Transat Jacques Vabre - monohull form guide

James Boyd and an expert panel give their views on the likely winners and losers

Odds	Boat	Crew	Nat	Designer	Comments
to win	60ft tris
	Open 60s
10:1	PRB	Vincent Riou & Jérémie Beyou	Fr	Finot	On fire this year - first in Calais Round Britain Race, second in Fastnet
11:1	Pindar	Emma Richards & Mike Sanderson	UK & NZL	Owen Clarke	Little data on the boat but it has been set up for shorter course racing
12:1	Sill	Roland Jourdain & Alex Thomson	Fr & UK	Lombard	Won the race in 2001. Jourdain consistently good
13:1	Ecover	Mike Golding & Brian Thompson	UK	Owen Clarke	Brand spankers - but will it make it across?
14:1	Team Cowes	Nick Moloney & Sam Davies	Aus & UK	Owen Clarke	Should be up there but is it as quick as the newer boats?
17:1	Cheminees Poujoulat-Armor Lux	Bernard Stamm & Christophe Lebas	CH & Fr	Rolland	Around Alone winner, but never seems to cut it in crewed races
14:1	Virbac	Jean-Pierre Dick & Nicolas Abiven	Fr	Farr	No data on how this new Farr boat stacks up. Could be the canine's testicles or merely a canine
16:1	VMI	Sébastien Josse & Isabelle Autissier	Fr	Finot	Been doing well this year and ability of sage-like Autissier should be a big bonus
25:1	Carrefour Prevention	Dominique Wavre & Michèle Paret	CH & P	Finot	Another boat that looks good on paper, but has never done much on the water
30:1	Arcelor-Dunkerque	Joe Seeten & Eric Dumont	Fr	Finot	ex-Temenos, UBP
50:1	Loire - Atlantique	Antoine Koch & François Robert	Fr	Nivelt	ex-Petit Navire
35:1	Garnier	Patrick de Radiguès & Elie Canivenc	Belg	Finot	ex-Aquitaine Innovations
40:1	Objectif 3	Charles Hedrich & Javier Sanso	Fr & E	Finot	ex Gartmore/Pindar
50:1	Adecco	Bob Escoffier & Servane Escoffier	Fr	Petit/Bouvet	Old boat, but much modified over the years. ex Fuji
60:1	N.C	Mike Birch & Robert Birch	Can	Briand/Lombard	Father and son team. Ex-UUNet
70:1	60ème Sud	Didier Munduteguy & Juan-Mari Odriozola	Fr & Esp	Morrison	ex Richard Tolkien Enif. Rather old
80:1	Ciments St Laurent	Georges Leblanc & Marc Nadeau	Can	Thompson	ex Hunter's Child. Rather old

The Open 60 competition in the Transat Jacques Vabre is going to be an almighty competition. Unlike the 60ft trimaran class there is no obvious winner - in our opinion any of the top eight boats is capable of winning and there are a number of new or highly modified boats within this line-up whose form it is hard to guage.

PRB, the winner of the last Vendee Globe in the hands of Michel Desjoyeaux, has been performing exceedingly well this year. Following her dismasting in the Route du Rhum last year PRB has been rerigged with a conventional fixed mast as opposed to Desjoyeaux's choice of a rotating wingmast with hinged spreaders. The boat has been going well this year winning the Calais Round Britain Race and coming second in the Open 60 division of the Rolex Fastnet Race under the leadership of Figaro sailor Vincent Roux. She seems simple and well sorted, hence she gets our vote for the top spot.

Pindar started out in our rankings at around the seventh position simply because her crew Emma Richards and Mike Sanderson have sailed her little since the boat completed her refit. She is the only boat in the Open 60 fleet fully optimised for races like the Transat Jacques Vabre (and not the Vendee Globe) and for this reason we have bumped her up to second overall. Looking out across the basin the new Pindar seems to be winning the tallest rig competition alongside the new Virbac. Another reason she has shot up our hit parade is that the first four days of the TJV look set to be upwind. Read more about Pindar here.

Sill was our original choice for first place. She has generally been the most successful boat in crewed races since the last Vendee Globe and significantly won the TJV two years ago. The boat was sold this summer to British sailor Alex Thomson, who plans to enter her in next year's Vendee Globe. Read about Alex Thomson's new program here and about his benefactor Keith Mills here. The only handbrake on Sill's potential in this race is Thomson's relative inexperience in top level short handed races such as this.



If Mike Golding's new Ecover had a few more miles on the clock (and we had more evidence of her form) then she would be our immediate choice for winning the Open 60s. Golding and Brian Thompson are both hugely experienced and the design and conception of the new Ecover has the benefit of Golding's five years of experience with his previous highly refined Groupe Finot design. She has much improved upwind potential compared to the previous Ecover which should bode well for the start of this race. If she doesn't experience teething problems on the passage across the pond then she is a likely winner. Read more about the new Ecover here.

Ellen's Open 60 is now in the hands of the two other members of the Offshore Challenge Sailing Team in Nick Moloney and Sam Davies, and has been renamed Team Cowes. Moloney sailed her to third place in the TJV two years ago. For Davies this will be her Open 60 debut, although as a former Maiden II crewman she is unlikely to find the power of the boat daunting. Kingfisher is good upwind and her more modest sail plan than the newer 60s may stand her in good stead for the beating the boats are likely to get as they pound upwind over the first few days of this race.

Listen to Nick and Sam's audio from today and read our recent interview with Nick Moloney.

There is always at least one in French races and on this occasion it is Around Alone winner Bernard Stamm who has won the prize for the boat with the multiple sponsorship and longest name - his Bobst Group-Armor Lux is now called Cheminees Poujoulat-Armor Lux. Since Around Alone this Pierre Rolland design has a new keel which is 400kg lighter with a carbon fibre foil. She also has new sails made by Incidences in D4. The boat is quick and Stamm drives the boat hard, but the boat has yet to show real form up against the A-list Open 60s (ie not the Around Alone fleet). To read our profile of this boat from Around Alone - click here.

All eyes will be on Jean-Pierre Dick's new Open 60 Virbac. She is the first full-on Open 60 from the renowned Farr Yacht Design and years of experience designing top level race boats in the Volvo Ocean Race, America's Cup and pretty much all the Anglo-Saxon racing classes gives this boat an impressive heritage. Dick earlier this year sailed the boat back from New Zealand where she was built by Cooksons and rigged by Southern Spars, westabout via the Cape of Good Hope.

The boat is very different - she has a very conservative four spreader rig, a huge cabintop and an aft cockpit and, if one is able to judge these things by simply looking at a boat, she looks a little heavy. It will be interesting to see how she performs. Read more about Virbac here.

VMI, formerly Sodebo Thomas Coville's Vendee Globe steed, would be higher up our list if the first few days of the TJV were not upwind in a blow. She is the last of our eight potential winners and has a fixed keel and a conventional, fixed two spreader rig (originally the boat has a canting rig). However clearly has potential as she showed by winning the Open 60 class in the Rolex Fastnet Race.

None of the other boats in our humble opinion have shown any form to suggest they might win, although there are some interesting characters. Among them are Whitbread veterans Dominique Wavre and Michel Paret on on the Groupe Finot-design Carrefour Prevention. After taking part in his umpeenth Route du Rhum last year since he won the first race in 1978, Mike Birch is back again sailing the former- UUNet, the current holder of the west-east singlehanded non-stop around the world record. Birch is sailing with his son Robert. Birch senior has his 73rd birthday tomorrow...

Aside from the Open 60s, there will be a good race in the Open 50 class between Conrad Humphreys and Paul Larsen on board Hellomoto (the boat Nick Moloney sailed to a class win in the Route du Rhum last year) and Jean-François Durand & Stéphane Chemin on board Defi Venden. The latter boat is a more modern Berret/Racoupeau design but the French duo will be up against the extreme hunger for success of the Humphreys/Larsen duo.