Sydney to Hobart 2025: French duo on BNC
The pair, along with the rest of the fleet, battled seasickness in difficult early upwind sails that forced 34 of the initial 128-man strong fleet to retire.
“I never get seasick, but I couldn’t eat for the first six hours,” Rigal said. “We didn’t get much sleep, it was so busy. The waves and seas were crazy. I don’t think we were special, we just found something.”
Quintin, who represented France in windsurfing at the 1988 Olympics, said some electronic equipment malfunctioned in the Bass Strait, so there was no indication of the true wind direction.
“When you have to steer almost all day and all night, you get tired,” he said.
At 35 meters long, BNC is among the smaller competitors from Sydney to Hobart and won the Master Lock Comanche award, about a third the size of the series.
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Last year’s overall winner, Sam Haynes’ skipper Celestial V70, was eliminated from contention on Tuesday after being out-timed by the rush of other yachts.
Haynes, who works as a veterinarian by day, completed the race on Monday morning but was tormented by the glassy, almost windless River Derwent.
Approximately 45 yachts, including Bacchanal, completed the race at 13:00 on Tuesday.
Bacchanal was captained by American lawyer Ronald Epstein and was named after a Roman god.
Epstein revealed his crew were making up for unfinished business after being forced to head to Hobart for their first stint in Sydney following the business boom last year.
Tears flowed from Epstein as he crossed the line, prompting a few chuckles from his teammates.
“To handle it with a group of guys like that who you’ve spent the wars with. That’s something worth getting emotional about,” he said.
Comanche took fifth place honors on Sunday after besting fellow supermaxis LawConnect and Hong Kong’s SHK Scallywag 100 in a dogfight off Tasmania.
AAP
