Armel Le Cleac'h's mighty Ultim trimaran silenty takes flight. Trailing a jet fighter vapour trail. As she races toward the horizon, at thirty seven knots. The silence, in the presence of such power and speed, is the most shocking element.
That and the fact that the, hundred foot by seventy five foot monster, has taken Stargazer's skipper by surprise. Appearing unexpectedly, and very suddenly, from behind Stargazer's jib, before scything across her stern. Whilst taxiing for takeoff.
The mighty machine levels off, as she lifts onto her foils, and settles at a smooth riding cruising altitude. Skimming the swell.
Stargazer left La Trinite sedately. Sniffing out the morning breeze, as it filtered up the river Crac'h.
One tack, and sixteen knots of westerly breeze, carries us to. . . .
. . . . the Teignouse Passage, at the tip of Quiberon. Two more tacks take us through.
Stargazer shoulders her way down the western side of the craggy peninsula.
A Breton lugger picks a purposeful path through the waves. Her tender bobbing buoyantly astern.
With British flaggged pilot cutter Marie Claude in hot pursuit.
Armel Le Cleac'h smoulders by, off Groix. My mistake was to assume that he was making for La Base. He must have decided to go round, for ‘another go;’ and who can blame him, on a day such as this?
Once recovered, from Armel's sudden reappearance, Stargazer picks up the familiar eastern channel, into Lorient.
Romain Attanasio's IMOCA rips by, with waves and whoops from his rail riding guests. I reply with a surf-shaka salute, stood astride Stargazer's tiller. Revelling in the sights and sensations of our 'carefree daysail.'
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