It's a wrap

Solitaire Affelou Le Figaro concludes in Port Bourgenay and France gets a new solo sailing start in Jérémie Beyou

In winning the tough fourth and final leg of the Solitaire Afflelou Le Figaro Race from Cork to Port Bourgenay, Delta Dore skipper Jérémie Beyou was able to secure first place for the 1,462 mile four leg course between France, Spain and Ireland..

His cumulative elapsed time gave him a 1 hour 21 minute lead over former Vendee Globe winner and 60ft trimaran skipper Michel Desjoyeaux sailing Geant. By Figaro standards this margin was large compared to the 11 minutes separating winner Charles Caudrelier from Yann Elies in 2004, the 13 minutes Armel Le Cleac'h beat Alain Gautier by in 2003 or the 23 minutes Kito de Pavant won by in 2002. De Pavant this year took third place overall on his Groupe Bel.

“It is a dream I can’t quite believe…Maybe I was better prepared this year with the whole team, with Fanch my preparateur," said Beyou on his arrival. "I did the right thing to keep an eye on the overall rankings and not just the leg wins. At [the Raz du] Sein, Laurent Pellecuer, who has done a fantastic race, was not giving anything away. At Penmarc’h I did something I would not usually dare do: I moved off alone in order to use my spinnaker, to keep as far ahead and to get the current at the right time. I was not all that sure and I asked myself for ages if it was a great idea and not a stupid thing to do… It was between Penmarc’h and the Glénan Islands that I built the gap before I found out I was in the lead. Winning is magical, it is my personal Grail I have been preparing years for…”

The separation of the boats on this final leg was greater than it was on the first three legs of this year's Solitaire Afflelou Le Figaro. Into Cork on the longer third leg for example 23 minutes separated the first eight boats, while on the final leg it was just over two hours.

Second placed Michel Desjoyeaux on Géant gave his thoughts on the race and the winner: “I remember six months ago, when I knew I would take part in La Solitaire, Jérémie said 'shit, it is not this year that I am going to win it', but he did! I am not at all surprised by his win. What I see of him on the water is someone who sails very fluidly, cleanly and makes few mistakes. And I can tell you he really looked for this one; he had the guts because was really shaken about! Now the weather is nice, but I can tell you that for the most part of the leg we could barely see 100 metres ahead”.

“It is a beautiful trip that finished well," said third placed Kito de Pavant on Groupe Bel. "This last leg was really tough, at times not funny at all. At one point I did not believe it possible. There are some really good people just out of the top three slots. I had to be really patient and give it my all. I have really worked hard on the whole race and found that it did not always pay off, particularly on the first two legs. At the end of the day I am really happy. It is a nice present for Groupe Bel who has come on La Solitaire for the first time and a good present for the family who have worked all summer to help me. It is good; I will be back (bursts into laughter).”

Among the other prizes for this leg Beyou won the Hublot prize for the most distance covered over a 24 hour period on the fourth leg of La Solitaire Afflelou Le Figaro race. Delta Dore covered 226 nautical miles at an average speed of 9.42 knots.

Jeanne Grégoire on Banque Populaire, one of three women to be competing, finished in 8th place, 2 hours 1 minute and 49 seconds behind the winner. Skandia's Sam Davies finished a disappointing 22nd overall having posted a 23rd on the final leg, while Liz Wardley's finished 25th overall.

This year there was little contest between the 'bizuths', those competing in the Solitaire du Figaro for the first time. This was clearly won by Italian skipper and former America's Cup and Olympic sailor Pietro D’Alí on Nanni Diesel, winner of the second leg into La Rochelle and who placed 8th overall after his 16th place on this leg.

As for Beyou, the 29 year old winning skipper from Loctudy, this is his first Solitaire win in nine attempts and he joins an illustrious list of former winners including Poupon, Le Cam, Gautier, Bourgnon, Cammas as well as those still racing in the class - Desjoyeaux, Drouglazet, Caudrelier, Vittet, de Pavant.

2005 has been a good season for Beyou having won the Generali Solo in the Mediterranean earlier in the year as well as the IB Group Challenge as part of Pascal Bidegorry's 60ft trimaran crew on Banque Populaire.

In this year's Solitaire he finished second into Bilbao-Getxo on the first leg, 10th into La Rochelle 17 minutes and 25 second behind Pietro d'Ali and was fifth into Cork. Setting out on the final leg he was second overall 10 minutes and 32 second behind Laurent Pellecuer on Cliptol Sport before winning the final leg and the race overall. Tribute must also go to Beyou's shore team of Fanch Guiffant who looked after the boat and Christopher Pratt who worked on the weather side of the Beyou's campaign in the stopovers.

Awaiting Beyou at the finish was wife Anna and son Achille as well as his sponsors from his sponsors for the last four years, Delta Dore, who work in energy, alarms and automation. The Breton company announced Beyou's win to their 520 employees via tannoy across their plant.

Beyou grew up sailing in the bay of Morlaix on the north Britanny coast with his family and began competing from an early age around Europe in his Optimist. Aged 18 he was a podium placer at the Championnat de France Espoir before becoming part of French Moth Europe team, training until he was 20 at the Pôle France school in Brest.

In 1995 aged 19, Beyou discovered the Figaro Bénéteau and sailed with veterans Bruno Jourdren and Jacques Caraës to second place in the fully crewed nationals.

At this time he was also studying business at the ESC in Brest while learning about the Figaro at the specialist school, the Pôle France Finistère Course au Large in Port La Forêt. Aged 20 he began competing in the Figaro singlehanded, doublehanded with Gaël Le Cléac’h and fully crewed with Bruno Jourdren with whom that year he won the Champion de France de Course au Large title.

From 1998 Beyou progressively started improving his results finishing in the top 10 in the Figaro class' annual championship, followed by a 7th place in 1999. In 2000 sailing with Pascal Bidegorry they won the first leg of the doublehanded Transat AG2R while Beyou came fourth overall in the Figaro championship. The next year he was third.

2002 saw the start of his collaboration with his sponsor Delta Dore and a win in the Générali Méditerranée singlehanded race and the Figaro's singlehanded annual title. With the introduction of the new Figaro Beneteau 2 in 2003 he was regularly on the podium in the races he competed in and began to sail on other boats such as Jean le Cam's Bonduelle trimaran, Jimmy Pahun's Mumm 30 and with Vincent Riou on the Open 60 PRB in the Transat Jacques Vabre. In 2004 he was runner-up champion for the annual singlehanded Course au Large prize.

With a Solitaire du Figaro win under his belt, Beyou now hopes to get an Open 60 project going and he will make a tough competitor if he makes it to the start line of the 2007 Vendee Globe.

Leg 4 results

Pos	Skipper	Boat	Arrived
		*25/08/05 at 14:45:27 in 51h45'27''
1	BEYOU Jérémie	Delta Dore	*
2	DESJOYEAUX Michel	Géant	+54'27''
3	KRAUSS Oliver	Espoir Crédit Agricole	+1h9'21''
4	MORVAN Gildas	Cercle Vert	+1h29'50''
5	VENIARD Gérald	Scutum	+1h32'5''
6	ELIES Yann	Groupe Generali Assurances	+1h38'58''
7	de PAVANT Kito	Groupe Bel	+1h44'27''
8	GREGOIRE Jeanne	Banque Populaire	+2h1'49''
9	BERENGER Nicolas	KONE Ascenseurs	+2h26'11''
10	DUTHIL Frédéric	Brossard	+2h33'34''
11	LE CLEAC'H Armel	Foncia-TBS	+2h36'45''
12	PELLECUER Laurent	Cliptol Sport	+2h40'17''
13	DROUGLAZET Eric	Crédit Maritime	+2h55'23''
14	TABARLY Erwan	Thales	+3h0'42''
15	CAUDRELIER Charles	Bostik	+3h2'55''
16	D'ALI Pietro	Nanni Diesel	+3h3'35''
17	EMIG Marc	Total	+3h21'35''
18	VITTET Dominic	ATAO Audio System	+3h38'44''
19	SVILARICH Etienne	Sogeti	+3h39'25''
20	ATTANASIO Romain	MrBookmaker.com	+3h49'44''
21	LE GAL Franck	Lenze	+3h54'22''
22	CHABAGNY Thierry	Lèbre Bermudes	+3h57'42''
23	DAVIES Samantha	Skandia	+4h20'19''
24	TROUSSEL Nicolas	All Mer	+4h40'44''
25	WARDLEY Liz	Sojasun	+5h2'43''
26	PEAN Lionel	L'Esprit d'Equipe	+5h5'31''
27	AUDIGANE Sébastien	D'Aucy Cultive la vie	+5h11'2''
28	TRIPON Armel	Gedimat	+5h12'23''
29	PETIT Benoit	Défi Santé Voile	+5h15'21''
30	BESTAVEN Yannick	Aquarelle.com	+5h32'24''
31	ROGNON Cyrille	ENO & Navi Line	+5h50'39''
32	MOUREN Jean-Paul	M@rseillentreprises	+5h54'21''
33	DEFERT Eric	Amiral de Bretagne - Suzuki	+6h30'38''
34	BIGOT Gaël	Team 117	+6h44'36''
35	NABART Laurent	Corsica	+6h51'10''
36	CASO Jean Christophe	Groupe STEC / Charente Maritime	+6h51'20''
37	BOUVET Christophe	Bo Travail !	+6h53'56''
38	RIECHERS Jorg	Germanytoo	+7h29'59''
39	FOURNIER FOCH Thierry	Cortal Consors	+7h39'5''
40	BOUGARD Patrice	Kogane	+8h25'45''
41	SEVAUX Stéphane	Sarthe	+8h47'48''
42	THETIOT Sébastien	Déclic Morbihan	+8h50'6''
DNF	LEPESQUEUX Marc	Maisons Pierre	DNF
DNC	ALFARO Amaiur	www.pays-basque-entreprises.com	DNC
DNC	BOS Christian	Raynal et Roquelaure	DNC

Overall results

Pos	Skipper	Boat	Total time
1	BEYOU Jérémie	Delta Dore	248h 49min 20s
2	DESJOYEAUX Michel	Géant	+1h20'54''
3	de PAVANT Kito	Groupe Bel	+1h58'41''
4	MORVAN Gildas	Cercle Vert	+2h17'9''
5	ELIES Yann	Groupe Generali Assurances	+2h24'22''
6	PELLECUER Laurent	Cliptol Sport	+2h29'45''
7	DUTHIL Frédéric	Brossard	+2h35'53''
8*	D'ALI Pietro	Nanni Diesel	+3h5'12''
9	TABARLY Erwan	Thales	+3h13'3''
10	CAUDRELIER Charles	Bostik	+3h18'57''
11	VENIARD Gérald	Scutum	+3h31'12''
12	GREGOIRE Jeanne	Banque Populaire	+3h50'10''
13	BERENGER Nicolas	KONE Ascenseurs	+4h21'36''
14	ATTANASIO Romain	MrBookmaker.com	+4h31'6''
15	DROUGLAZET Eric	Crédit Maritime	+5h8'18''
16	CHABAGNY Thierry	Lèbre Bermudes	+5h36'50''
17	VITTET Dominic	ATAO Audio System	+5h48'16''
18	KRAUSS Oliver	Espoir Crédit Agricole	+6h7'44''
19	PETIT Benoit	Défi Santé Voile	+6h12'28''
20	LE CLEAC'H Armel	Foncia-TBS	+6h14'31''
21	EMIG Marc	Total	+6h21'17''
22	DAVIES Samantha	Skandia	+6h24'13''
23	TROUSSEL Nicolas	All Mer	+7h31'11''
24*	SVILARICH Etienne	Sogeti	+8h8'1''
25	WARDLEY Liz	Sojasun	+8h12'46''
26*	BESTAVEN Yannick	Aquarelle.com	+9h5'42''
27	TRIPON Armel	Gedimat	+9h6'9''
28	ROGNON Cyrille	ENO & Navi Line	+9h52'29''
29	MOUREN Jean-Paul	M@rseillentreprises	+10h46'33''
30	PEAN Lionel	L'Esprit d'Equipe	+11h3'51''
31	LE GAL Franck	Lenze	+11h19'6''
32	AUDIGANE Sébastien	D'Aucy Cultive la vie	+12h22'51''
33	LEPESQUEUX Marc	Maisons Pierre	+14h43'4''
34	BIGOT Gaël	Team 117	+14h54'49''
35	BOUVET Christophe	Bo Travail !	+15h26'9''
36*	DEFERT Eric	Amiral de Bretagne - Suzuki	+16h4'1''
37	SEVAUX Stéphane	Sarthe	+16h35'40''
38*	CASO Jean Christophe	Groupe STEC / Charente Maritime	+16h54'40''
39*	RIECHERS Jorg	Germanytoo	+18h25'31''
40	BOUGARD Patrice	Kogane	+19h55'58''
41*	THETIOT Sébastien	Déclic Morbihan	+20h30'52''
42*	FOURNIER FOCH Thierry	Cortal Consors	+20h41'55''
43	NABART Laurent	Corsica	+23h10'37''