Phil’s dream of a top 5 finish realised

An exhausted and elated Phil Sharp on Le Gallais 419 sailed across the finish line in Salvador, Brazil at 1640 (BST) on Thursday 27 October, or 1540 local time. He has covered the 2920 miles from the Canary Islands to Brazil in 18 days 23 hours 9 minutes and 57 seconds.

Phil’s astonishing achievement in this second leg will be the talking point in Brazil over the coming week! After taking a long route around the Canary Islands at the start (route was based on a pre race weather forecast) and losing places, he was in 58th after a few days at sea. Hearing of his position, Phil was not going to let depression set in. He was going for his goal, which was for a top 5 result overall!! With incredible determination and drive Phil pushed himself and Le Gallais to the maximum and gradually (and in some cases rather quickly), climbed up the rankings to finish in 6th place in the second leg!

Of course the final classification of the Mini Transat is based on the total time taken to complete both legs. As reported over the last couple of days, Phil’s main battle was with Adrien Hardy who was ahead of Phil for the whole race. Phil had around 3hours of time on Adrien and therefore had to finish less than three hours behind Adrien to beat him overall. It was exciting to the finish and in true Sharp style he continued to catch Hardy right until the end, finishing behind him, but with the time advantage Phil beat Hardy by 32 minutes to take 4th place overall. Stanislas Maslard finished third in the second leg and third overall all. Phil had a 6 hour time advantage on Maslard but unfortunately lost third place to him by 2 hours.

I have spoken to Phil and he is on great form, really pleased with his result and enjoying the celebrations. After crossing the finish line he dived off his boat and swam to the nearby press boat to give a wet hug to his father and grandmother. We will be hearing from Phil himself very soon once he has finished celebrating!

Mini Transat, top 5 Results:

1st (1st in Lanzarote/2nd in Salvador) Corentin Douguet on E. Leclerc-Bouygues Telecom : 24 days 21 hours 36 minutes and 24 seconds

2nd (7th in Lanzarote/1st in Salavdor) Alex Pella on Open Sea/Team Work : 25 days 06 hours 36minutes and 21 seconds (difference from first place 8h 59mn and 57s)

3rd Stanislas Maslard on Crédit Agricole Skipper Challenge (11th in Lanzarote/ 3th in Salavdor) : 25 days 18h hours 10minutes and 30 seconds (difference from first place 20h 34mn et 06s).

4th Phil Sharp on Le Gallais (4th in Lanzarote/6th in Salvador) : 25 days 20 hours 11 minutes and 12 seconds.

5th Adrien Hardy on Brossard (5th in Lanzarote / 4th in Salavdor) : 25 days 20 hours 43 minutes 02 seconds

6th Isabelle Joschke on Degrémont (34th in Lanzarote and 5th in Salvador) : 27 days 11 hours 15 minutes 13 seconds