By thomashowson2 — La Solitaire du Figaro
Paul Morvan (Foricher – French Touch) crossed the finish line at Le Havre in first place Thursday at 01:17:57 local time. The French skipper took 3 days, 6 hours, 17 minutes and 57 seconds to complete the 630-nautical mile third leg of the 57th edition of La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec. In reality, Morvan covered 679.12 miles at an average speed of 8.67 knots. With this stage victory, Morvan locked in a podium finish and claimed third place overall in this year’s 57th Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, with a cumulative race time of 11 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes and 20 seconds — just 46 minutes and 1 second behind race winner Nicolas Lunven (PRB).
Paul Morvan (Foricher – French Touch) — Stage 3 winner: “Towards the end, as we neared Cherbourg, I made a tactical shift. I found good pace pretty quickly with the smaller kite, which isn’t normally where I’m strongest. But this time, we found the right sail angle, trimmed it in and it just felt right. When we came off the spinnaker, conditions were full-on — 35 knots with a confused sea state, couldn’t see daylight. We’d been getting thrown around hard for 20 hours solid. Once I dropped the kite, I checked the tactical picture, had a look at the computer and spotted a current shift coming at Cherbourg. That was the play — get to Cherbourg high in the fleet. Once I tapped into that current lane, it ran all the way to the line. Combine that with good boat speed and I managed to claw back some ground, but it was tight. We were constantly switching between running hot under the kite and then hauling the small sail down together. We had freighters passing right alongside — absolute chaos. There were four or five of us, all sharp operators from the start of the season, everyone hungry to win. Then you’ve got to switch modes quick and get back onto pure tactics. It doesn’t happen often that I’m faster than blokes like Loïc Berrehar or Hugo Dhallenne on these wild, wide-open angles — they’re incredibly difficult. I saw this move coming pretty late. Once I cleared Cherbourg I thought, mate, I’ve got good positioning and this current’s going to push me more than them for ages yet, pretty much to the finish. That’s when I felt that extra boost, but I was a bit nervous too because the conditions reminded me of the BPGO Trophy — total carnage, we’d shredded sails left and right. At one point I was even backing off power, thinking this doesn’t feel right, felt like we were on the edge. But in the end, it held together.”
Originally published in French by La Solitaire du Figaro.
