ARC+: BOAT PERFORMANCE ON A CRUISING TRANSAT

The ARC continues to grow, now mainly due to the increase of number of the yachts on the ARC+, the sister Transat: this year 17 multihulls and 56 monohulls take part on the ARC+, that is strictly a cruising affair, without racing division. This Transat, contrary to the ARC, has no racing division, it has a stop in Cabo Verde and, starting in the Canary Islands finishes on the Caribbean, in Santa Lucia.

On the cover and above the X6-5

Looking at the boat performance on the ARC+ I have not considered the first leg because being short, many chose to motor a lot, knowing that they can refuel at Mindelo. All can use the engine on this Transat but being the second leg much longer the engine use distorts less the sail performance on that leg.

Most of these boats are sailed by a cruising crew that is constituted by the couple that owns the boat with some friends to help, loaded boats that are going to make the cruising season on the Caribbean, others are charter boats that are being moved from the Med to the Caribbean to do the charter season there, during the med winter crewed by charter people with some sailors doing charter.

Baltic 56

Even before they all arrive and the engine hours on each boat are known, let’s look at the sailboats and crews performance, considering that some or even many sailboats are sailed below their cruising potential while others are just sailed on the sportive side, not because they are racing but because it is the way those cruisers like to sail. 

Sigma 38

The first boat that caught my attention is a X 6 5, from the new cruising line of X yachts. It is not even a cruiser-racer but made an incredibly fast transat leaving all other monohulls and multihulls behind. 

That’s the crew (photo up) and they don’t look like top racers to me, but a nice bunch. For the Skipper it was his first Atlantic crossing as well for most of the Slovenian crew. Good sailors, no doubt, but the X65 certainly proved that it can be a surprisingly fast cruising boat in what regards potential speed. I have to say that I was surprised. 

Oyster 625

Only 13 hours later did the 2nd boat arrive, a Baltic 56 (2007), a good cruiser-racer.

One day and six hours later an incredibly well sailed Sigma 38 arrived. The Sigma 38 is a 30 year old cruiser racer and still a very fast cruising boat if well sailed. It is a boat with a big B/D and that helps in what regards safety while pushing the boat to the limit. 

XC 42

About 1 hour after the 38ft, came an Oyster 625 and just some minutes later a surprising XC 42. The XC 42 is not only relatively small but belongs to the line of “slow” cruisers of X yachts, the ones that are medium weight boats and have no pretensions to be fast, just good cruising boats. Well, this one shows that they can be fast on a transat. 

7 hours later arrived a Boreal 55. I find the Boreal 55 performance surprising because it is an aluminum voyage boat, a centerboarder that has to have much more ballast weight than other sailboats (because it is inside the boat) and it is therefore considerably heavier. It proves here that it can voyage fast too LOL. 

Next, one hour later, came a brand new Hanse 548 and about 5 hours later the first catamaran, a well sailed Lagoon 450F that took almost two more days than the fastest monohull and 13 hours more than the Sigma 38. 

Lagoon 450F

All the others are still on the sea and the next ones to arrive, in about 4 or 5 hours, will be the 2nd and the 3rd cats, a Sunreef 74 and a Nautitech 46 followed closely by a Beneteau 57. 

Sunreef  74

On the next group, at about 6 to 7 hours from Santa Lucia, 4 monohulls, among them a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 49i. Then at two to three hours from that group, comes another one where the 4th cat, a Lagoon 50, sails at about the same pace as a Dehler 39, a X 442 and a First 50. 

Nautitech 46

Way behind, the performance of a Neel 51 trimaran comes as a negative surprise. The trimaran comes far away from the first multihulls, 8th among them, and that, for a boat that the manufacturer describes as having an “extra speed” over monohulls and catamarans, seems a bit odd. 

Jeanneau SO 49i

In fact a Neel 45, a lighter racing version with a bigger mast, made some years ago a very fast ARC. Is the Neel 51 (in standard configuration) that much slower, or is just badly sailed? In fact that Neel 51 is way behind a XC 38 and behind a Beneteau Oceanis 42CC, a slow boat but one certainly well sailed. 

Dehler 39

And that’s it for now. When the other bigger Transat, the ARC, with 200 sailboats, comes closer to the finish I will have a look at it. Well Ok, I can say already that Jean Pierre Dick, the professional solo sailor that this year missed the Route du Rhum, is having fun with his cruising boat, the JP54 and putting to shame everybody on the racing division.

Lagoon 500

On his 54ft cruising boat he is kind of smashing all competition, including a Maxi Yacht, a Swan 82 and the first of the multihulls, a 59ft Outremer 5X, that is already 300nm behind. 

Just as curiosity, even if he could sail that boat solo fast, he is having as crew CEOs (that probably are slowing him down LOL) to whom he wants to show his passion for the sea and the love for oceanic races. I am very curious about that crew. https://yb.tl/arc2018#