Night-time finish: lots of emotions

Adrien and Ulysse finished 14^th in the Grande Course of the Trophée Laura Vergne. Here are the words of our skipper at the finish.

“We arrived last night from the ‘big race’, my first double-handed Figaro race with Ulysse. We finished 14^th out of 19, so there’s plenty of room for improvement ahead of us and that’s the challenge of the year! We’re leaving with a list of nice things and others to work on.
The start went really well: we got off to a great start and had a great exit from Quiberon Bay at the front. Overall, we manoeuvred really well throughout the race, which was really positive.
On the first long tack under spinnaker towards Les Glénan, we struggled to find our speed, which was a bit hard as we were being reeled in by the others. In a Figaro it’s very thankless, the slightest little mistake and you get caught up.
As a result, we arrived at the back of the fleet, before passing a very strong front off Les Glénan, in which we did not do too badly”.

“We’re back on track and still in contact with everyone, so we’re happy to be where we belong as rookies on the circuit.
We then went on to a long descent to the Ile d’Yeu, which went very well, with us managing to keep up the speed and stay in touch”.

“The long climb back up to a waypoint off Belle-Île was more complicated, with very little wind. We spent the night before going all out to make sure we didn’t give up anything and didn’t lose any places. We were in contact and then we lacked a bit of sleep, it was a hard day for us with little wind and we weren’t thinking clearly.
We were very tired and lost a lot of place on that upwind leg. The end of the course was complicated for us because we got into the red with our lack of sleep. We’d trained twice before in double-handed configuration, we manoeuvred really well and we were in the game for 3/4 of the race with some very good names from the circuit and ocean racing alongside us.
We learnt from our mistakes: in a Figaro you have to save yourself a bit even if you’re always in the match so you’re not too exhausted. It was good training for both of us with a view to the double-handed BPGO Trophy in May!

We’ve moored the boat up well to allow the storm to pass, and we’re off again on Friday for the Spi-Ouest France crewed race. There will be 4 of us on board with Ulysse, Victor Mathieu my préparateur and Hughes de Prémare a former competitor in the Mini class. It’s a crew of good racers, so we can continue to learn on the circuit!
The aim will be to get a good place and work on the settings. And to fill in the gaps we had in this Laura Vergne Trophy to try and get faster and faster.
We’ll have to keep an eye on things until Monday, with a packed programme of strong winds and…no wind! A great week to all the FAUN teams!”