Transat Jacques Vabre - Against all odds

Croatia Full of Life moved her way through the fleet from 14th place at the Canaries to 4th place at Cape Verde and she continues to challenge the leaders on their westward trajectory to the finish line in Martinique. “We never expected to be this high in the rankings. It’s very exciting to be racing against the fastest boats in the fleet with our older design.” says a pumped Ivica Kostelic on day 14 of the Transat Jacques Vabre.

His boat is 8 years old but is going well despite a small fuel leak issue that means they are now only using their renewable energies for power. “We tore the big kite off Portugal but we were expecting it sooner or later and took a second kite with us, so our old boat is going well.” says Kostelic.

Looking at the race tracker the front half of the fleet looks lined up as if they’re about to  re-start the race south of the Cape Verde islands but not all boats are equal explains the Croatian,  “It looks like we’re all even but actually because of the wind angles it’s going to be difficult to get any real advantage before we get into the Brazilian trades, so if we can hold on until that point then the older designs may be able to challenge.”

The Class 40 fleet has been split in two since the Bay of Biscay and Kostelic believes those early days were the key moment of this race, “If you analyse the first two and a half days of our time in the Bay of Biscay you’ll see that who grabbed the advantage there, still has the advantage now and that’s where the fleet split into two”

Kostelic has thoroughly enjoyed the tactics and strategy needed in this light wind race but admits he couldn’t have done it without his partner Calliste Antoine, “His knowledge is immense especially early on when we were sailing in the rocks off the Brittany coast. It was all down to his French-school of sailing and I certainly couldn’t have done it. You need guts to do it and local knowledge. I also appreciate the fact that he keeps pushing no matter what is happening.”

Tonight the pair have about 1,900 miles to go and are within 60 miles of the leader, “We never expected to be top ten at any point in the race so we’re super excited with where we are. So we’re going to push hard to the end because it’s such a motivating factor for us to be so far forward and to be competing here with the best.”

Leaderboard at 18.00 (CET)

Ultime
1. Maxi Edmond de Rothschild 
2. Banque Populaire XI
3. SVR - Lazartigue

Ocean Fifty 
1. Primonial
2. Koesio
3. Leyton 

Imoca 
1. LinkedOut
2. Apivia
3. Charal 

Class40 
1. Redman 
2. Volvo
3. Crédit Mutuel  

MAP TRACKER

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