With his trip, Thompson completed the Atlantic Circle, to which he had started two years ago as part of the Mini-Transat. “It has always been his plan to get the boat back to France on its own keel rather than putting it on a freighter,” his wife Natasha Gonzalez told YACHT online yesterday.
Photo: Coconuts SailDone: Jay Thompson off Lizard Point. His wife Natasha Gonzalez, one of The Ocean Race’s commentators, welcomed the US skipper at the finish
The professional sailor and preparer in Sam Davies’ Imoca team “Initaiatives Coeur” had to abandon his first attempt on the demanding west-east route south of Newfoundland last summer because of a hurricane. Now the conditions were right – even if the record run was anything but a smooth transition.
Especially in the middle section, Thompson had to cope with strong winds and poisonous gusts of well over 30 knots for days. In his blog, which is well worth reading, on the website of the tracking company Yellowbrick (link at the end of the article), he impressively describes how tense he was over long stretches and how close he was to losing control.
Several times he experienced violent sun shots and the dreaded “nosedives”, where the boat rides a wave in full surf, only to then bury the bow in the back of the sea ahead. Then the oars dive out and the boat flies with a crash on its side. Anxious minutes pass before everything is clear again.
On a boat of this size, with a filigree hull laminate of barely a millimeter of carbon fibre, foam core and more carbon fibre, separating the skipper from the thousands of meters of dark blue depths, there is always an ambivalence, a feeling between euphoria and worry. Because here, with this project, unlike the MiniTransat, there are no competitors within radio call range, no escort boats that can help in an emergency. For two and a half weeks there is only Jay and his “SpeedyG”, as he also calls his Mini.
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On Day 4 he writes: “Time has passed quickly, although at this stage of a long cruise the dominant feeling sets in that there are still two weeks to go. That makes me a little uneasy. I brush the thought aside and get to work on the never-ending tasks on board. I experience every ocean passage like this: it takes the first two or three days for me to get used to it, then there is a brief moment of overwhelm from the vastness that still lies ahead of me. And then the letting go phase sets in… This is my favorite stage. It is fascinating and lures me to sea again and again. At the moment I am. I am a man of the sea.”
On August 9th, south of Newfoundland, things get tough for Thompson. He writes:
“I’ve seen it coming for a few days… a small dip in a sea area where it can get intense. When it started blowing I had everything ready to reef; the boat and I were prepared. The wind angle was quite high at 60 degrees; I hoped it would still turn because sailing close-hauled at 35 knots is very difficult with a mini. But the spin didn’t come. At 30 knots and more it became too much even for the storm jib and the mainsail in the third reef. I fall off a bit, but that only causes the boat to accelerate to 12-15 knots and shoot over the ten-foot waves—a surefire way of self-destruct. So I bear away on a downwind course, grab myself, go forward and take down the flapping jib. When I get back on course, the gusts reach 38 to 40 knots. I feel like a little duck in a huge pond.”
Jay can’t get out of his heavy-weather clothes for days. The humidity is everywhere, from above the splashing water, below deck it is dripping with condensation. “I’ve never been so soaked, inside and out,” groans the solo skipper. Only when the last front is through, four days before arriving in the English Channel, does the weather become warmer and friendlier.
Then yesterday, shortly before the happy arrival, but still tense because of the increasing shipping traffic, confidence, pride, the anticipation of family and friends who await him in Brest this afternoon prevail in his last post:
“Wow, what a feeling after 16 days at sea! It’s the last 24 hours before the finish line and they come with mixed feelings… relieved and ready to arrive but at the same time nerve wracking as the last few miles can get very tricky. Everything is at stake and I have to be vigilant,” writes Thompson. “The (penultimate) night was full of stars but no moon. The Milky Way crossed the sky. The sun is shining today, there are almost no clouds – that feels good. I urgently need to dry off after the wet North Atlantic. I dream of bathing in the warm sun, on land, after a big lunch: hamburger, fries and red wine, of course!”
He deserved it so much!
We’ll keep updating this post as we have more information, photos, videos and interviews.
Here it goes to the Yellowbrick tracker with Jay’s Blog!
2023-08-21 08:17:32
#Record #drive #Mini #York #Lizard #Point
