Cammas shows his skill

ORMA 60 skipper demolishes the opposition on day one of the Extreme 40's iShares Cup, Marseille

Curcuit rookie Franck Cammas and his team Groupama took an early lead after the first day of racing in home waters at the iShares Cup, Marseille. With four races completed on the first day of the three-day series, in a variable and shifty 5-10 knots, the French team topped the leaderboard with only a few hours practice in the high-performance Extreme 40. Romping to pole position the team filed a near perfect scorecard with a 1,3,1,1, proving that their seamless teamwork as they have so repeated shown in ORMA 60 trimarans transmutes to the smaller catamaran class.

Cammas was excited after his team's positive result following their first full day in the Extreme 40. "There wasn't a huge amount of wind on the course today but we still got in some close. Every leg of each race was really tactical. We're racing only a few metres from the beach and this piece of water is known as a tricky place to sail. Our tactician Steve Ravussin did really well today. We have learned that a good start is really important in these short 20 minute races. It's all still to play for and luck seems to be key in the final result !"

Nearest rival Basilica trail the French leaders by three points and remain close contenders in this regatta, scoring top three finishes all day. "We made a few basic mistakes," boat Captain James Grant reflected on the British team's performance. "We made a few errors that we shouldn't have."

Ireland's Justin Slattery, a former Volvo Ocean Race sailor and Basilica trimmer continued: "Groupama are the top mulithull sailors in the world with a good track record in the ORMA 60s and have been breaking all the world records at the moment so it's a really good challenge to sail against them. Their team are new to the Extreme 40 but it hasn't taken them long to get to grips with the boat."

Third on the podium is BT , the former Offshore Challenges Sailing Team, skippered by Nick Moloney and with guest sailor Seb Josse calling tactics. "Today we just focused on simple strategies. In Munich we struggled to produce good starts, so here we're trying to start well and keep moving forward," Moloney explained. "Seb and I sailed around the world together and having him on board is far from an unknown for me. Our team communicates a lot, we have a good chain of discussion so all round it was a pretty good day.

"We're really pleased to have finished the day in third, especially after such a bad final race." Moloney continued, referring to their sixth place finish in race four. "We were given a penalty for a port-starboard incident with Team SLAM/ABN AMRO and caused a bit of havoc. After that we just couldn't come back and kept getting stuck on the wrong side of the course."

The rest of the fleet remain tightly knit with only three-points separating fourth and seventh place. Holmatro , skippered by Andreas Hagara closed the day in fourth place overall with Volvo Ocean Race , skippered by class builder Göran Marström in fifth. New to the Extreme 40 circuit, the Swedish team spent the early races finding their feet at the back of the fleet, then sealing the day with a second and a fourth that sent the team into a noisy cheer.

Tommy Hilfiger had a tough start to the regatta, finishing the day in last place, a first for the American team so far this series, after suffering from trouble with their gennaker furler in races four and five.

Skipper Stan Schreyer knows that they will need to improve in days to come: "Munich was a bit bitter sweet for us. I looked back at the Munich results and we started in better form than we finished so we're trying to change that here in Marseille. We didn't have the strongest start to the event today so tomorrow we'll try to turn that around, and focus on our boat-speed."

Scoring races resumes tomorrow at 1400 hours local time. Alan Hillman, iShares Cup Race Manager explained. "We're hoping for a better weather window tomorrow to get the racing back on schedule. After a difficult opening day which saw some of the best sailors in the world struggling to remain consistent, we're hoping the tomorrow teams will be able to show their true colours."