The 03/11/2007
First night at sea for the monohulls.
Last night on shore for the multihulls skippers.
At 4 p.m, only 2 hours after setting sail, the ranking has already changed. Multihulls crews will join their fellow skippers at sea tomorrow.
Groupe Bel (de Pavant / Col) have taken the lead in front of Gitana Eighty (Peyron, Levaillant) and Safran (Guillemot / Caudrelier). Foncia (Desjoyeaux / Le Borgne) is third just in front of Ecover 2 (Golding / Dubois). The first seven Imoca boats (including Generali and Cheminées Poujoulat) are within 2 miles of each other. Pakea Bizkaia 2009 (Basurko / Gandarias) closes the Imoca fleet 7 miles away from the leader.
Telecom Italia (Soldini / dAli) has led in the Class 40 fleet since the start, closely followed by Clarke Offshore Racing ( Clarke / Lindsay), Vecteur Plus Groupe Moniteur (Joudren / Pichelin) and Atao Audio System (Vittet / Chabagny). The 2 youngest skippers in the fleet on Concise (Gohl / Gall) showed a strong start, ranking in 7th position, Novedia Set Environnement (de Lamotte / Bubb) in 9th less that 1 mile behind the leader.
The skippers will spend the night on deck making their way through the busy Channel in low -- or even no -- visibility.
De Pavant (S. Col Groupe Bel) - before the start : We feel that the boat has "horse power under the bonnet". She will move fast, we know that, even if these machines are very complex and delivered without a user guide. We are going to learn a lot, about ourselves and about our competitors, who we will meet again in a year for the Vendée Globe. We are racers and if the weather is with us, we won't hesitate.See the entire fleet ranking at 4 p.m. next one at 8 p.m.
MULTIHULLS WILL head FOR THE STARTING LINE TOMORROW
The two classes of multihulls (ORMA and Class 50) will leave the Paul Vatine Basin tomorrow for a start planned at 1:02 p.m.
The skippers are pretty happy with weather conditions that will give them a not-so-harsh entry into the race and offer a nice ride south.
Overview of the multihull fleets
Two categories of multihulls will set sails for Bahia on Sunday Nov. 3: Orma (60 foot trimarans) and Class 50 multihulls. The ORMA fleet melted like ice in the sun. Only 5 boats will line up in Le Havre.
However, with entries like Gitana 11 (Lemonchois winner on Banque Populaire in 2005 with skipper P. Bidegorry / Guichard), Banque Populaire (P. Bidegorry / Y. Ravussin), Groupama 2 (F. Cammas two time winner / S. Ravussin.) and Brossard (Y. Bourgnon / J. Vincent) we can expect a harsh battle on the water and the improvement of the time of reference set in 2001 on the same course 11d 23 h10 41 ( in 2005 the Orma fleet had to round the Ascension Island).
Eight 50-foot multihulls crews will align their boats on the starting line on Sunday, 3 of them lauched since 2006 (NIM, Avocet, Délirium). Even thought their performances cannot reach Crêpes Whaou ! (F.Y Escoffier / K. Fauconnier) the Class 50 is definitely showing its dynamism and it attractivity with sailors like Lalou Roucayrol (NIM Interim Management / P. Van Den Broeck) entering the fleet and developing specific designs for a class that yet has to gain in homogeneity.
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