9 days late, due to the storms Ciaran and Domingos, the Transat Jacques Vabre finally got underway for the IMOCA boats on Tuesday November 7 at 9:30 am. The 40 IMOCA boats set off in a west-south-westerly wind of around twenty knots, gusting to over 30 knots. Ahead of them lies a course of 3750 nautical miles to Fort-de-France, via the island of Santa Maria in the Azores archipelago, which they will have to leave to starboard. Justine Mettraux and Julien Villion were looking forward to a lively but manageable start.
Last words from the Jujus before finding their IMOCA, which had been taken out of the Paul Vatine basin in the middle of the night by the shore crew:
"We're in a good frame of mind, it's about time we got going! We can't wait to get going and get things underway, because we've really had time to work on a number of plans for some time now, and waiting and preparation aren't the best times. But when the starting gun is fired, we're finally in the action!
Invigorating conditions await us at the start. The 24 hours that await us after the start will be a bit tough. We'll have two wind rotations to play with to get to the tip of Brittany and tackle a fairly strong front with 30/35 knots of wind gusting to over 40/45 knots. Once we're behind this front, we'll have a first choice to make on Wednesday, namely between a direct route passing fairly close to the Azores archipelago, which has the advantage of being short but the disadvantage of being upwind on the trajectory of the lows, or a route that dips down to Cape Finisterre along Portugal to try to slip under a high-pressure system and gain the trade winds. It's hard to say at the moment, but it's going to be dense right from the start, so it'll be a good start to the transatlantic race!"
