Trimaran opener

10 ORMA 60s will be competing at the La Trinite-sur-Mer Grand Prix tomorrow

The ORMA multihull circuit fires up tomorrow with the opening races of the three day La Trinite Grand Prix. For many of the crews racing in the Bay of Quiberon will be a nostalic moment harking back to the days when this stretch of water was one of the major venues on their circuit. This will be the first time the baots have raced here since 2000.

Unfortunately Yves Parlier's radical new catamaran will now no longer be making her race debut at the Grand Prix Parlier and his team prefering to keep their powder dry for the Transat starting at the end of May. The catamaran experienced some delamination on one of her crossbeams following her qualification passage for the Transat and this is currently being sorted out.

The line up for the Grand Prix comprises 10 trimarans:

Banque Covefi - Stève Ravussin
Banque Populaire - Lalou Roucayrol
Foncia - Alain Gautier
Géant - Michel Desjoyeaux
Gitana X - Marc Guillemot
Gitana XI - Fred le Peutrec
Groupama - Franck Cammas
Sergio Tacchini - Karine Fauconnier
Sodebo - Thomas Coville
Sopra Group - Philippe Monnet

This is a familiar line-up as in the 2003 season with the exception of the changes within the Gitana camp, who are now fielding two boats. Gitana X is the lack-lustre design that was first launched for the 2002 Route du Rhum and is now being skippered by veteran trimaran skipper Marc Guillemot, while Gitana XI is the old Belgacom and being skippered by Tornado champion Fred le Peutrec, last year the skipper of the Bayer CropScience trimaran (Bayer have put their sponsorship on hold for the time being).

Obviously over the winter all the trimarans have been undergoing modifications and tweaks including many optimisations for this year's main event - The Transat. It will be interesting to see if these developments cause any rearrangement of the form.

Going on the 2003 performance, the favourite will be Franck Cammas' Groupama which won all but one race last year.

Tomorrow's forecast is for 10-20 knots from the NNE backing to the northwest over the course of the day.

Thedailysail will be reporting from La Trinite over the weekend.