Easy' miles downwind in the tradewinds for Transat Paprec leaders

After 10 days racing the 11 competing duos on the Transat Paprec race from Concarneau to Saint Barth's are now spread over some 315 nautical miles from the front to the back of the fleet of identical Figaro BENETEAU 3s.

The top eight duos are within 80 miles west to east. The ninth placed duo, Superyacht crew turned Figarists, Alicia De Pfyffer and Edouard Golbery (Race for Science-Verder) are 200 miles behind the pacemakers Gaston Morvan and Anne Claire Le Berre (Région Bretagne CMB Performance) and the pair who had to stop at La Palma to repair sails Arnaud Machado and Lucie Quérel (Groupe Hélios-Du Léman à L'Océane) are over 350 miles behind but have actually been quickest in the fleet today
Morvan and Le Berre are holding on to a margin of around 8 miles and are racing in 15-17kts of trade winds closest to the rhumb line. They are most to the south of the leading group.
Le Berre admitted today "Here we are, downwind in the tradewinds, this is why we do this race, it's what is all about, what's not to like?"

It is close in the group behind the leaders in second are Skipper MACIF (Loïs Berrehar / Charlotte Yven) at 8.4 miles, third are Mutuelle Bleue (Corentin Horeau / Pauline Courtois) at 9.4 miles behind the leaders and fourth Région Normandie (Guillaume Pirouelle / Sophie Faguet , 4th) at 12.3 miles.
"After the slightly delicate, challenging passage of La Palma, life on board just gets better and better, confided Sophie Faguet from fourth place: "We are trying to recover our strength and keep our brains in gear".

Behind, Race for Science – Verder is 200 miles from the race lead. But morale on board is equally good, as explained by Édouard Golbery, joined this morning on the radio session. " It's going very well, we manage to fix all our problems and to find the right speed for the boat. It took us some time," he explained.
For them there is simple satisfaction of still being in the race after breaking bits and pieces before La Palma, not least the tack line of their gennaker.

"When you break stuff you get more and more tired we had to do some bucking bronco stuff on the bow to repair the tack, redo the lashings...", says Edouard. "And it is hard to really get sleep because last night there were so many windshifts, gusts and squalls."

Top five at 1700hrs BST Wednesday 10/05/23
1 Région Bretagne CMB Performance (Gaston Morvan/Anne Claire le Berre) 1711 miles to finish
2 Skipper MACIF (Loïs Berrehar/Charlotte Yven) +8.4 nms
3 Mutuellle Bleue (Corentin Horeau/Pauline Courtois) +9.4 nms
4 Région Normandie (Guillaume Pirouelle/Sophie Faguet) + 14.6 nms
5 Cap Ingélec (Camille Bertel/Pierre Leboucher) +26.2 nms