, it didn’t really pay off fantastically well. I wasn’t far off the win in this race… I’m a bit disappointed, but at the same time, I’m happy with myself because I didn’t know what I was capable of in IMOCA singlehanded. It was my first solo race and ultimately I feel like I succeeded in my baptism of fire. I was leading on numerous occasions and I had some good phases of speed. I learned a great deal and my learning curve is still steep. I’m happy to be starting with this as a base. It had been a long time since I’d done a competition – since the Transat Jacques Vabre – so thank you to the organisers for having managed to set up this race, because I was beginning to seriously miss it. It’s been great to do battle with Thomas, Jérémie and the others.

I didn’t feel as if I could set sail on the Vendée Globe without having done a singlehanded race. This event fulfilled its role to a T in that regard. There was a massive amount of things to deal with, transitions, sail changes: the perfect warm-up race to validate a great many details on the boat. We certainly didn’t let up. We weren’t in the Solitaire du Figaro rhythm. We were permanently on the AIS. You can constantly work on performance, check that you’re trimmed right in relation to the others. I spent a lot of time on it. It was interesting in the very high-speed phases on the climb up to Iceland for example. We were able to really push the boats and look at lots of stuff. It was tiring but fantastic! Everything with regards sail choices, how to do a manœuvre, the different ways of manœuvring… I’ve learnt loads and I tried lots of different versions. The big issue relates to the fact that, although these boats go very fast, the price you pay for that is the on-board discomfort. It’s work in progress to come up with solutions, to accept speed for long periods. A Vendée Globe is 7 times as long, so we’re going to have to be able to handle the shock."

Thomas Ruyant - LinkedOut, 3rd

"It was a full-on finale for the race. Yesterday afternoon, I decided to reposition myself to line up for the wind shift but in the end, it didn’t really pay off fantastically well. I wasn’t far off the win in this race… I’m a bit disappointed, but at the same time, I’m happy with myself because I didn’t know what I was capable of in IMOCA singlehanded. It was my first solo race and ultimately I feel like I succeeded in my baptism of fire. I was leading on numerous occasions and I had some good phases of speed. I learned a great deal and my learning curve is still steep. I’m happy to be starting with this as a base. It had been a long time since I’d done a competition – since the Transat Jacques Vabre – so thank you to the organisers for having managed to set up this race, because I was beginning to seriously miss it. It’s been great to do battle with Thomas, Jérémie and the others.

I didn’t feel as if I could set sail on the Vendée Globe without having done a singlehanded race. This event fulfilled its role to a T in that regard. There was a massive amount of things to deal with, transitions, sail changes: the perfect warm-up race to validate a great many details on the boat. We certainly didn’t let up. We weren’t in the Solitaire du Figaro rhythm. We were permanently on the AIS. You can constantly work on performance, check that you’re trimmed right in relation to the others. I spent a lot of time on it. It was interesting in the very high-speed phases on the climb up to Iceland for example. We were able to really push the boats and look at lots of stuff. It was tiring but fantastic! Everything with regards sail choices, how to do a manœuvre, the different ways of manœuvring… I’ve learnt loads and I tried lots of different versions. The big issue relates to the fact that, although these boats go very fast, the price you pay for that is the on-board discomfort. It’s work in progress to come up with solutions, to accept speed for long periods. A Vendée Globe is 7 times as long, so we’re going to have to be able to handle the shock."

Sam Davies - Initiatives Coeur, 4th

“I’m a bit tired. The race was very intense due to traversing the weather systems and manœuvring the whole time. It’s the perfect way to test the boat, but I’m toast!

I’m really happy because I didn’t really know who I’d be able to play with. I had high hopes, but I was happy to stay at this level throughout the race. I managed to keep up the intensity right the way to the finish. It was a real pleasure to get back out on the water in solo format. It had been such a long time. Me and my boat, we’re ready for the Vendée Globe. We’ve validated the latest modifications made over the winter. I’d done a lot of sailing with Paul (Meilhat), who’s a great sailor, and I also wanted to be up to the required standard in solo format. I made the most of the opportunity to test lots of things, from the trimming to the freeze-dried food. Everything was geared around the Vendée Globe. When I say that I’m learning, it’s to be sure that I’ll be ready in November. Right now, I’m going to drink a beer and sleep a lot. It’s a strange situation: the team and I celebrated the finish for 5 minutes and they’ve already set sail to take her back home.”


Kevin Escoffier - PRB, 5th

"In competitive terms I haven’t satisfied by objective as I’d set myself the goal of being the first of the old foilers to finish. That said, it was a fantastic battle with Sam Davies. We were in the second division of this race, even though I had two days at the start where I was in contact, which was really nice.

My last night wasn’t great. I made a poor sail choice and the wind wasn’t very clear. Aside from that, I learned a lot. It was my first solo race so there were a lot of firsts. I noted down a massive amount of stuff. I’ve made a list as long as your arm. I suffered some major breakage at the back of the boat, but aside from that and some jammers, I didn’t break much. The name of the game was to push the boat to validate everything for the Vendée Globe. Turning a negative into a positive. I’m happy I didn’t have to stop due to that breakage and to have continued on and not had to turn back. Every extra hour spent on the boat has taught me something more.  It was stressful at times after the second low pressure system, as I knew that the boat was broken, so it was important that it didn’t get any worse. Other than that, the race just flew by.

I thought I would be more stressed than that for my first solo but I was pretty calm. The boat didn’t stress me out, it was singlehanded competition that I was apprehensive about as it’s very different. It’s another experience altogether because everything relies on you. Perhaps I felt like that because the challenges weren’t the same as in the Vendée Globe, without wishing to denigrate the race. I’m very happy that IMOCA organised this race. The class has really worked well to be able to organise this. Without this race, qualifying for the Vendée Globe would have been very complicated, for safety reasons too. Imoca has managed it brilliantly.

We sail all year round at the Pôle Finistère training cluster. There are some boosted boats like Initiatives-Coeur and Malizia. I find that interesting. There were three boats in front who were in it to win it. Those of us who goaded them for a while, we played amongst ourselves too. Even though they’re not the same boat, I believe that we were all in contact in competitive terms. The course and the weather conditions favoured that contact. It was thrilling out on the water.

The course was interesting from a strategic and meteorological viewpoint, the fact that we sailed from north-south rather than the usual east-west. We traversed a lot of weather systems, which called for a lot of manœuvres. The 10 days were a concentration of transition phases so we couldn’t have hoped for a better warm-up. The course was very coherent with everything we needed before going off on the Vendée Globe."