Le Cléac’h takes leg two

29 boats in over the course of an hour at end of Solitaire du Figaro's second leg into La Rochelle

A horizon full of spinnaker slowly grew larger at the La Rochelle finish of leg two of the Solitaire du Figaro.

In the end among a tightly contested fleet it was Armel Le Cléac’h on Créaline who finally crossed the line in first place at 10:43:58 French time under blue skies and flat seas with barely a breath of wind under full main and gennaker.

Just over 12 mins later Vendee Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux on board Géant crossed in second after working hard trimming the gennaker to every whisper of wind, continually casting an eye over his shoulder at the rapidly advancing pack behind him.

Finally the pressure lifted at 10:55:20, Erwan Tabarly on Thalès completing the podium at 10:56:28. Previous leg winner Yann Eliès just missed the podium by 20 seconds.

On the overall elapsed time results after two legs it is Yann Eliès who now leads followed by Armel Le Cléach and Alain Gautier.

"It’s a great moment to win a Figaro leg," commented Le Cléac’h on his arrival. "I can’t take in what has happened yet. It was hard right up to the end, especially last night as we had very little wind. Victory came my way early this morning when Pascal Bidégorry found himself caught up in a fishing net."

Just behind him the race was on with Michel Desjoyeaux angrily trying to disperse the press boats. "You wouldn’t dream of approaching a footballer on the middle of the playing field would you?" he launched, desperately hanging onto his second place just a handful of minutes from victory. After the finish he seemed fairly resigned: "It’s just a normal Figaro leg: Hard, tiring and as a result you lose a bit of lucidity. You have to keep on believing you can do it though. There’s always little options to play but it’s always risky - you make good progress then you’re becalmed. That’s the name of the game."

Erwan Tabarly on Thalès was delighted with his third place: "It wasn’t just the end that was difficult! It was rather tough with the heat and very weak wind. We didn’t have much luck with the fleet coming right back together again - every time you got ahead the boats would concertina and come back from behind. I’m very happy with my position and the structure of the boat is holding together!" he said ironically as the boat glided through the calm.

Twenty seconds from a podium finish Yann Eliès on Groupe Générali was disappointed. "It didn’t start off well. It’s not party time! When we set out from Bilbao the main route taken seemed to me to be a bit extreme so I decided to stick on the direct course. Loick Peyron and Alain Gautier did likewise so it struck me as a reasonable choice. The last miles were tight to say the least."

After rounding Belle Ile with a one-hour lead yesterday, Pascal Bidegorry on Région Aquitaine was robbed of victory overnight, finally taking the line back in fifth 14 minutes behind the leader, tears of frustration welling up.

Less than a minute behind was Alain Gautier on Foncia. "Hard, hard, hard!" he said, "well not hard, easy conditions but really difficult to keep up your speed. There was a bit of sea during the leg and lots of plastic bags to slow you down. Then I was becalmed at Belle Ile and tried to get going again at Bivorgeaux but was entangled by a net again. The end of the night was considerably more productive. I managed a coup in a stable 12 knots of winds and shot by a good few skippers. Pascal (Bidegorry) really did well to be going at such speed.”

Marc Emig took the honours in the rookie class with a 13th place 26m 43s after the overall winner, in good company among former winners such as Eric Drouglazet, Kito de Pavant and Gilles Chiorri. It was a disappointed Yves Le Blevec who came in about 10 minutes later in 19th and Brit Sam Davies (Skandia) put in a fine performance overnight to complete the rookie podium in 29th place with a time of 11h38’14”. Popular Dutch sailor Sander Bakker on board Egeria came home 34th suffered a similar fate to Jeanne Grégoire Skipper AG2R who finished 31st, when he fell asleep and ran aground.

Fortunately he too was able to continue the race and was characteristically buoyant mood. “We were in very light winds and when I went down below to have a thirty minute nap we were two hours from the beach given the conditions. Unfortunately I slept through my two alarm clocks and was woken when I ended up on the rocks. The little waves there kept picking up the boat and slamming it metre by metre further inshore. I spent 20 minutes trying to use my jib to bear away, even hanging onto the end of the boom at one point to try to lift the back end out of danger. Finally it all came good with all the effort. Just prior to the incident I was really enjoying the sail, filling up the ballast in 17 knots of true wind speed earlier on, and I was just 4.4 miles from the leader. Things can only get better!”

Results;

Pos	Skipper	Boat	Time
1	LE CLEAC'H Armel	Créaline	finished on 08/08/03 at 10:43:58 in 67h30'58''
2	DESJOYEAUX Michel	Géant	+ 11'22''
3	TABARLY Erwan	Thalès	+ 12'10''
4	ELIES Yann	Groupe Générali Assurances	+ 12'22''
5	BIDEGORRY Pascal	Région Aquitaine	+ 13'40''
6	GAUTIER Alain	Foncia	+ 14'37''
7	BEYOU Jérémie	Delta Dore	+ 14'57''
8	PEYRON Loïck	Fujifilm	+ 17'41''
9	PELLECUER Laurent	Cliptol Sport	+ 18'04''
10	CAUDRELIER Charles	Bostik Findley	+ 19'36''
11	DROUGLAZET Eric	David Olivier	+ 22'33''
12	DE PAVANT Christophe	Crash Bandicoot	+ 23'50''
13	EMIG Marc	Espoir Total Course au Large	+ 26'43''
14	CHIORRI Gilles	32 01 Météo Consult Groupe Prosodie	+ 28'57''
15	ATTANASIO Romain	Port Trebeurden	+ 29'45''
16	PETIT Benoit	Défi Santé Voile	+ 32'51''
17	ARTAUD Christophe	Petits Petons	+ 35'22''
18	MORVAN Gildas	Cercle Vert	+ 36'10''
19	LE BLEVEC Yves	Rêve de Grand-Actual Intérim	+ 36'51''
20	CHABAGNY Thierry	Petit Navire Le Bon Goût du Large	+ 37'09''
21	ESCOFFIER F.Y.	Crêpes Whaou !	+ 37'10''
22	MOUREN Jean-Paul	Marseille Entreprises	+ 37'17''
23	PEAN Lionel	Nouvel Observateur	+ 37'18''
24	GUERIN Ronan	Amandine & Chérie	+ 40'42''
25	GRIMONT Damien	Soletanche-Bachy	+ 41'11''
26	THIERCELIN Marc	Bermudes	+ 50'31''
27	BOISSIERES Arnaud	MBD Design - Sorelec	+ 52'08''
28	BOUGARD Patrice	Kogane	+ 53'49''
29	DAVIES Samantha	Skandia	+ 54'16''
30	SEVAUX Stéphane	Sarthe	+ 1h08'03''
31	GREGOIRE Jeanne	Skipper AG2R	+ 1h08'35''
32	TOULORGE Alexandre	Ville de Cherbourg - Crédit Mutuel	+ 1h27'02''
33	BAKKER Sander	Egeria	+ 1h51'35''
34	RIOU Gwenaël	Espoir Crédit Agricole	+ 2h13'00''
35	BOUVET Christophe	Savoy Open Race Télé Monte Carlo	+ 2h37'29''
36	DUPONT Daniel	Art Immobilier Construction	+ 4h12'26''
37	ALFARO Amaiur	Eki	+ 4h12'55''
38	LEBRETON Eric	CYP	+ 4h16'20''
39	BOS Christian	Raynal et Roquelaure	+ 4h16'26''
40	AGUSTA Corrado	Sector Sport Watches	+ 4h17'39''
41	PILAT Eric	Altaventure-SNSM	+ 4h31'32''