After Davy Beaudart (Bureau Vallée) crossed the line at 1:05 a.m. last night, it was Nicolas d'Estais's turn to finish at 7:44 a.m. The skipper of Café Joyeux closes out this extended 48 Hours. A final, symbolic finish, more than two hours before the cutoff, which shows that you have to trust the weather files

"I've never been so happy to finish last in a race! Well, last of those who finished." Those were Nicolas d'Estais's first words this morning at Lorient La Base, relieved after a race against the clock that was never a foregone conclusion. Drawn-faced but grinning widely, the Café Joyeux skipper would gladly have kept "the nice match-up" with the other daggerboard boats going, while "understanding their decision to stop."

"Happy to have knocked out all those miles"was also how Davy Beaudart felt, having finished just ahead of him overnight. It was the first solo race for the Bureau Vallée skipper, who paid tribute as he arrived to the race leaders — "aliens," in his words — who set the bar extremely high.

After a shower and a well-earned breakfast, the two skippers will cast off from the pontoon again at 11:00 a.m. for the Tour de Groix, with the start set for 12:30 p.m. The saying "Qui voit Groix, voit sa joie" (roughly, "see Groix, see joy") rings especially true this morning at the 16th Défi Azimut Lorient Agglomération! For Ambrogio Beccaria, a very fine second place, everything was decided after the BXA buoy, the first course mark off the Gironde, when the wind eased off: "Sam's boat is still the most incredible one in history in those conditions! It's a plane upwind. It gains at least a knot on the best boat in the fleet, and it was going two knots faster than me!" recounted the Milanese sailor, a good storyteller and a good skipper, rightly pleased with his "well-controlled" 48 Hours.

Source : Défi Azimut