Artemis co-skippers Sam Goodchild & Nick Cherry place 12th © Gilles Chiorri

The one-design Figaro class never fails to deliver nail-biting action and this race was no exception with the 16-boat fleet of Figaros crossing the finishing line, in some cases, just minutes apart.  Goodchild and Cherry, racing together in their first short-handed transatlantic race, battled to hold on to 8th place as an elated and exhausted Goodchild explains: “The last few days of the trip have been the hardest. We have had a few problems, which we have been trying to keep on top of, mainly spinnaker problems and trying to keep them in one piece whilst having to do repairs quickly and get them back up and [the boat] back up to speed. The forestay was also a problem for us, however we didn’t lose as much time as we expected due to this, perhaps only 20 – 30 minutes along the route. It was initially very worrying as the mast lost a lot of support and we had to secure it to make sure it didn’t fall off the boat.”

The Artemis duo incurred problems with their spinnaker twice in the latter stage of the race © Guillaume Grange Audialog

The youngest duo who took the most southerly route after the Canary Islands also took another breakaway decision yesterday to head East of Barbuda as Cherry reports: “We didn’t think it would be a big gain but we also knew we couldn’t get ahead of the boat without doing something different. It was a calculated risk on taking a different route, and hoping the forecast wasn’t as predicted we could gain five boats. Whilst we knew if we just followed the group we were in we would finish in the same position.”

For Goodchild one of the highlights of the race was also tied into the most challenging, the last 36 hours: “The last few days of the race, which coincided with the worst bit of the race as we had to spend loads of time fixing our spinnakers, but the times in between when we were not fixing them were the best bits of the race. Really good sailing in the trade winds with 25knots of wind in shorts and a t-shirt under a full moon and loving life!”

A thumbs up from Sam Goodchild © Alexis Courcoux

“Whilst we share the disappointment of Sam and Nick having dropped out of the top 10 in the last few hours of the race, it’s been a great race for the Academy to participate in, with lots of learning for all the current and future Squad, not only the two sailors that competed,” explained Academy Performance Director John Thorn. “Knowing that Sam and Nick can be competitive over a long distance race [holding 5th place for some time] and finishing just over four hours from the podium after 22 days is confidence building for the Solitaire du Figaro which is coming up in just 30 days time. We’ll use their experience to develop our training programmes, and boost our technical knowledge to ensure race effecting downtime is limited in future.  Although the damage to their forestay was less impactful on their result than the damage to the two large spinnakers, it could have been race ending and these kind of failures must be eradicated if we are to be successful “

The next big challenge for Goodchild is the Solitaire du Figaro this June © Alexis Courcoux

Conditions throughout the race have been variable, with the fleet leaving France in winds of 15knots and sunshine, the fleet then rounding Cape Finistére in 45kts. After rounding the invisible mark just off the Canary Islands, the wind continued to drop while the temperatures kept soaring as the tactical decisions between south and west were made, and the race became a downwind drag race to the finish in St Barts.

The next big challenge for Sam Goodchild will be the Solitaire du Figaro, the prestigious annual one-design Figaro race, starts with the prologue on the 16th of June for the 34 solo skippers. The first leg of the race starts on the 24th June from Paimpol (FRA) to Gijon (ESP).

2012 Transat AG2R La Mondiale results* 
Boat/Co-skippers/finish time/duration

1.Cercle Vert / Gildas Morvan – Charlie Dalin /13th May 21:55:45 / 22day, 8 hours, 55 minutes & 45 seconds
2.Nacarat / Erwan Tabarly – Eric Peron /13th May 23:10:08 / 22days, 10 hours, 10 minutes & 8 seconds
3.Banque Populaire / Jeanne Grégoire- Gérald Véniard / 14th May 00:37:24/ 22days, 11 hours, 37 minutes & 24 seconds
4.Skipper Macif / Paul Meilhat- Fabien Delahaye / 14th May 00:39:01 / 22 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes & 1 second
5.Bretagne Crédit Mutuel Performance / Anthony Marchand – Romain Attanasio / 14th May 01:42:15 / 22days, 12 hours, 42 minutes & 15 seconds.
6.Gedimat / Thierry Chabagny – Christopher Pratt / 14th May 02:01:16 / 22 days, 13 hours, 1 minute & 16 seconds
7.Sepalumic / Frédéric Duthil – François Lebourdais / 14th May 03:09:07 / 22 days, 14 hours, 9 minutes & 7 seconds
8.EDM Pays Basque Entreprises / Amaiur Alfaro – Christophe Lebas / 14th May 03:33:35 / 22days, 14 hours, 33 minutes & 35 seconds
9.Les Recycleurs Bretons / Michel Bothuon – Simon Troel / 14th May 03:42:22 / 22days, 14hours, 42 minutes & 22 seconds
10.Cornouaille Port de Peche / Jean-Charles Monnet – Alexandre Toulorge / 14th May 03:43:21 / 22 days, 14 hours, 43minutes & 21 seconds
11.GAES / Anna Corbella – Gérard Marin / 14th May, 03:57:56 / 22 days, 14 hours, 57 minutes & 56 seconds
12.Artemis / Sam Goodchild – Nick Cherry / 14th May 04:59:26 / 22 days, 15 hours, 59 minutes & 26 seconds
13.La Solidarité Mutualiste / Damien Guillou – Ronan Treussart / 14th May 06:26:30 / 22days, 17 hours, 26 minutes & 30 seconds.
14.  Not yet finished
15. Not yet finished
16. Not yet finished

*At 9am CET 14.5.12

It wasnt to be and this morning we were the slowest boat, having conceded a lot of miles in the night to the other guys near by. Part way through the night the shackle attaching the spinnaker to the halyard, at the top of the rig, failed. After recovering the kite from the water we were able to re-hoist it on the spare and left the tail to retreive in the morning, when the sun had come up. About an hour before day break, on a watch change and discussing our plan to get back up to speed, the forestay, with out warning fell into the water. This is fairly fundamental to keeping the mast pointing upwards. Had we not had the spinnaker up, we would have lost the mast.

After a few nervous wobbly moments, we were able to get a rope forward to suport the mast and then shortly after  daybreak, nick went up the rig again (for the 3rd time in 24hours) to retreive the halyard so, we could have a safety.

Thankfully we have 330 miles left of which 99% is downwind so, we can continue as we are and the limp the last 2 miles  to the finish on the otherside of St.Barts. We have now been able to get a big spinnaker up and workingso, provided the repair holds, the slow days are over and despite loosing a healthy 20miles on competitors, we still have a bit  worth fighting for with the boats still nearby.

The wild life continues, with the flying fish getting violent after a smack to the side while helming last night, i am  fairly sure it hurt him as much as it did me. Then a first this morning as we sailed past a puffer fish who ‘puffed’  and Nick dubbed a floating hedgehog.

Time to catch up on some sleep,
Sam

Thankfully our ground hog day today has had a few extra things thrown in the mix. Yep, its still about 15knots from the ENE, it turns left just after sunset for about 6 hours every night and if you spend more than about an hour on deck in the daytime, your brain starts to boil. However, as the sun came up this morning, the silhouette of another Figaro appeared in front of us.

We aren’t close enough to read the sail numbers yet but, from the position reports we know it is the Spanish on Gaes. This lifts the motivation massively onboard, as it is a constant reference as to how we are doing and drive to try and get a little closer. Even the frequency of performance inspired conversations has gone up. With the thought of these conditions being exactly the same for the next 8 days to the finish, we have been racking our brains for ways to speed up. The latest thought is inspired by the film ‘Wind’ where they have the magical ‘big whomper’ that they put up and sees them sail to a nail biting win. So, the thought is to un-stitch our repaired spinnaker, and then re-stich it together with a bit more fabric in the gap. Our dilemma stands with how to make it look normal with a big space in the logo.

Also this morning, after much debating, I had my first shower in 15 days. It is a massive refresher and in hind sight I have no regrets and would advise it to anyone out here. The hesitation was from the slight itchy feeling from being salty i’ll now have to live with, but compared to the sticky sweaty feeling of the last week, it is a massive improvement!

Back to hunting down the Spanish.

Sam

After rounding the canaries, using the forecast we made an assumption as to how many days it would take. We assumed 11, added a couple days spare and then got rid of the excess mandatory water we had been carrying from the start. The problem now, is the weather has changed and we are looking at something more like 14 or 15 days so, we have shot our selves in a foot a little. Thankfully our calculations per day were fairly generous leaving us with 6litres/day for 2 people(including cooking) so, we shouldnt have a problem but, least to say, we are cutting it fine and a rain cloud or two wouldn’t go a miss….

One nice thing about this trip so far has been the amount of wildlife. Almost everyday at sunset we get visited by a pod of dolphins who come and play around the boat. Last week I saw one of the biggest whales I have ever seen, surfacing about 100meters from the boat and easily dwarfing us in size. We’ve had a few birds try to land on the deck as well as a few flying fish and squid, who don’t try but manage it anyway. Two nights ago, I was woken in my off watch by crashing and banging in the cockpit. Investigation discovered Nick, armed with a winch handle and then a 3m long batten; fighting a flying fish, who had got stuck under the liferaft, back out of the cockpit. I spent the 5 minute ordeal in hysterics, while Nick poked and squirmed at the fish before letting it free, declaring him self victorious.

Either way, life continues as we dive south and inch our way westwards, trying our best to be cautious with the spinnaker and ignore that fact its Friday the 13th.

All for now
Sam

One of the majors so far has been sleep management. We haven’t struggled to get enough sleep, but getting the right amount at the right time is the challenge. At night we make sure that you are never ondeck for more than an hour as its harder to concentrate when its dark. This is fine but if, in your hour off, you fall into a really deep sleep, getting back to consciousness for your watch can tricky and costly, performance wise. So, we have been experimenting and trying to find the best way of making sure we avoid these deep sleeps at night. With a combination of a bit more sleep in the day and caution over when we eat foods high in sugar and caffeine, every night seems to be getting easier.

To add to this the major reconstruction of our spinnaker is still under way, a time consuming and tedious process that makes us appreciate the invention of the sewing machine like never before. We will hopefully be done by tomorrow.

As every day is the same we are finding more diverse ways to entertain ourselves, including who can get to the sherbert of a lemon sherbert quickest…without chewing. As you can see we are running out of ideas so, open to any suggestions.

All for now
Sam

With this calming down we have had a bit of time to reflect on the last couple weeks and the build up to the start. Not like normal, the week before the start was very relaxed and we were able to go through all our supplies and fine tune them as much as possible and, so far we haven’t encountered too many unsolvable problems.(touch wood) We potentially have brought too much food and water but, for the first week the extra weight is a good thing and once we get past the Canaries we can re assess and eat faster and drop some water off. We’d prefer to have it this way than looking for rain clouds and trying to eating flying fish.

Our 2 concerning problems so far are/have been; yesterday afternoon, after getting bit keen in a spinnaker manoeuvre, the sail fell in the water and bent a stanchion as it filled with water and washed down the side of the boat. By some sort of miracle, the sail stayed in one piece and thankfully the stanchion, albeit wonky, is in the same place and the boat isn’t leaking. We’ve lashed it in place in place as a safety concern and that should see us to the finish. The other that has been causing some grief is a chafing halyard, in it self this isn’t a problem but, if it were to break, then our performance would definitely suffer. Until now we have been loosing a small amount of distance at every sail change in order to save the damaged halyard but, yesterday evening as the weather calmed down, we were able to reinforce it and are back in action now.

As far as the race has gone, we are a bit disappointed to have lost a few miles to the leading back, which has mainly been due to an accumulation of small tactical and boat speed errors. The main thing that stands out about this race to me is that,compared to any of the other ocean racing I have done, this is at a much higher tempo, there is no room for error and every small mistake is punished. You cant even afford to leave the helm when it is your watch otherwise you’ll immediately see another boat going faster than you. It’s relentless and never stops. You really think twice about how you spend your time. In the back of our heads is also that is is the course of most of the other single handed transats and the first few days of the Vendee Globe. It’s very interesting to think what changes and by how much? Where are the compromises made to keep the boat going quickly and in one piece? Well we’ve got at least 2 weeks and 300miles to think about it.

All for now

Sam

26.04.12

Today is also the first day that we cant see any of the other competition, till now we have been surrounded by boats in the day and lights in the night. With out the immediate gauge of whether we are gaining or loosing, keeeping 100% motivated is a bit harder butm the rest is probably a goo thing as we gave to keep this up for 3 weeks.

We expect the weather to dteriorate again tonight and hae another kicking like the one before finistere but, by tomorrow it will be improving and slowly but surely things are getting warmer. with 730miles to las palmas where we will turn right for st.barts.

We are in good shape on board and managing to eat a bit more than the first couple days, which is good. To add to the broken list is the right click on the muse which, is suprisingly more annoying that it sounds.

All for now ahead of a another bumpy night on Artemis.

Sam

24.04.12

All for now

Sam

23.04.12

Off for a nap.

All for now

Sam

Other than a safety briefing this morning the day was spent attending to minor details on the boat, primarily,quadruple checking systems and deciding our preferred options for the saucisson stash we plan to take.

Busy Race Village

Tomorrow we have a camera crew arriving who will be doing some pre-race interviews that will hopefully appear in a few of the British newsrooms over the weekend so, keep an eye out. Then in the evening is the ‘soirée official’ where we will be presented to the public followed by the prologue prize giving and an early night.

The start will is at 1300 on Saturday and we are currently looking at a fairly bumpy but fast ride to Cap Finistere where we turn left and the weather will improve daily and this time next week we will hopefully be wearing shorts and t-shirt in the tropics.

Nick cherry and I will be doing our best to keep updates coming off the boat through, blogs,twitter and facebook.

All for now

Sam