The Two Thomas Assume 2nd

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After a long crossing of the Bay of Biscay, Thomas Coville and Thomas Rouxel have resumed since Tuesday evening with conditions conducive to speed. In Wednesday morning's ranking, Sodebo Ultim 3 took second place in the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre.

The Bay of Biscay is behind them! It took almost two days, compared to ten hours normally at this time of year, for Sodebo Ultim 3 to cover the distance between the tip of Finistère, in Brittany, and Cape Finisterre, to the north. -west of the Iberian Peninsula. Thomas Coville and Thomas Rouxel had to stay wide awake and vigilant throughout this time in order to harness every breath of air and patiently extricate themselves from the clutches of the high pressure ridge that held back the entire fleet.



Stopped in this windless zone during the night from Sunday to Monday at Ouessant, the Ultim are the first to have touched up the easterly wind on Tuesday morning, and in this game, the two skippers of Sodebo Ultim have perfectly out of the game, since they took the lead in Cape Finisterre around 7pm. Since then, Thomas Coville and Thomas Rouxel, second on Wednesday morning and flashing at over 30 knots, have been doing a series of gybes along Portugal in a north-northwest wind of around fifteen knots.

The program promises to be similar during the day, even if the wind will gradually weaken, Sodebo Ultim 3 heading for Madeira then the Canaries, where "the two Thomases" hope to find a trade wind from the northern hemisphere which seems for the 'moment very disturbed.


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Canvendish Glasses




Sunday was punctuated by the gybes aboard Sodebo Ultim 3, which took a staircase descent to pass west of Cape Verde. Thomas Coville and Thomas Rouxel are now heading for the Doldrums.

Eight gybes in the Sunday program of the two skippers who did not spare their strength to respect the instructions of the routing unit (composed of Philippe Legros and Thierry Douillard), namely to pass west of Cape Verde in order to get the best possible entry point into the Doldrums. This intertropical convergence zone, where the trade winds of the northern and southern hemispheres meet, is now in the sights of Sodebo Ultim 3, on board which Thomas Coville sent an email on the night of Sunday to Monday to tell a striking episode, which he titled "Canvendish Glasses":



“A little over 24 hours ago, just before the start of my shift, I took my time brushing my teeth and taking advantage of the outside temperature before going to take over from Thom. I had recovered well despite the heat that was starting to be felt inside. We were on the starboard tack, on our right tack. The boat was flying with little wind and the balance was perfect. You have to come to these latitudes to find these conditions of paradise. Every time we jibe on this tack, we find our boat of yesteryear. The sensations return, steering becomes a real exquisite pleasure. I felt Thom focused and the end of the day shed a light that made him even more calm and relaxed than usual.






When suddenly by a movement of the boat, a listening comes whipping my face violently and tears off my glasses that I had adjusted on my head before going to helm. I turn around and see them roll over the net and fly overboard. I felt then rise in me, this anger and this rage that I had at the bottom of me! Without being able to control anything, I started to scream and swear. I banged my fist on the deck, hit the footboard with my heels, grabbed the sheet that had slapped me in the face and pulled it back. I wanted to tear it from the sail. I screamed and swore again, I couldn't stop! I had this lump stuck in my sternum since our collision, I felt it there, present, impossible to extract, she had lodged herself and the actions and decisions to be made had allowed her to nestle deep inside me without my really realizing that I still really had her inside me. This anger of not understanding or accepting that we were in the wrong place at the right time! To undergo such an unfair randomness!

But there is no justice in nature, nature seeks balance but no right or duty! By being assaulted by this listening without reason, I relived the same emotion too strong to be cashed or accepted again. I had to get her out. I no longer wanted to be the one who was out of place, in his right place! I'm happy to be there, I love what I'm doing and I don't want to suffer, let alone my own anger! I was screaming again and it came out like a volcano of unexpressed feeling waiting for that slap out of nowhere for me to spit it out and vomit it out. I have chosen and I do not want to let myself be dominated by this anger! I am suffering, yes, or rather, I am frustrated, but I accept and I live what I have put in place by working like a hard worker for years then,

I took the helm, Thom was looking at me with his big bewildered eyes. He stammers a few words, I give him a sign that it's okay. He does not insist, he leaves me and I feel that he does not judge me, that he leaves me free with my emotions. I'll apologize again a few hours later and he'll smile at me like I've told a joke; I apologize for getting out of my anger, but on the contrary!




Our freedom goes that far, here below, off the Cape Verde Islands. In my head I hear the music and the voice, this singer who bewitches me every time I listen to her: Cesaria Evora.

I steered, making the boat fly like never before. I was high, fast and steady, I felt my breath longer and I had lowered my shoulders, my body responded to me and let go too. The ball was fading and I ruled until nightfall. Until the stars appear. We jibed and therefore got back to the edge where we are still bruised by a diminished foil but I was no longer in pain, I had decided not to live with it, but to turn this anger into another energy. Nothing has fundamentally changed, in fact we are far away and the race does not have the same flavor but I was thinking of all those who suffer from this collision with life and I dedicate to them this emotion, this feeling and what I did it to continue and to live with Thom, another story certainly but not in anger!

I lost my favorite glasses of Cavendish, this unique cycling champion who takes all the risks and who falls so often to go after a little further for victories, but I still believe that I am in the right place with the right people and that as long as I have decided nothing will prevent me from flying!

Thomas by 17 N 26 W "