Swiss into the lead

As the Tour Voile's Mumm 30 fleet set off from Vannes bound for Les Sables d'Olonne

The Mumm 30 fleet left Brittany this afternoon at 14.10 local time to be heading to Les Sables d’Olonne in Vendée, on the 7th offshore leg of the Tour de France à la Voile. For the first part of the race course the competitors sailed under spinnaker in a westerly breeze of 8 to 10 knots. The Swiss team of Ville de Geneve Carrefour Prevention rounded the show buoy in first position, but soon after, the fight between Bouygues Telecom and Toulon Provence Mediterranee Coych Hyères was on again.

After a full day off yesterday for Bastille Day, the boats left Vannes at 11.30 to cross the Gulf of Morbihan and head to the start area, off Le Crouesty. At 14.10, they crossed the start line of the 80 mile leg (Coefficient X2) to Les Sables d’Olonne. As they headed out to open water after the start the wind increased up to 12 knots and the boats headed southeast under spinnaker, leaving the islands of Belle-île, Houat and Hoëdic to starboard.

At around 16.00, a group of seven boats - Toulon Provence Mediterranee Coych Hyères , Ville du Port Bred le Reunion, Alpes Maritimes Mandelieu Theoule, Nantes Saint-Nazaire, Bouygues Telecom, Dieppe Seine Maritime and CSC ESSEC - were leading the fleet in the middle of the course.

According to Meteo France the weather forecast has the wind - currently 10 to 15 knots this afternoon should veer NNE and drop down to between 3 and 7 knots tonight. The Mumm 30s are not expected in Les Sables d’Olonne before late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

“We hope we can keep the breeze but this will be quite hard," said Bastien Clément on board Ville de Geneve Carrefour Prevention . "We’ve got a big high pressure system over our head so we will have to play with the offshore breeze during the day and the onshore breeze during the night. Everything will change when the sun will go down”.

At 18.30, the Mumm 30s were about 10 miles from the Bouée des Boeufs, off Noirmoutier, where they will be polled for the second time since the start.