There are two racing Transats going on and crossing the Atlantic, the Mini Transat that goes to the Caribbean (81 boats) and the Transat Jacques Vabre (59 boats) that goes to Brasil. The Mini-Transat is a solo race, the other a duo race.
Many or even most of the sailors racing are professional or want to become professionals (on the Mini) and many of the ones that race the Jacques Vabre, on bigger boats, started on the minis. All in all the cream of solo/short crew racers are at sea crossing the Atlantic and among those there are also many sailors that have raced on the VOR or have even won the VOR.
This type of racing has become more and more popular not only among the public but also among top sailors because contrary to IRC fast and big machines, that are owned by millionaires or very rich people (and generally skipped by them even if the crew is composed of professionals) these boats are owned by the sponsors (commercial companies or corporations) that contract the best racers to sail them.
We can only find something similar on the VOR but because the VORs have big crews and a crew is expensive, not all of them are really top sailors, unlike the vast majority of the ones that are racing the IMOCAS on the Transat Jaques Vabre..... and this year the race is better than ever.
Most of the duos are composed by a very experienced sailor, a winner of many races and a younger talented sailor (sometimes also a winner of top races) and curiously not always the skipper of the boat, the one that has contract with the sponsor, is the more experienced.
I will not follow the races in detail here, I am just calling your attention to these races that can be followed with a tracker and are good fun to watch. You can even learn a lot about routing looking at the meteorology (that is given on the trackers) and understanding the several options taken by the skippers..... and they are hugely different.
On the Jacques Vabre on the IMOCA the lateral separation between the boats (West-East courses) is more than 500nm and that means a completely different approach to routing.
On the IMOCA race there is a lot of interesting stuff going on like an almost unknown American (to solo/duo) making a great race, having as boat the Hugo Boss that was 2nd on the last Vendee Globe and having as co-skipper a very good solo/crew sailor.
I am talking about 11th Hour Racing and Charlie Enright / Pascal Bidegorry. Charlie has made two VOR campaigns, Pascal three and won the last one, but most of all he has won everything that was to be won on solo from the Figaro class to the IMOCAS and on the giant trimarans (ULTIME class). It seems that the younger american sailor (35) is learning fast with the old master (51) because they are sailing now in 6th place but at only 25nm from the 1st.
Curiously the boat that is leading can be considered an old one (PRB 2009) and the duo, composed by two good sailors was far from being a favorite. Kevin Escofier has participated as crew on many top races and world sailing records but as skipper on a duo/solo boat has very little experience while Nicolas Lunven is a solo Figaro champion, a very good sailor but with little experience with IMOCA class boats.
This is only possible because this has been a very unusual race with lots of upwind sailing and the old boats are not worse and possibly are better than the new one in what regards sailing upwind and Alex Thompson on his new Hugo Boss by now should know this very well: he is only 22nd due to the bad upwind performance.
Another interesting performance comes from Clarisse Cremer that ascended to IMOCAS directly from the Minis and is 4th on a boat that is old (Banque Populaire X 2011) the one that has won the 2012/2013 Vendee Globe. Of course her co-skipper is no less than the last winner of the Vendee, Armel and that certainly helps a lot LOL.
Also very interesting the performance of the italian Pedote that has as co-skipper Marchand. Pedote is a Mini champion winner of many races and that after a successful passage on the Multi 50 (won the Route du Rhum) comes to the IMOCA. Marchand is a Figaro sailor, a champion that finally made its way to the IMOCA class. The Prysmian Groupe is 17th now but not that far from the leading boat.
I could be writing for hours, it is really a fantastic race but the best is if you to follow the race. If you still don't know you can see who the sailors are and what their careers have been here:
https://www.transatjacquesvabre.org/fr/skippers/imoca
and follow the race here:
https://www.transatjacquesvabre.org/fr/cartographie-et-classement?fbclid=IwAR2QX0W4gN5MEVr1HUkNC12cNV2pxAlKOpFmgaFsVClSCXC1815dA0M5Gwc
On this Transat you have 3 races, the IMOCA one but also the race of the Multi 50 (only three) and the race of the Class 40 (that are many). The race of the Class40 has been very interesting too. Many class 40 sailors come from the Minis but the two sailors that lead on come from a different background. Aymeric was a mini top sailor 7 years ago, but he is racing and winning on Class 40 for some years now and his co-skipper is a champion on smaller boats (470, J80) and only a medium sailor on Figaro.
The second are a British/French team with Goodchild, the skipper, with a very varied but average career having experience with Class40 and IMOCA and Delhaye, a French Figaro top sailor. Neither of them has a big advantage over many of the other boats, the race has been hot and the pace is so high they are catching the slower IMOCA.
Finally on the Mini Transat the surprise was that Axel Tréhin, the winner of the first leg, did not have a boat with the new foils, neither the second that arrived only 6 minutes later, after 8 days racing. The first boat with foils was the third that arrived only 26 minutes after the first. These three arrived well ahead of all others and the surprise came with the 4th boat to finish, not another proto but a series . "Chapeau" to the performance of the italian Ambrogio Beccaria, a name to retain.
Also deserving a note is the 4th place in proto of Marie Gendron a woman that has left behind 13 sailors. Marie, 27 years old, is a composite engineer that having no money to buy a boat built her own. It took her five years and it seems more two to reach top level in what regards sailing it. If she continues sailing we will have here a potential new top sailor to join the several that this year will be making the Vendee Globe.
They have finished the First leg (Canary Islands) and the second leg to the Caribbean starts in two days. You can follow here:
https://www.minitransat.fr/en/follow-race/cartography
1st and 2nd on minis without foils. Check.
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