Unexpected boat takes top honor in trans-Atlantic race

by Bret G. Dudl
24.11.09
1:00 PM GMT+8

Filed in Costa Rica

The multi-hull Crêpes Whaou! crossed the finish line off Puerto Limón Monday night at 10:31 p.m. to claim victory in the Transat Jacques Vabre trans-Atlantic boat race. The expected leader, the Safran was still some 70 miles back but still expected to claim the honors in the mono-hull class.

Franck-Yves Escoffier and Erwan Le Roux were greeted by hundreds of spectators, most of them Ticos. Fireworks lighted the sky.

The Crêpes Whaou! took 15 days, 15 hours, 31 minutes and 50 seconds to travel from Le Havre, France. Race organizers compute their average speed at 13.41 knots over the 5,805 miles.

Safran had been presumed to be the lead boat for most of the race. But that was based on skipper position reports. Crêpes Whaou! notified race organizers when the craft was just 12 miles from the finish.

The racers called cloaking their position “stealth mode,” and it was Marc Guillemot on Safran that said he was going to adopt this strategy earlier in the day. But he must have had a hint. He said by radio “If Crepes Whaou! gets in first, so be it, it won’t bother me. And it would be good for Franck-Yves and Erwan but what interests us is in getting in before Groupe Bel and the others. They are a different class and did a different course.”

The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo is counting on the race to bring swarms of tourists to Limón. Most of them will be Costa Rican. Some groups are organizing outings from the Central Valley to see the boats.

Francisco Antonio Pacheco, the president of the Asamblea Legislativa, is acting president while Óscar Arias Sánchez makes a tour of the Mideast. Pacheco will do the official honors Friday at 5 p.m. for a formal presentation of awards in Limón.

Escoffier and Le Roux got the traditional spraying of champagne shortly after they arrived. They stood together with hands held high accepting the crowd’s cheers.

The race may not do the promotion that the tourism board wanted. Even race organizers called the country Puerto Rica in a Monday news release posted to the Web site.

Tourism minister Allan Flores was reported to be in Limón to welcome the winners.