1000 Race: Britain's Goodchild wins again after dominant display

The 36-year-old from Cornwall in the west of England dominated the race from the start on board the Verdier-designed MACIF Santé Prévoyance, and then led almost all the way to the finish of a demanding race that saw a wide range of sea and wind conditions.

After reaching the finish off Concarneau in Brittany, having sailed over five days from nearby Port-la-Forêt up to the Fastnet Rock and then south in the Bay of Biscay to a point 150 nautical miles north of Cape Finisterre, Goodchild was in ebullient form.

This had been a race, he said, when he had had “zero problems” with his boat and had been able to focus entirely on performance from beginning to end. By the finish, he was around 100 miles ahead of his nearest pursuer, Corentin Horeau of France on board MACSF who was on course to finish second later today.

“I’m extremely happy and really proud,” said Goodchild on the dockside, before paying tribute to his team at MerConcept and MACIF. “There’s an incredible team working insanely hard all year long. My job is to try to win races. So when we win, it obviously feels great. I feel like I’ve lived up to the team’s expectations. So yes, I’m very happy, very satisfied and already looking forward to the next one.”

Goodchild - who is the current IMOCA Globe Series Champion after three crewed race wins last year - said it was particularly satisfying to have this race go so well, given that it was his first taste of solo competition in this superb all-round boat that delivered victory for Charlie Dalin in the last Vendée Globe.

“It’s good to start building confidence and benchmarks solo on this boat. The course wasn't simple because we doubled back on ourselves. There were quite a few fishing boats last night, lots of things that meant you couldn’t really relax. It’s not only about performance,” he added, “but we’re obviously very happy with how it unfolded. The boat was in great shape, no issues at all, so that’s fantastic.”

With this race win in the bag, and although the team will be launching a new Verdier-designed IMOCA for Goodchild early next year, the improvements to the current boat are set to continue, as the focus switches to the Vendée Arctique-Les Sables d’Olonne and then the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe. Among those improvements will be new foils.

In this race the sailor originally from Falmouth, who dominated the Ocean Fifty circuit before joining IMOCA, demonstrated a certain confidence born of experience. He started fast, sailed well in light conditions and then pushed hard downwind in the breeze.

His strategic choices never gave the chasing boats a chance and he only slipped down the leaderboard once, when he chose a southerly option at the Trophée Gallimard waypoint north of the Spanish coast. But this too proved effective as he sailed into more breeze than his pursuers, minimised the number of manoeuvres he had to carry out, and quickly regained the lead.

A measure of his confidence was revealed by Goodchild himself who said that on Day 4 of the race he managed to sleep for a total of seven hours, a remarkable total given the demands on the skippers in a short sprint like this.

Will Harris, the co-skipper of Team Malizia, who has been watching the 1000 Race from on shore, agreed that Goodchild is already one of the hot favourites for victory in the next Vendée Globe, even if it is still more than two years away.

“Sam has stepped into the MACIF project and has had some big boots to fill in the form of Charlie Dalin who is obviously a formidable sailor,” Harris told the Class.

“But Sam’s really been proving his worth so far, winning almost everything he’s done with MACIF and this first solo race with MACIF is showing what he can do. He’s not making mistakes and I saw Jérémie Beyou (skipper of Charal) saying if Sam doesn’t win, it’s because he makes mistakes and he really hasn’t made any at all in this race.”

Harris reckons Goodchild is already at a level in IMOCA that few sailors achieve. “He has total confidence in his strategy and that is something hard to get to, at this level in the IMOCA fleet because it is such a line-up of rock-stars,” he said. “Everyone has come from pretty high level backgrounds and to trust yourself to follow your strategy and not look at what the others are doing is really hard to do.”

One of those from a high level background is Horeau for whom this was his first solo race in IMOCA on board the boat raced by Yoann Richomme to second place in the last Vendée Globe. This was a solid start for the experienced Frenchman and 2023 Figaro champion and Harris was impressed.

“I think to try and get to Sam he’s got to put a few more miles into the boat, but it’s a really impressive performance to come straight into this - Corentin’s first solo IMOCA race - and to be on course for second at the finish. He can be really happy with that and he will hopefully have been learning lots as well.”

Another French skipper who has done well is Violette Dorange who was heading for third place in her first race on board the new Initiatives-Coeur that she has taken over from Sam Davies. In this race Dorange showed all her experience as a solo racer from the last Vendée Globe and from the work in pre-season training she has been doing.

Harris was struck by her willingness to do her own thing. “She sailed her own race,” he said. “Right from the start, I saw her being the first to tack towards the north and making a little gain, and there were a few other places where she did what she thought was right...I’ve been impressed to see her mixing it up and trusting her own sailing. She’s going to be a really strong competitor in the coming races and the Route du Rhum.”

On course for fourth is Elodie Bonafous of France on the MACIF Santé Prévoyance sistership, Association Petits Princes-Quéguiner. Again Bonafous has been in the thick of it all the way round, trading places with the likes of Horeau and Dorange.

“She’s never been off the pace,” said Harris. “I think she can be happy with how she’s performed in this first race solo on her new boat. It is not a small thing at all to be taking a boat like that round this racecourse solo. She’s really competitive and really hungry to be up there.”

Later this summer Harris will be part of Francesca Clapcich’s crew on board 11th Hour Racing in The Ocean Race Atlantic, from New York to Lorient. He sailed with the Italian-American skipper to second place in last year’s Transat Café L’OR and he is more than happy with the way she has tackled her first solo race in this boat, with Clapcich on course to finish in fifth position.

“She’s got loads of potential to keep working her way up the fleet,” said Harris. “She’s doing what her plan was - to do a really good and safe first solo race and just be out there and getting the experience. And she’s done a good job of being in the fight with the pack. The 1000 Race has been a good start to her solo racing campaign,” he added.