Tour Voile gets into gear

With today's warm up event in Le Havre

Tension are mounting in Le Havre, France, as the crews of the 38 Mumm 30s are getting ready for today's warm up prologue of the Tour de France à la Voile 2001.
Yesterday the race committee finished checking the boats and measuring the sails. Some sailors were still being weighed and a spinnaker draw was organised to determine which boat would get the leader¹s red spinnaker to start with. The sun disappeared in Le Havre and the crews had to finish to preparing their boats in the rain.

Most of the teams are ready and eager to start racing. The exception were the Kiwis who were the last ones to crane their boat into the water. "We arrived last Sunday and had lots of work to do on the boat. We had to sand the hull, change all the rigging, fix the electronics and check everything", explains the skipper Hamish Pepper. Dean Barker, who will first helm the black boat Sun Microsystems ­ Team New Zealand Racing Crew, arrived last night in Le Havre.

The British student team is really excited about their first participation in this four week long one-design regatta around the French coast. "We're feeling confident. A lot of work has been done on the boat in the last two weeks and we're just looking forward to going sailing", says Simon Shaw, skipper of the British University Sailing Team whose aim is to win the Student ranking.

Shaw and his talented crew impressed the other competitors two weeks ago when in the Mumm 30 French Championship they finished top student boat.

Intent on winning this event again, the French have set up some very good teams. "I think the French have learnt a lot from Adrian Stead's Barlo Plastics
campaign. They worked and trained very hard. The results showed in the French nationals", comments Hamish Pepper.

Jean-Pierre Dick, skipper of Virbac-St-Raphaël- Générali is a good example. He selected his crew very early - they are all Olympic sailors, match racer or offshore sailors ­ in order to train a lot with two boats. "We based our programme on four regattas. We did Spi Ouest France in the Atlantic, the TriMed in the Mediterranean and the Nationals in Le Havre. We won the three of them, which is good, but not enough to win the Tour. We're now facing our main aim and will do our best to try and win the Tour de France à la Voile 2001", explains Jean-Pierre Dick.

Jimmy Pahun, skipper of Région Ile de France, will participate in this event, incredibly, for the 16th time. "I first participated in 1984. I won in in 1992, which was not that good according to the number of times I've participanted! The evolution of the Tour de France à la Voile is very interesting. Every one is coming: Michel Desjyoeaux, Franck Cammas, Pascal Bidégory and Isabelle Autissier ­ these last two two are with me ­ Olympic champions such as Tanguy Cariou and Gildas Philippe and, among the foreign teams, the best with Team New Zealand."

They all agreed that the level should be higher than ever this year and that it will be most important to be consistent.