Tour Voile update

The Daily Sail catches up with Tour Voile president Manfred Ramspacher at the Salon Nautique

Last week the new course and dates for the annual month long sprint around the French coastline in the Tour de France a la Voile were announced. At Paris Boat Show The Daily Sail caught up with Manfred Ramspacher, president of the event's organisers SA Tour Voile.

Ramspacher is on a roll with his event and expects numbers to again increase this year with 45 Mumm 30s taking part - there are around 110 in existence around Europe, so he still has some way to go... With his race taking up one month, this is a considerable commitment by a lot of people. One reason for the increase this year is that Ramspacher believes that the end of the America's Cup cycle will see several of his regular professional teams returning including crews from Le Defi and Team New Zealand. "The general feeling is that this year, after the America’s Cup, we’ll have many high level foreign teams coming back from New Zealand," he says.

Among these teams is the anticipiated return of 2000 winner Adrian Stead. "I am in touch now with some guys from the America’s Cup team GBR Challenge like Adrian Stead and I hope to have one or two professional teams coming from that team," says Ramspacher. "But I did not speak recently with Adrian but I think it could be done. We also have some talks with the boat of last year with the Royal Thames YC - I think they will come back - and possibly Simon Shaw who won the student ranking in 2001 and maybe some more. I have heard many things, but they were not sure at the time. I’d like to have 3-5 British boats."

Last month Ramspacher was invited to a dinner at the Royal Thames YC in London "It was great, with 100 people discussing the Tour and the entry. I was very pleased so many people were so interested in the event. It is hard to think when you are in Paris that there are so many people in a club like that thinking about the race."

Back once again will be the 2002 winners Nantes St Nazaire and Tour Voile veteran Jimmy Pahun on Region Ile de France who finished second this year. The Swiss team and Antibes Juan les Pins are also expected back. This is one of the extraordinary things about the Tour Voile - the loyalty. Rampacher says that this year 82% of the teams had taken part the previous year. Why is this? "Because they love the event," explains Ramspacher. "To race at sea is great, very hard, very high level and the event is very competitive."

Aside from this he is expecting the return of the strong Australian student team who won their class this year, a full scale project from Italian Mumm 30 champion Vasco Vascotto and says he has also had talks with the likes of Roy Heiner. "I’d like to have at least one third of the race with foreign teams. I’d like some teams from the north of Europe like Norway and Sweden. That would be great, because they have some very good sailors".

This will be the Tour Voiles' fourth year in the Mumm 30 and in September they announced that they would be staying with that boat until 2008. "We have new owners of Mumm 30 recently – this year and last year - and for them it is very important to have a few years to get back their money on their boat," explains Ramspacher.

Course-wise the 2003 Tour Voile really is covering the entire coast of France starting in Dunkirk and all the offshore legs are of a similar length. This year there was a 240 mile leg around Ouessant to St Nazaire. For 2003 they have introduced Camaret-sur-Mer, just inside of Brest harbour to divide this long leg up. There are also new stopovers at St Maxime, opposite St Tropez and at the former commercial port of La Ciotat where there is now a new 900 berth marina.

With the success of the Tour Voile, one wanders how long it will be before a similar event is run in the UK?