Day 7 for Sam Goodchild and Nick Cherry in La Transat AG2R La Mondiale

Artemis round the invisible mark and head for St Barths

On Saturday afternoon (28th April), the 16 strong Transat AG2R La Mondiale Figaro fleet passed the Canaries waypoint; a gate between La Palma and a co-ordinate off the North coast of the island. Artemis skippered by Sam Goodchild and Nick Cherry, rounded the invisible mark on Saturday in 8th position within sight of six other competitors, before turning their attention to the true transatlantic section of the race, 2,500nm across the Atlantic Ocean to Saint Barthelemy (St Barths). This morning Goodchild and Cherry continue to push southwest with the fleet in the hope of avoiding the light winds of an unusually far south Azores high pressure. Artemis remains in touch with the leading pack and is currently in 10th place, sandwiched between the current race leaders to their west-northwest and a competitive group of four boats playing the left side of the course to the south.

On passing the La Palma waypoint, the race was thrown wide open forcing the 32 skippers to decide whether to sail a more direct westerly route to St Barths risking the light winds in the eye of the Azores High; or to head south and search for stronger trade winds. By Sunday evening the leading pack had divided, with Banque Populaire and Sepalumic gybing south first whilst the rest of the fleet lead by Nacarat and Cercle Vert remained on a more westerly course. Staying on the median course between both sub-fleets, Artemis moved up into 5th. However by Tuesday morning, Goodchild and Cherry, now in 10th, have joined Banque Poplulaire (13th) on the more southerly route, both boats banking on the south paying off over the coming days. Nacarat and Cercle Vert are experienced competitors and although they had joined the push southwest throughout Sunday, by Monday evening they were trucking west overnight, before returning to their southwest course by Tuesday morning, hoping to get a jump on the fleet by being the most westerly boats they do run the risk of slowing in the light airs of the high pressure system. It’ll be some time (perhaps a week) before it becomes obvious which tactic has worked.

Track Artemis’ progress with the official Transat AG2R La Mondiale race tracker

“Life on board is getting steadily more pleasant as we head further south,” reports Cherry. “Day time temperatures are just about perfect, if a little hot and at night we are still needing thermals and a hat for short periods. It’ll be time to break out the mini fan by tomorrow and then start annoying everybody stuck in rain and storms at home by complaining about the heat!”

Whilst the sailors are enjoying the ever-improving conditions, they are working hard; understanding one slow hour could cause them to drop of the back of the leader pack, never to return, as Goodchild explains “We are now fully stuck into trade wind sailing which, on face value sounds quite appealing; the sailing we spend a lot of time in Europe dreaming about. However, with the conditions now so stable, we are finding out the harsh reality of being in identical conditions and identical boats is the gains and losses are even smaller. So we are working hard to keep up the pace knowing that any slip in miles, could be impossible to get back.”

At this crucial stage of the race, the youngest co-skippers face their own onboard challenges with a major reconstruction of one of Artemis’ large spinnakers underway: “It’s a time consuming and tedious process of repairing the sail which is making us appreciate the invention of the sewing machine like never before!” reports Cherry who is putting his sail making experience to good use. “It’s a classic solo / short handed sailor’s dilemma, fix the boat, or get some sleep, it’s something that can only be learnt in the heat of battle, and we’re up against much more experienced practitioners.”

The British duo are in good spirits however: “As every day is the same we are finding more diverse ways to entertain ourselves, including who can get to the sherbet of a lemon sherbet quickest, without chewing.” Goodchild is the current reigning champion.

As well as sail maintenance and sweet eating, Goodchild reports that sleep management is an area the sailors are working to improve on: “We haven’t struggled to get enough sleep, but getting the right amount at the right time is the challenge. At night we make sure that you are never on deck for more than an hour as it’s harder to concentrate when it’s dark. This is fine but if, in your hour off, you fall into a really deep sleep, getting back to consciousness for your watch can tricky and costly, performance wise.” To remedy the drowsiness caused by heavy dozing, Goodchild and Cherry are experimenting, trying to find the best way of making sure they avoid deep sleeping at night: “With a combination of a bit more sleep in the day and eating foods high in sugar and caffeine in the evening, each night seems to be getting easier.”