Jérémie Beyou's Reaction on the Pontoons, 3rd Place in the 48H AZIMUT Race

Jérémie Beyou (Charal): “It’s true that first place wasn’t really ‘up for grabs.’ Sam (Goodchild) sailed well; he took the lead early on and stayed there. Before BXA (the buoy at the mouth of the Gironde), there were some heavy squalls; I got stuck at less than 10 knots, while the top two kept making good headway. That’s where I really took a hit. My chances of winning were over. After that, Sam glided through the wind shift like a breeze—everything fell into place for him. Corentin really closed in on me at that point, so I had to push a bit harder toward the end to hold onto third place. It made for a fun downwind race and was pretty interesting with the swell coming from astern, forcing us to make quite a few adjustments.

As for me, I still have some work to do to find the right settings; I was a little off in that regard during this race. I’m not as comfortable with the boat as Sam is. I’ll have to work on that between now and the Route du Rhum. This was a comeback race. 

Unlike my competitors, I didn’t race in the previous races this season, and you can tell they’re more in the groove, especially at the start; mine was a bit of a disaster. But I also imagine that when it comes to maneuvers and onboard routines… There’s a reason there are races, and you have to compete in them. This was my first one of the season. The next one will be the Rhum… I’m going to have to get it right! The start was crucial—we really had to go fast on the first leg. For an hour, an hour and a half, I was really struggling to find the right settings. At that point, Sam pulled ahead a bit, as did Ambrogio.

These are still boats with a lot of levers. And if you don’t find the right ones, it’s like putting on the handbrake. We’ll go over all of this. We have a training camp in two weeks at Port-La Forêt, and that’ll be a chance to put all of this into practice.”