Winners are grinners in the Groupama Race

Warms the cockles of your heart

From the Squadron’s Head Chef, Campbell White, a Members’ Bar dish to warm the ‘cockles of your heart’: Braised lamb shoulder Irish stew with white beans and kale.

“This is a wintery dish, that is a bit lighter than usual,” said Campbell.

“It is my take on an Irish stew, which I perfected while I lived in Ireland. By changing a few things, it becomes more an easy sharing dish than a stew.

“I like to make it over two days, so I can press the lamb shoulder overnight, but it can be done in one day in a slow cooker.”

Picture by Debra Douglas

Yann Rigal and Josh Tucker celebrate their win in the 2022 Groupama Race around Noumea – all photos courtesy of marinerevilhac / groupamarace. Winners are grinners in Groupama

Dubbed the “world’s longest windward leeward race”, the 2022 Groupama race 650 miles around New Caledonia served up a mix of conditions which made the reality much more complicated than that simple binary equation suggests.

The ‘normal’ trade-wind script dictates an upwind start from Noumea, instead of which it was a light run under spinnaker down to the southern tip of the island before a southwesterly front struck rising to 35-40 knots. For Josh Tucker, back for his third time, the conditions built to some of the worst he has seen in a long time.

That’s saying something for somebody who completed a Cape Horn rounding under jury rig after a Southern Ocean dismasting and has competed in multiple offshore events, including Round North Island and Round New Zealand short-handed races.

“Getting around the southern end of New Caledonia was extremely rough,” he says, “It was like Cook Strait, with 3-4 knots of current against the wind setting up big standing waves that had us airborne at times.

“There were reefs everywhere. We were doing 17 knots with the spinnaker up in 35 knots while trying to navigate and figure out what was going on.

“At one point, the breeze lightened to 25 knots, so we changed up to a bigger spinnaker, only to have the wind build back to 35 knots, which destroyed that kite.”

Following the Covid cancellation of the 2020 event, this year’s Groupama race attracted 21 starters. Tucker joined forces with Yann Rigal, a New Caledonia local with a Jeanneau Sun Fast 3200 named Tosot Climatisation-K.

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“I met Yann when I did this race in 2014 on Crusader,” says Tucker. “He was a very good host, who looked after us and took us out partying. We formed a good friendship.

“When they opened up a twohanded division for this year’s race, he wanted to link up with somebody who had actually done a lot of two-handed racing. He asked if I was keen and we went from there.”

The Crusader campaign in 2014 was an epic, with the 35ft Elliott design owned by Anthony Leighs setting a new monohull record of 3 days 18 hours 54 minutes. Tucker vividly recalls the reaction to the result, particularly as the Kiwi crew beat French sailing legend Frank Cammas in the process. “We were treated like celebrities. We were signing T-shirts, all kinds of stuff.”

It took the Australian 100ft racing maxi, Scallywag, to beat Crusader’s record in 2016, setting a new monohull mark of 2 days 13 hours 19 minutes. Simon Hull’s Vodafone trimaran set the multihull record the same year of 2 days 00 hours 52 minutes. Both records still stand.

The Kiwi connection with this event continued when Will Goodfellow’s TP52 Miss Scarlet took out the monohull line honours in 2018.

For this year’s race, Tucker was once again in the winner’s circle, when he and Yann Rigal took out the two-handed handicap prize. They were third across the line in the two-handed division behind Motorboat II, an Elliott 10.5 which Tucker once co-owned with his longtime sailing partner Damon Joliffe, and Clockwork, a Bakewell-White 37. Tucker and Rigal’s performance also gave them a creditable 7th overall in IRC including the fully-crewed yachts.

Having escaped the stormy Havannah Passage to start their traverse of the island’s northern flank, the pair put the hammer down with a wild spinnaker ride in torrential rain throughout the first night.

“It blew 30-35 knots all night. We had a full main and an S4 spinnaker, which is nearly full size, but with heavier cloth. It was a hard night with spray flying everywhere. We were passing boats left, right and centre, just

hanging on in T-shirts and shorts and munching muesli bars. “At one point we had to gybe. We debated dropping the kite and re-hoisting after the gybe, or catching a wave and gybing through the acceleration. “In the end, we caught a big wave and surfed down, chucked it through the gybe and sorted the pole out afterwards. There was a lot on. I was steering with my bum, hanging on to the sheet and brace in each hand. Yann was on the foredeck trying to sort out Tosot Climatisation-K shortly after the start of the Groupama Race. the pole. It was interesting, but we pulled it off.” The reward for a hard night’s work was that by next day they were still in close company with much larger yachts and holding a substantial lead over the rest of the fleet on handicap. “We were about third or fourth on the water, including the multihulls.” In the morning, the wind eased to about 20 knots and swung forward, providing a favourable true wind angle of about 130°. It was fast sailing with good surfing conditions all day. Early on the third morning, they rounded the northern tip of the island and settled in for the long bash to windward down the south side of the island to the finish line. About a third of the way down, they took the option to duck behind the reef, which provided a 40-mile respite from the worst of the seas. Just before dusk, however, as they approached the pass to exit the reef, they struck an uncharted submerged coral head. “We were sailing at 6.5 knots in about 15 knots of breeze, but luckily we got off quite quickly by backing the sails and heeling over,” says Tucker. “At the same time, night was coming on and we still had to get out through a fairly narrow pass, relying on charts, which had proved to be quite inaccurate, so all in all it was a tense time.” Having escaped the reef, they thoroughly checked the boat and were relieved to establish there was no structural damage. But, as they headed offshore in big seas, both men were down on energy, and lost ground in the overall fleet standings as they continued getting everything settled once more.

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