Panerai Transat Classique 2012
What a day! The yachts crossed over the finishing line, yesterday, one at a time as the wind finally decided to show its face. The competitors of the Panerai Transat Classique 2012 put on a great show for the public and revelled in their successful passage-making. Emeraude won line honours for the leg, crossing the line at 15:37:57 GMT. Aboard, the Italian crew led by Vittorio Cavazzana were feeling a mixture of satisfaction and frustration. They were satisfied to be first in real time because the Douarnenez to Cascais leg was both gruelling and tactical. But they were also frustrated by the corrected times which pushed them down the rankings despite having led throughout the race. The contestants behind them had had more wind, more quickly, and had been able to sail at full speed in the final twenty-four hours. YawlValteam crossed the line less than an hour behind the Italians, her elegant lines wowing the boats which had sailed out to meet her. Ultimate victory would be decided in the subsequent hours, generating tension among the competitors and excitement for those following the race. Spinnaker out, Persephone was next to break the horizon, her crew focused on trimming off as many decisive minutes as possible from their corrected time. Their determination paid off: Persephone won the first leg of the Panerai Transat Classique 2012. As night fell a group of three battled their way to the finishing line, giving nothing away. Gweneven was leading the raging trio and attempted to set her spinnaker only to see the wind fail… and then pick up again. The kite dragged her over the line to ensure her a place on the podium, but which one? Twenty minutes later Vagabundo II and her enthusiastic British crew sailed past the Panerai buoy. Theirs was a remarkable performance considering they had the oldest boat in the race. Hot on their heels was the little yawl Mowgli. She maintained an impressive turn of speed over the final twenty-four hours. Persistence always pays dividends and Mowgli’s knocked Gweneven off the second spot, but only just. With everyone commenting on the beauty of the closing stages of the race, the winners were announced: Persephone, Mowgli and Gweneven. Once alongside the crews headed to the clubhouse of Clube Naval Cascais to congratulate the winners and talk about the race. Despite the fatigue, they were beaming. For Yves Lambert, Persephone’s owner, the joy was obviously immense: “We didn’t think we were in with a chance at the start of the race, and for a long time we thought that Emeraude had the race in the bag. It wasn’t until the long westwards tack round Cape Finisterre, when we fell in with the wind, that we started to believe we could do it. From then on we concentrated on trimming. It really is a great race, undecided right up to the line.” As for Vittorio Cavazzana, he looked back on his run with amusement : “It’s the slowest race I’ve ever run, with nearly four days of dead calm in a row. We ran out of bread for the last few meals. We had plenty of time to chat, cook and do odd jobs around the boat. I remember one great night flying the spinnaker, charging along at 11 knots. And we even had stowaway in the shape of a pigeon which landed on the boat three days ago and stayed with us to the finish.” While Jean-Louis Vélasque rejoiced over his result with Mowgli, Oren Nataf of Gweneven regretted the second place that looked to be his just a few hours earlier. While the first crews in swap stories into the small hours, the stragglers are still at sea. Pen Duick II, the famous black ketch, should be next, followed by Red Hackle, Laetitia, Marie des Isles and finally Cipango. This first leg of the Panerai Transat Classique 2012 has confirmed the race’s status as one of the most intense and keenly contested in the classic yachting calendar. Despite the Atlantic page not being fully turned, eyes are already looking east to Saint-Tropez and the Mediterranean fleet which will set out on 25 October and race to Cascais in preparation for the ocean crossing to Barbados. It’s going to be a great show.
