Racing Watt & Sea, Yannick Bestaven and Aurélien Ducroz crossed the finish line of the Transat Jacques Vabre at 0729hrs 21secs (local, 0929hrs UTC) this Sunday morning to secure fourth place overall in Class 40. The French duo took 22 days 08hrs 14mins 46 secs for the 5450 miles course from Le Havre to Itajaí, Brasil. Their speed for the theoretical course is 10.07kts. Their real distance sailed is computed to be 5622 miles averaging 10.49kts.

Watt & Sea finished 1d 10h 33min 21sec after first placed Class 40 GDF SUEZ (Rogues and Delahaye)‏. 

Once we had extracted ourselves from the no-wind bubble of low nothingness which lasted longer than hoped, it turned into a pleasant day of light airs and flattish sea – much appreciated from time to time, especially in this race which has been generally windy and therefore constantly saltwater wet. Also no oil rigs to dodge since last night – they are extraordinary structures, each one a different beast, and they make for quite a menacing landscape with grey sky as a backdrop, and their chimney flames (quite sure that is not the technical term…).

Well the strategy did not work. We came out more east looking for more breeze and calculating that the wind remain longer east or even south of east but none of that happened. So today as the wind went more north, we have come west and now fall in behind Obportus. BUT there are still 840 miles to go for us to try to catch them! A POS report comes out during the day, every 3 hours. So 7 times a day we get our POS and theirs and see how we go, gain a little or lose a little. Keeps the pressure on. Super highlight of today… we have our spinnaker up.

Prologue races have been part of the Transat Jacques Vabre build up in Le Havre in the past but for the first time today off Itajaí there was a postlogue for three classes, the MOD70s, Multi 50s and the IMOCA Open 60s.

After finishing during yesterday evening and into the small hours of a wet Brasilian night the three international duos who share the Class 40 podium places are recovering a little today whilst the three other classes compete in the Postlogue exhibition races.