Crossing the finish line off Royan at 14:06:20hrs this afternoon Ireland’s Tom Dolan (Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan) wins the 515 nautical miles Stage 2 of the 55th La Solitaire Figaro Paprec (before jury) which started from Gijón, NW Spain on Sunday afternoon.
© Alexis Courcoux
Dolan took the lead very early on Monday after moving north to best negotiate a cold front which allowed him to be first into the best breeze. First to turn north at the Isla Sisarga Grande on Monday afternoon, the Irish solo sailor gained a five minutes time bonus for winning the Intermediate Sprint and has led the race all the way back across the Bay of Biscay to Royan which lies at the entrance of the Gironde Estuary north of Bordeaux.
Ninth on Stage 1 of the annual three stage solo, multistage offshore race, he started this leg Sunday with a deficit behind the leader of just 5 minutes and 31 seconds and so with the next sailor behind him, Gaston Morvan (Région Bretagne-CMB Performance) at 4.6 miles or about 45 minutes behind, Dolan should start Sunday’s decisive stage to La Turballe in a strong position.
Tom Dolan took an elapsed time of 2 days 23 hours 44 min and 20 seconds to complete the theoretical 515-mile route. In practice, he covered 534.63 miles at an average speed of 7.45 knots.
He becomes the first ever non French skipper to win a stage of La Solitaire du Figaro in two successive races after his victory on Stage 1 into Kinsale last year.