Underway in the Med

Three inshore races staged at Saint Cyprien on Tour de France a la Voile

This Friday could have been a perfect day for sailing :10 to 15 knots of wind, nice sunshine, slight sea... Without any surprise, the 'big teams' of this 29th Tour de France à la Voile did well on the first two races.

Ville de Geneve-Carrefour Prevention posted a 1st and 8th, Defi Partage-Marseille 9th and 2nd, Toulon Provence Mediterranee Coychyères 4th and 6th, Matondo Congo- Route de l'équateur twice finished third and Joe Fly Sailing Team twice seventh.

At 16.00pm, the Mumm 30s could have came back in the marina, but the weather conditions were still good enough to start a third race. But it was one race too many for Matondo Congo-Route de l'équateur. Third at the second windward mark, Pierre Loic Berthet and this crew were on the right track to finish the day nicely, but the wind dropped and the race took a different turn. "We were sailing the race that has been delayed since Port Bourgenay, and we had exactly the same conditions," said the skipper." The last dogleg was just a lottery. We ended up 14th when the wind dropped. I hope we will have a bit more luck before the end of this race, because so far, it hasn't really been on our side".

Ile de France took advantage of the situation to try a nice tactical option. "We were 5th or 6th when we saw the boats in front of us slowing down in no wind. So we decided to rehoist the spinnaker and to keep going," explain skipepr Jean Pierre Nicol. "It was a bit hard to sail in an opposite direction to the finish line, but it paid off and we ended up first. It was quite magical !"

With this victory, Ile de France is catching up their average result (20th) in the second race, and manage to hold on to second overall. Defi Partage-Marseille is still ahead, followed by Ile de France, Joe Fly Sailing Team, Matondo Congo-Route de l'équateur and Ville de Geneve-Carrefour Prevention, who is now only one point for Pierre Loïc Berthet and his team.

Tomorrow, the 31 teams will leave Saint-Cyprien at 10.00 to sail to Marseille, 120 miles to the east. This leg is rated with 2x coefficient and could change the rankings. "'The first five boats are quite evenly matched," said Laurent Pages onboard Joe Fly Sailing Team. "The next race could be uncertain depending on the weather forecast. So it will be the race to win".

Results:

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Tot
1	DEFI PARTAGE MARSEILLE	T Bouchard / M Paul / D Deruelle	819
2	ILE DE France	Jean Pierre Nicol	810
3	JOE FLY SAILING TEAM	Giovanni Maspero	796
4	MATONDO CONGO ROUTE DE L'EQUATEUR	Pierre-Loic Berthet/Philippe Monnet	774
5	VILLE DE GENEVE CARREFOUR PREVENTION	Loic Furher / denis Girardet	774
6	COTES D'ARMOR	Michael Aveline	752
7	TOULON PROVENCE MEDITERRANEE-COYCHYERES	Fabien Henry/Tugdual Becquemie	733
8	ILE MAURICE-NAIADE RESORTS EBSCO	Sylvain Chtounder	672
9	NOUVELLE CALEDONIE	Damien Iehl/Vincent Portugal	660
10	DEFI BASSE NORMANDIE	Benoit Charon / Nicolas Jossier	656
11	COURRIER DUNKERQUE	Daniel Souben/Christophe Patou	654
12	MER MONTAGNE LES SAISIES INSA	R David / F Gaggero/ C Fleury	620
13	CAP SPORT-HEC-ECOLE NAVALE	Hervé Gautier/Bruno Barbarin	606
14	DIEPPE SEINE MARITIME	Romain Gibon	589
15	VILLE DU PORT-BRED-LA REUNION	Gabriel Jean-albert / Marc Guessard	577
16	PERPIGNAN MEDITERRANEE	Paul McKenzie	574
17	ESPOIRS AQUITAINS	JP Allilaire / N Radot / JJ Frebault	554
18	VanUden TU Delft	Gert Van Der Heijden	553
19	NANTES-SAINT NAZAIRE	A. Civel / G. Gendron / S.Petithuguenin	502
20	VAL THORENS	Lucas Millieret / Benoit Lequin	477
21	PARTOUCHE-CENTRALE NANTES-RTE	Erwan Aubertin/Masson Julien	463
22	ALFA LAVAL	Yoann Richomme	461
23	ESPOIR ILE DE France	Benoit Hochard / Mathieu Roynette	448
24	DEFI SCLEROSE EN PLAQUES	Stéphane Venel	423
25	CENTRALE PARIS-EPF	Tanguy Leglatin	416
26	BREST GRANDES ECOLES-ENSIETA-ESC	Marie Riou/Eric Peron/alex Pallu de La Barriere	414
27	BIENNE VOILE	R Hartmann/L Muller/T Studer	408
28	PORT AUTONOME LA ROCHELLE	Jean Marc Allaire	404
29	ELLES EN MER	Kiny Parade	388
30	EIGSI CHARENTE MARITIME-ENSAM	Bertrand Svilarich/Maximilien Coyon	368
31	T SERVICE INTERIM-REGION BRUXELLES CAPITALE	Laurent Declercq / JM Fobert-Noel	332