Arrival parking lot

Result turnaround as leaders fall into a wind hole off Dieppe in the Tour Voile

The M 30s of the Tour de France Sailing Race left Dunkerque yesterday evening, arriving at noon in Dieppe. This 94 nautical miles offshore leg was raced in light winds, and Manche Basse-Normandie (Benoît Charon, Nicolas Jossier) did the best performance. However, big conditions approaching Dieppe allowed some “outsiders” into the top ten! On the other hand, some favourites lost everything getting stuck in front of Dunkerque without wind. Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ronan Dreano) finished second in this race, and is now leader overall .

Covering 94 nautical miles in 15 hours of very difficult sailing - the fleet remained very close throughout the evening, but it spread out into the night. A few boats broke away of the others on the way up to Dieppe, but a few miles away from the finish line, a whole group got stuck in a wind hole. Among them were yesterday’s leader Toulon Provence Méditerranée – COYCHyères (Fabien Henry) and Elcimaï – Ville de Marseille (Dimitri Deruelle). They are now 18th overall, having finished 20th into Dieppe.

The crew of Manche Basse-Normandie (Benoît Charon / Nicolas Jossier) won this offshore leg to the second stopover of the Tour Voile. “At the first buoy we were positioned okay, then we chose a wrong option off the coast and were behind everybody. Thanks to a wind shift, we went back in the first half of the fleet. After that, we only had to go, boat after boat, up to the first place!” Ville de Genève-Carrefour Prévention (Etienne David) and Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ronan Dreano) couldn’t help it! But it remained a tight race to the end when the wind dropped and the three leaders stopped off Dieppe, allowing Ile de France (Jimmy Pahun) to come back to the third place.

The student team on board Solidarités Nouvelles pour le Logement (Eric Brezellec) are now sixth. Her skipper is satisfied by this: “we trained a lot this year, our aim on the Tour Voile is to finish on the podium. Tonight we took the wrong option at cap Gris-Nez, but we managed to catch up at the end of the race”. Défi Arts et Métiers – Icade – contre la SEP (Julien Marcelet) ranked tenth, just before CSC – HEC – Ecole Navale (Hervé Gautier).

Meanwhile Val Thorens remains first in the amateur results, Alexis Littoz and Lucas Millieret’s crew keeping the Bouygues Telecom spinnaker, as leader in the amateur class. Ville du Port – Région Réunion (Gabriel Jean-Albert) is now second ahead of Saint-Malo Purflo Team SNBSM (François Lebourdais). “It was a very exacting race, especially as far as strategy is concerned! Since the beginning we were in the leading group, but we didn’t manage the first wind shift properly, so we ranked only in the second half of the fleet in front of Boulogne, far away from the leaders. It is only in front of Dieppe that we could find some more wind.”

So Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ronan Dreano) is the new leader of the overall, but only three points ahead of Bâtisseurs du Morbihan (Victor Lanier / Nicolas Pauchet). Manche Basse-Normandie (Benoît Charon, Nicolas Jossier) is now on the third step of the podium.

The competitors will leave the harbour at 11.30am tomorrow for windward-leeward races off Dieppe.