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Puru Transgascogne – Leg 2
Puru Transgascogne is two races in one since it is sailed on two legs, and here we will be following the 190 NM long Leg 2 from Getxo (Spain) back to Le Port-Bourgenay (France). Uroš was 9th on the first leg and has some catching up to finish with a result he is pleased with.
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The after-regatta fog still prevents us from having definitive results. Still, by our information and calculations, Uroš finished 5th on the second leg of PURU Transgascogne 2023, 24 seconds before the overall winner and state-of-the-art foiling sistership also designed by Manuard.
With this, he climbed two places to finish 7th in the combined ranking of both races, outracing one of the competitors by 7 minutes and 5 seconds.
Stay tuned for official results and commentary by Uroš.
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Uroš has been making progress throughout the day, and his tactic paid out, but not enough to catch the much newer foiling Mini650 sailboats that showed almost double speeds at some points.
In about an hour, he will enter a zone where the tracker updates every 10 minutes and give us a nail-biting finish in three hours, give or take. So it is time for some math.
His actual competitors are now:
#850 PERMIS DE CONSTRUIRE was 19 min and 43 s ahead in the first leg.
Uroš currently has a lead of 8,8 miles behind, and with the speeds we see at the moment and the wind remaining stable, this should be a place gained for Uroš.
Another story is #754 RACING BULL with 36 min and 26 s advantage. This probably won’t be enough since he is only 4,3 miles behind Uroš, but it might be close!
Good morning! The Mini fleet is now in a stable wind of light strength. By sheer numbers we see on the forecasts, the wind will be stronger up north, making the broad-reaching conditions ideal and enjoyable.
Uroš is still keeping to the west, which makes his angle of approach to Port-Bourgenay a bit better, but the fleet is so close together this advantage is almost negligible. Right next to him is Arnaud RAMBAUD (850), whom he needs to beat for good 20 minutes to gain a place at the final results.
These stable conditions will continue, at least until the evening, and will again be putting focus on keeping the boat speed up. On approach to the shore, things might get tricky again.
Trackers are now in power-saving mode, and the positions are updated less frequently (hourly).
Uroš is at the head of the group that decided to keep going west and enjoys more wind than the east group. I remain cautiously optimistic as the weather predictions show wind coming and staying to the west. If Uroš sticks to his plan, it just may pay out dividends.
Uroš knows he is not fast enough in the upwind mode, so he positions himself more to the west and optimises his route for speed, not the angle to the wind (the latter being slower but takes you closer to the point you want to get when sailing upwind). The idea is that with higher speed, he will be able to come up and through the transition zone faster and, with that, reach the promised land of stable reaching conditions sooner, where he has a better chance to outrun the competition.
But this is a gamble, as written, he will be in the favourable wind faster, but he will have to sacrifice the distance to finish for that.
Tracker is now online! Uroš is currently seventh and in a good position to catch the sea breeze further north.
The first start did not go according to plan, and a general recall was made. This means too many boats were over the starting line too soon, and the jury cannot precisely determine which boats. The whole starting procedure is then repeated.
After a week’s stopover in the Basque city of Getxo, the fleet of 67 Mini6.50s will start Leg 2 of the PURU Transgascogne on Friday, July 28 at 13:08. The first few miles of this 190 NM long direct route will be slow: a bubble of weak wind along the Spanish Basque coast will test the nerves of the skippers. Those who find the key to thermal winds will then benefit from a front from the western sector that will push them towards Vendée in reaching and broad reaching conditions.
Compared to the mainly upwind sailing on the 1st leg, these conditions are in Uroš’s favour, but this also goes for the competition. Especially for the foiling Minis that use hydrofoils to lift the boat above the water and achieve tremendous speeds.
Uroš is 02h, 24min, and 25s behind the leader, and he will have to give everything he’s got to close that gap.
