Emerging from one of the closest battles over the final handful of miles in the recent history of the Coffee Route race, the TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR Le Havre Normandie, Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel stole an audacious victory in the OCEAN FIFTY division this Thursday afternoon. The duo crossed the finish line off Fort-de-France at 15:54:30 local time Martinique (UTC minus 4hrs) to set an elapsed time of 12d 5h 24mn 30sec
Hulin and Rouxel covered the 4 700 miles of the course between Le Havre and Fort-de-France at a speed of 16,02 knots on the great circle route (direct course). They actually sailed 5 709,41 miles at an average speed of 19,46 knots (over the water).
With 350 miles to the finish line 24 hours ago the Viablis duo were more than 20 miles behind the leaders Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan (Wewise). As the Wewise duo, both previously Figaro one design aces, sought to stay between their rivals and the next mark – a classic lead protection strategy – the 28 year old Hulin and 42-year-old Rouxel came in from the south with a better breeze and angle to pass ahead of their rivals who seemed to get slowed by being too close to the island. And when they secured their biggest victory together on Viablis, taking the winning gun on a sunny, warm Caribbean afternoon Quiroga and Morvan were some five miles behind.
Comeback champions
Their victory is all the sweeter because the duo had to pitstop into Roscoff early on in the race to repair their mainsail. They fought hard to get back into contention and were first to seize the top spot when long time leaders Basile Bourgnon and Manu Le Roch (Edenred) suffered a terminally damaged gennaker pole which meant the Edenred duo could no longer use their biggest sail.
Hulin, a former match race champion, recalled the other day, “We set off again 140 miles behind them, we were up to 200 miles behind along the coast of Portugal, and now, to be in the lead, it’s fantastic, even if we’re a little disappointed that it’s due to Edenred’s damage.”
After match racing – he was French national and European youth champion – Hulin joined Louis Burton and Servane Escoffier’s Saint Malo based BE Racing in 2021. He raced the last two Transat Jacques Vabres and the Route du Rhum in Class40 before becoming a member of the technical support team of the Ocean Fifty Viablis Océans. Last year he was given the helm and now he is partnered by the very experienced Rouxel, who sailed two Transat Jacques Vabre races as co-skipper with Thomas Coville on the Sodebo Ultim 3, finishing fifth and fourth after runner up in the ULTIM division in 2017 with Seb Josse on Gitana 17.
Their winning tri is a reliable, proven VPLP design which was launched in 2017 as Ciela Village before becoming Sam Goodchild’s Ocean Fifty circuit winning Leyton. BE Racing took it over at the end of the 2022 season for this project which reaches its pinnacle success today.
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