60ft trimarans head offshore

Challenge Mondial Assistance starts on Sunday

The next phase of the ORMA 60ft trimaran circuit starts this Sunday with the Challenge Mondial Assistance.

This will be the first offshore event for the 60ft trimaran fleet since the disastrous Route du Rhum last year when only three boats out of 18 starters finished and only one without stopping. Over the winter all the boats have been out of the water being modified and in many cases strengthened for the new season.

Perhaps one of the most interesting angles on this race will be how many make it from the start in Cherbourg-Octoville to Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy without breaking. If the form of last year's offshore races is anything to go buy there will be three finishers. Hopefully the teams have worked to improve their reliability over the winter. The race is fully crewed so the boats will be pushed harder, but equally there will be more crew on hand to keep these powerful racing machines from self-destructing.

The start of the race is at 1400GMT. Unlike the Challenge Mondial Assistance two years ago, this time the boats won't have to go via the Azores and can choose their own route south to Gibraltar. Total distance for the course is 2,734 miles.

Twelve boats are taking part:

Boat	Skipper	Type	Crew
Banque Covefi	Steve Ravussin	Irens 1990	Bruno GILLARD, Georges WAGNER, Nicolas PECHELIN, Gilles ANDRE
Banque Populaire	Lalou Roucayrol	Lombard 2001	Christophe Gouineau, Bruno Laurent, Mayeul Riffet, Daniel Souben,Yves Parlier
Bayer CropScience	Jean Maurel	Irens 2002	Julien Cressant,Fred Dahirel, Loïc Lingois, Jean-Christophe Mourniac, Jean-Yves Bernot
Belgacom	Jean-Luc Nelias	Van Peteghem/Prevost 2001	Luc Bartissol, Fred Brousse, Roland Jourdain, Christophe Lassègue, Pierre Mas
Bonduelle	Jean le Cam	Van Peteghem/Prevost 2000	Sébastien Audigane, Jacques Caraës, Ronan Le Goff, Philippe Mourniac, Kito de Pavant
Foncia	Alain Gautier	Van Peteghem/Prevost 2002	Nicolas Bérenger, Philippe Péché, Loïk Gallon, Ellen MacArthur
Geant	Michel Desjoyeaux	Van Peteghem/Prevost 2002	Eric Carret, Nicolas de Castro, Hugues Destremau, Hervé Jan, Vincent Riou
Gitana	Lionel Lemonchois	Gitana Design Team	François Denis, Marc Guessard, Yann Marilley, Benjamin de Rothschild, Olivier Wroczynski
Groupama	Franck Cammas	Van Peteghem/Prevost 1998	Benoît Briand, Ewen Le Clech, Jean-Baptiste Levaillant, Ronan Lucas, Franck Proffit
Sodebo	Thomas Coville	Van Peteghem/Prevost 2002	Hervé Cunningham, Fred Guilmin, Loick Le Mignon, Jacques Vincent, Martial Salvan
Sopra Group	Laurent Bourgnon	Lombard 2001	Florence Arthaud, Marc Vallin, Bruno Dubois, Xavier Dagault, Jacques Delorme,
Sergio Tacchini	Karine Fauconnier	Irens 2002	Eric Dumont, Marc Emig, Damian Foxall, Antoine Mermod, Brian Thompson

Who will win remains debatable. Favourite is probably Franck Cammas' Groupama which dominated the recent multihull grand prix in Lorient. She is not the newest boat, but is very reliable and her skipper is extremely sharp - despite flipping the boat within hours of the start of the Route du Rhum.

Otherwise TheDailySail's form guide would have Banque Populaire, Belgacom, Bonduelle, Foncia, Geant and Sodebo as likely contenders for line honours. Steve Ravussin is not to be discounted. Coming from the same Swiss pedal to the metal school as the Bourgnon brothers, Ravussin was leading the Route du Rhum last year before his boat (on that occasion Alain Gautier's old Foncia) flipped.

Sopra Group, despite her all-star crew of race veterans including Laurent Bourgnon and 1990 Route du Rhum winner Florence Arthaud, failed to show much form at the Lorient multihull grand prix and it is unlikely that even the talented Bourgnon has had a chance to sort her out since he replaced Philippe Monnet as skipper, following Monnet's run in with the law.

Sergio Tacchini is also likely to be slightly off the pace having only just been rebuilt following her near loss in the Route du Rhum. However she has an interesting crew line up including Irishman Damian Foxall (recently on Kingfisher's Jules Verne attempt) and Maiden II skipper Brian Thompson.

How Alain Gautier's Foncia performs is also questionable following the breaking of the bottom of her mast last weekend while on delivery to the start. The Foncia team have managed to use the bottom of Gitana X's old mast (broken last year in the Route du Rhum) and have been working round the clock to get the mast and deck repaired. Ellen MacArthur will be racing on board for the race.

The crews on all the boats read like a Who's Who of offshore racing (albeit mostly French) with a smattering of Le Defi Areva sailing team even including boss Pierre Mas, racing on board Jean-Luc Nelias' Belgacom alongside Roland Jourdain, skipper of the Open 60 Sill. The crew on Jean le Cam's Bonduelle includes last year's Figaro winner Kito de Pavant while legendary Vendee Globe skipper Yves Parlier will be sailing on Bayer CropSciences with new skipper Jean Maurel (Fred le Peutrec has had to undergo major surgery recently and will be convalesing for the rest of the season). djuice dragons skipper Knut Frostad is sailing on Thomas Coville's Sodebo.

The forecast at present looks like being a 10-20 knot southwest to westerly wind for the start until Monday when the weather across the course will get more complex allowing the navigators on board to work their magic.