Certainly expected to be one of the key contenders for a top five on this race Nico Lunven’s challenge was compromised severely when he lost the bowsprit of Holcim PRB. Since then he was unable to fly any code sails and struggled to find speed and dropped places.
HIS RACE IN NUMBERS
Arrival time: 20:25 57'' (UTC)
Race time: 10 days, 8 hours, 55 minutes, 57 seconds
Distance sailed: 3294.91 nautical miles
Gap to the first: 2 days, 2 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds
Average speed (on the Great Circle): 11.85 knots
Actual average speed: 13.24 knots
Nico said “I had a pretty promising start to the race. I think I was pretty much in the game. It took me maybe a little bit of time to find the right set-up, but I was still quite well on the pace of the race from the start, rather in the right package until the moment of the damage which happened with quite challenging conditions. There was wind and sea, it was more upwind or reaching. That's pretty positive. I felt pretty good on the boat. There was wind, sea. It was more upwind or reaching. I was in contact with Paul Meilhat, Sam Davies And in the north there was MACIF and Paprec Arkea. I felt good on the boat. There was the discovery of this damage to the bowsprit. That's the stupid thing. One of the sail tie down pads that broke off in the bad weather was hitting it for several hours. The system we put in place to prevent this is not infallible. From that moment on, the race took another turn. I was in a bit of delivery mode because I was deprived of all the headsails. But it wasn't a cruising to twiddle our thumbs either because we had quite challenging conditions with strong downwind winds and short seas that were not very easy to negotiate. It was interesting to sail in these conditions for several days in a row to possibly try and discover small points to improve. Apparently, there aren't that many. That's the big positive on our the balance sheet. There are a few small areas of improvement that you only discover when you're offshore. I'm a bit frustrated that I wasn't able to do the whole race in competition mode. It's disappointing but I'm happy to arrive in New York. It's a great adventure to have crossed the Atlantic on the north face on this boat. It's not the easiest thing. »
