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Press release – Wednesday 25 May 2011
A straight downhill run to the finish!
24 hours before the arrival of the first Class40s, the battle is continuing
to rage. It is impossible today to announce the name of the winner, given
that the distances between the 3 leaders are so slim. Port de Caen
Ouistreham and Initiatives Saveurs have been neck and neck for over a day.
At 1000 GMT, Fabien Delahaye and Bruno Jourdren had a lead of just 0.1 miles
over Tanguy de Lamotte and Sébastien Audigane. At 1400 GMT, the two crews
were completely tied in terms of theoretical distance to the finish. At the
last radio session, Initiatives Saveurs had passed back into the lead off
Land’s End, just 200 metres ahead of Port de Caen – Ouistreham. Enough to
send even the best bookmakers into a spin!
Clearly the change of course has done nothing to upset the furious pace of
the race. The 12 competitors are indextaining some fairly high speeds. In a
few hours’ time, they’ll pass Land’s End to begin a long run down towards
Guernsey. After that there will be two Norman headlands to round, before
they cross the finish line later afternoon tomorrow, Thursday.
Match racing
Since the first few hours of racing, it has been one almighty battle. A day
before the finish, the 5 leaders are bunched up within 10 miles of each
other. Two boats have managed to get away from the first chasing group, Port
de Caen - Ouistreham and Initiatives Saveurs. It’s a real offshore version
of match racing! According to Fabien Delahaye, skipper of the Class40 Port
de Caen – Ouistreham, the battling is intense: “We’re having a great battle
and things are very tight. Tanguy and Sébastien are within 100 metres of us.
We rounded Tuskar Rock together. Last night they got ahead of us, we then
overtook them, we tacked and at that point they got ahead of us again. To
sum it up, it’s very much game on!”
The first Class40s are set to pass Land’s End over the coming hours. Once
around the English headland, the competitors are likely to hit a Westerly
wind proffering downwind conditions, which will enable them to drop quickly
down towards Guernsey and then on to the finish. For the past 12 hours, the
competition has been intense, with the skippers making headway into the wind
by putting in a series of well-timed tacks. There are a whole range of
tactical possibilities up for grabs in sailing conditions such as these. One
thing for sure is that the two leaders will be marking each other’s every
move all the way to the end. Tanguy de Lamotte, skipper of the Class40
Initiatives Saveurs freely admits this: “I feel like I’m doing the Tour de
France à la Voile! The light from their mast passes, gets away from us,
falls back, we plot our position, we just don’t stop!”
ETA
Already thoughts go to the Estimated Time of Arrival. Indeed current ETAs
suggest that the first Class40s are likely to cross the finish line off
Hermanville late tomorrow afternoon. The distance of the theoretical course
for the Normandy Channel Race 2011 was originally around 1,000 miles.
Following the change of course, the competitors didn’t round Fastnet Rock,
instead setting a course straight towards Guernsey after Tuskar Rock, which
equates to a course spanning nearly 200 fewer miles. Until today, the
average race speed across the water was around 8.4 knots. Clearly this
average speed is set to increase dramatically over the coming hours, since
the current Southerly wind is set to clock round to the West, reindexing
fairly strong to carry the Class40s downwind to Caen. According to Nicolas
Boidevézi, co-skipper of the Class40 Défi GDE – Tzu Hang, the strong wind is
likely to make rounding the reindexing Norman headlands a rather complicated
affair: “The Channel crossing should be quick, but we’re wondering what will
happen after that, especially at Raz Blanchard where 30/35 knots of downwind
conditions await us as we battle against the current…”
Ranking for Wednesday 25 May at 1400 hours GMT:
1
PORT DE CAEN OUISTREHAM
Fabien Delahaye/Bruno Jourdren
Dist to finish 250,1
Separation
0,0
2
INITIATIVES SAVEURS
Tanguy de Lamotte/Sébastien Audigane
250,1
0,0
3
MARE.DE2
Jorg Riechers/Etienne David
253,8
3,7
4
TALANTA
Jean Galfione/Eric Péron
255,1
5,0
5
L'EXPRESS - SAPMER
Pierre-Yves Lautrou/Dominic Vittet
259,2
9,1
6
DES PIEDS ET DES indexS
Damien seguin/Yohann Richomme
260,8
10,7
7
DEFI GDE - TZU HANG
Axel Strauss/Nicolas Boidevézi
285,9
35,8
8
RED
Matthias Blumencron/Boris Hermann
295,8
45,7
9
PHESHEYA RACING
Philippa Hutton/Nick Leggatt
299,6
49,5
10
40 DEGREES
Hannah Jenner/Anna-Maria Renken
340,2
90,1
11
GRYPHON SOLO 2
Joe Harris/Josh Hall
340,8
90,8
12
OCEAN ELEVEN
Stéphanie Alran/Caroline Vieille
414,4
164,3
ABD
LIVEWIRE
Stuart Dodd/Steve Kennington
ABD
SPLIFF
Andrew Dawson/Rune Aasberg
ABD
MARIE TOÎT - CAEN LA MER
Marc Lepesqueux/Michel Kleinjans
ABD
PARTOUCHE
Christophe Coatnoan/Sébastien Figue
Find the cartography, updated rankings, photos and radio sessions on the
race website: www.normandy-race.com
Join the Normandy Channel Race at
www.normandy-race.com and on Facebook.
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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