Ireland’s Pamela Lee of Greystones, sailing with Tiphaine Rageneau on the Class40 Engie-DFDS-Brittany Ferries, finished 29th in class today (Sunday) at Martinique, having leapt back into the race despite an enforced return to Lorient for an emergency sail repair.
Italian teams have dominated the top places in Class40 crossing the Atlantic, with Alberto Bona and Pablo Santurde del Arco on the Italian Mach 40.5 IBSA crossing the Class 40 finish line in fourth place on Friday (Nov. 24th) in the 16th Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre, with their aggregate time of 18 days 21 hours 22 minutes and 47 seconds securing them third place overall.
Ireland’s Pamela Lee of Greystones, sailing with Tiphaine Rageneau on the Class40 Engie-DFDS-Brittany Ferries, finished 29th in class in the 2023 Transat Jacques Vabre Source: Race Tracker
When added to Ambrogio Beccaria's winning Musa 40 Alla Grande PIRELLI, Italian boats take an unprecedented first and third overall, but former Mini-Transat double winner Ian Lipinski of France, did a real Lazarus act by recovering so well from a dismasting in the short sharp initial leg from Le Havre to Lorient that he and Antoine Carpentier (Crédit Mutuel) finished second in the second leg in Class40 when they crossed the finish line in Martinique at 1343hrs local time (1743hrs UTC) on Thursday 23rd November.
LIPINSKI RECOVERY
Their race time was 19 days, 16 hours, 2 minutes and 36 seconds. They sailed the theoretical route at an average speed of 8.57 knots. Out on the water, they actually sailed 5305.48 miles, averaging 11.24 knots. Although they dismasted on the first leg, their aggregate elapsed time includes an allocated time equivalent to that of the last-placed finisher on the first leg plus six hours.
Lipinski, a double winner of the MiniTransat, said, “When we dismasted, we thought the TJV was over, but they told me there was a possibility. We sailed to make sure the mast would hold up. During the first day, we kept it cool because we wanted to be sure. There was a huge amount of work from the team and the class. Finishing second here is a sort of thanks to all those who helped us. It wasn’t down to much. After dismasting it probably led us to go south. I remember before on this race, it got boring, but here it kept changing. It wasn’t boring. It wasn’t like it was normally. We didn’t understand what our rival was doing unless the weather forecasts were wrong. As for the winners, they won the first and second leg. We couldn’t do anything against them.”
