Top Transat Paprec trio less than one mile apart mid Atlantic

Mid- Atlantic between Saint Barth's and the turning mark at the Canary Islands which they passed last Sunday, the Transat Paprec leaders for the last three days, Gaston Morvan and Anne-Claire Le Berre have reported a scare on Wednesday night when they hit a floating object. The unidentified object caused some damage to their rudder system. The duo on Région Bretagne-CMB Performance slowed momentarily but otherwise held on to their lead until this Friday afternoon Corentin Horeau and Pauline Courtois are now marginally in front on Mutuelle Bleue.

"After securing the boat we wondered if we should stop to make a repair or if we continue. We decided to keep going and see how it goes." Morvan revealed today of a reminder that damage can happen any time.

The three leaders are side by side, six miles of lateral separation showing between Mutuelle Bleue, Skipper MACIF (Lois Berrëhar/Charlotte Yven) and Morvan and Le Berre. Five times La Solitaire racer Horeau – a merchant master mariner - won the opening solo race of the season, the Solo Maitre Coq, Horeau. The 33-year-old was seventh on this course in 2021. Sailing with Courtois they seem to have had periods when they are faster than their nearest rivals. They had the lead momentarily during Wednesday night and go into the weekend with less than a mile in hand.

In fourth place but some 21 miles further to the south are Région Normandie (Guillaume Pirouelle/Sophie Faguet), they have had less breeze and consequently are very slightly slower than the top trio.

"A lot of things can still happen" (Sophie Faguet)
Aboard Région Normandie Faguet discovered some little surprises left by their technical team to cheer up the duo in the middle of the Atlantic. But Faguet mused over the upcoming week to the finish line, "Definitely, nothing will be easy in this race! We decided last night to take advantage of a shift in order to get a little southwest knowing that potentially the head of the fleet would extend further on starboard. We did this because if the leaders get a better angle we should have more wind in the south...that is according to the weather files. We also knew that the accuracy of the files in light winds can be quite variable, so we wanted to avoid the edges of this calmer area that is coming up to the west. But here we are, on the rankings this morning we have dropped back a little, so much for that theory! But this is a long leg and a lot of things can still happen, and we especially hope that the real conditions will be a little closer to the forecasts that we have."

Top five at 1700hrs BST Friday 12th May 2023
1 Mutuellle Bleue (Corentin Horeau/Pauline Courtois) 1312 miles to finish
2 Skipper MACIF (Loïs Berrehar/Charlotte Yven) +0.7 miles
3 Région Bretagne CMB Performance (Gaston Morvan/Anne Claire le Berre) +0.7 miles
4 Région Normandie (Guillaume Pirouelle/Sophie Faguet) + 14.3 nms
5 Cap Ingélec (Camille Bertel/Pierre Leboucher) +27.7 nms