G-class movement

Bruno Peyron talks to The Daily Sail about his plans for The Race 2004, The Race Tour and a new 80ft one design maxi-cat

The Race Tour

As originally announced in these pages back in May, The Race Tour is similar to The Race - but with stops. Some would say that this is a direct two fingers up at the Volvo Ocean Race, but Peyron feels that he is firstly responding to a demand from the market and secondly providing the G-class with more to do in the four yearly race cycle and therefore providing a better return for sponsors.

The prospective course for The Race Tour includes four legs - the first to start in the Mediterranean from where the boats will sail to the first stopover in south east Asia. From there the event will continue to California, and finally northern Europe. At 33,000 miles this will make it by far the longest round the world race in terms of mileage, although not necessarily the longest in terms of time - remember the maxi-multihulls are capable of regularly covering 500 miles in a day and the record is a fraction off 700 miles at present. The duration of The Race Tour is expected to be around six months.

Peyron is keen to introduce a combination of pitstop and gates as well to satisfy sponsors requirements in certain markets and for media purposes. On the first leg to Asia there is the possibility of a pitstop in Cape Town and from there the route shows the boats leaving Australia to starboard. If the event were to have its first proper stop in Singapore or Hong Kong, then Peyron believes there are obvious pitstops to be made in China and Japan before making the Pacific crossing.

In contrast the next leg will almost certainly be from San Francisco to New York non-stop on the traditional clipper ship course. Finally there will be the leg back to Europe which will almost certainly culminate in pitstops in countries such as France, hopefully the UK, Holland, Norway and Germany before finishing - we would hazard a guess - in Sweden. However Peyron seems flexible when it comes to the exact route. "Maybe we can put a gate in at Brazil if we get a Brazilian syndicate," he cites as an example. "We will use the tools for what is best."

In the stopovers there is the potential for more 'short course' racing although quite what this would mean in the context of 110ft catamarans is hard to imagine.

Obviously this event potentially represents a huge threat to the Volvo Ocean Race but come back to The Daily Sail tomorrow to discover the latest on this in our interview with Roger Nilson

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