In the Yellow Jersey

We speak to Deneen Demourkas, current leader of the Tour Voile

If you weren’t aware, there are currently two marathon races going on in France at the moment. Firstly the famous one – The Tour de France, secondly the one loved by every sailor who does it: The Tour Voile.

What ties these two events together is not just the anti-clockwise ‘circumnavigation’ of France, or the extreme effort the competitors have to put in over the weeks, but also the fact that these two prestigious French sporting events both have Americans in the lead. Yesterday Lance Armstrong took the lead in the cycling and a couple of days previous Deneen Demourkas took the lead with her American Mumm 30 entry Groovederci in the sailing competition.

Unable to get Lance on the phone, we spoke to Demourkas who was in transit overland from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, where the race re-starts today.

“It’s been fantastic,” explains Demourkas on her first impressions of the race, “I’ve experienced nothing like it before.”



A regular on the Farr 40 scene with husband John (a VP of haircare giant Nexus), Demourkas got into Mumm 30 sailing last year when she decided she wanted to do the Tour. They were also looking for a boat to do some Wednesday night racing on back at their home in Santa Barbara, California, as “the 40 is always on the road.”

In the end the pair bought two Mumm 30s. One is back at home having an easy time on a Wednesday night with husband John, the other is in France putting serious some hard fought miles under the keel.

Family responsibilities are limited to John’s thirteen year old daughter and the couple have in addition three dogs and four birds. “And three boats,” I point out. “I’m a housewife, suddenly obsessed with yachting!” clarifies Demourkas.

So has the Tour lived up to expectations so far? “I think that would be easy because I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Demourkas. “I tend to go into things like this with the thoughts that ignorance is bliss! But it has just been an incredible circus with village, the assistants’ camp, the sailing that we have done and packing up the circus every other day and going to the next town. It’s quite incredible to watch happen.”

Things looked promising from the off for Groovederci, winning the opening race in Dunkerque. Prominent sailors in the team include Bouwe Bekking, Laurent Pages and Jeremy Bayou. In fact it’s quite a multi-national effort which includes Americans, a Kiwi and a Dane too.

However as Demourkas explains, although the team has bonded well, she relinquished the helm on that first race: “Bouwe wasn’t in town and Jeremy was to be tactician. His [Jeremy’s] English isn’t that great and even when you both speak perfect English it can be hard to make calls sometimes – quickly enough. At the start the wind started to pump up to 30 knots and I didn’t feel comfortable that Jeremy and I would be able to do much. So I told Laurent to drive and he and Jeremy did a fantastic job and we won.”



From the start on the 28 June, the team have been able to post regular, consistently good, results which now sees them head the leaderboard. “Up until the last race in La Rochelle we have finished no race worse than eighth,” says Demourkas.

The Tour breaks down into three classes. General (which has 7 entries this year) - for the professional outfits that include Groovederci and teams such as Jimmy Pahun’s Region Ile de France and Sylian Chtounder’s Theoule Mandelieu MBH. The Amateur division has the most entries with thirteen and there are nine entries in the Student division. These numbers are slightly lower than previous editions of the Tour.

“They are all very good,” says Demourkas of the other classes, “there have been some fantastic student teams and amateur teams.” Would the race benefit from more professional entries? “I think so, it would be great. It would be a good challenge for the amateurs and the students too.”

To date Groovederci has not won an offshore race, something Demourkas is very keen to do in this final Mediterranean section. “Well we have come close. In one race we were in the lead for eighty miles and lost it in the last twenty and we kind of have a feeling that we’re slow in conditions of like 10-15 knots. We’re not quite sure how we are going to change that. We might look at how we’re sailing the boat.

During the offshore legs the crews are allowed to adjust their rig settings at any time. “We’re trying everything trust me!” confirms Demourkas. “Even getting down to moving the mast step although we haven’t actually done that yet. I think boat handling is something we are going to work on in those conditions.”

Offshore they have managed to keep clear of the hard stuff, but have come close as Demourkas explains: “There’s quite a lot of rock hopping and quite a few boats have hit. Just on this last offshore from [Port] Bourgenay to La Rochelle, after the start there was a boat three boat lengths to windward and all of a sudden Wham!! We were in five meters of water, but you never know what’s out there – at that stage we decided to go a little more offshore!”

One of the most interesting parts of the Tour are the onshore arrangements, with the whole shebang travelling with the fleet. Each team have their own support crew and vehicles, for Groovederci they have a big Hertz truck that Demourkas explains is fitted with a cooker and a fridge. They set up a tent with picnic tables and take breakfast an dinner in the camp.

In charge of this for the team is Herve Quilliec which Demourkas says is “the best thing I did. He has worked with Amer Sports One in the last Volvo and knew exactly what to do. It has been handled very well.”

The camp, which Demourkas refers affectionately to as “The pikey camp”, many teams are sleeping under canvas. “There are kids camping in tents. They have been withstanding 50 knots and pouring rain and it’s been quite brutal in the first half for those guys!”

Their team has been staying in hotels, but says Demourkas, this has been for her the worst part of the Tour. “I am having a hard time with the hotel rooms, there’s no Biltmore [an upmarket chain in the States] or anything like that. I just don’t think there are any best hotels. In the places we have been you want to be convenient to the boat and the camp, and it hasn’t been pretty.

“The only stress has really been not being able to unpack. You’re constantly moving and living out of your bags and then on the road again.”

One thing that runs through the whole fleet is the camaraderie. “The atmosphere has been pretty nice,” Demourkas describes. “Everyone is really helping out. In Dunkerque one of the teams lost their rig and we had a spare which we gave them to use. Yesterday our boat captain was working on the Dutch boat. In the camp here, if you need food or wine, then you just go to the neighbours!”

The French still seem a little confused about the Groovederci team however. “I have got a lot of questions of why we put the American flag on our boat when we’re at the harbour. And questions of why we are an American entry, when I have an international crew. I explain: ‘Well I am American, it’s my boat and I pay the entry!’”

When it comes down to the cost of the whole Tour Demourkas equates to close the amount for running their Farr 40 for a year. Does this represent value for money? “Ask me when I add that up! I think so. The budget for this is near the Farr 40 budget for the year and we’re doing this in a month. It’s a bit more extreme but we’re doing a hell of a lot more sailing.”

It seems that Demourkas is smitten with the Tour, much like everyone else who has done it. “I just think making the decision to come here and do this event was one of the best things I have done. I think because it’s pretty raw – it’s just sailing. It has this sub culture here with the pikey camp and it’s just all about sailing. It’s inshore, it’s offshore, it’s just great.”

With the boats arriving by truck to Saint Cyprien, close to the Mediterranean border with Spain, the teams race eastwards over the next ten days to the finish in Sainte Maxime on 31 July.


Mistral conditions in last years Tour

Grooverderci scored their worse result (a 25th) on the last inshore race in La Rochelle and have lost “a little of their comfort margin.” They are also doing some crew changes at this point which include Stu Banantyne coming in for Bouwe Bekking.

So a big thumbs up for the Tour? “Definitely” says Demourkas. And what about Lance chances of winning in ‘the other tour’? “When we have had time we have been watching it. Lance is an incredible athlete and I would like to see that happen.”