New and fast or old but tested

We look at the Open 60 runners and riders in the forthcoming Route du Rhum

End of October 2006 and the large inner basins lying in the shadow of St Malo old town's crenellated ramparts are the fullest they've ever been with boats readying themselves for Sunday's start of the eighth Route du Rhum singlehanded transatlantic race across the Atlantic to Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe.

While the Transat (formerly the OSTAR) may be more hardcore event, crossing the north Atlantic the 'wrong' way and having the longer history, the Route du Rhum has become an equally 'classic' four yearly singlehanded transatlantic race. The event is steeped in history and while it has evolved and grown, by for example introducing new classes, its route has not changed and its challenge remains the same as it has always been: competitors having the stuffing knocked out of them in stiff autumnal North Atlantic gales as they leave the English Channel and Bay of Biscay, before they reach the trade wind conveyor belt propelling them towards the Caribbean. In horse racing terms it is like a Grand National followed by a lengthy home straight.

This Route du Rhum, there are many boats entered in classes for 50 and 40ft monohulls and multihulls, much like the OSTAR as it was in its halycon years of the 1970s and 80s, but the classes grabbing the most attention in this race are the ORMA 60 trimarans, the Open 60s and the new addition for this race, the Class 40.

The MultiCup grand prix series for the 60ft trimarans may have had a pitiful attendance this year, but the turn-out of 12 boats for the Route du Rhum proves the appetite remains among skippers and sponsors for campaigning these amazing craft offshore in shorthanded races, a fact the class organisers may one day wake up to. For the Route du Rhum the five MultiCup boats and their skippers - the likes of Franck Cammas, 2002 Route du Rhum winner Michel Desjoyeaux and Pascal Bidegorry - are being rejoined by some old faces like Thomas Coville, Steve Ravussin, Yvan Bourgnon and even Alain Gautier.

In the Route du Rhum four years ago the 60ft trimaran fleet was decimated by hurricane force winds (much like the Velux 5 Oceans fleet were earlier this week) resulting in the record fleet of 18 boats being reduced to three survivors who made it to the finish line. Some minor amendments have been introduced to the class rules in an attempt to prevent this happening again, but following the carnage in the 2002 race and again in the 2005 Transat Jacques Vabre, it will be interesting to see what the attrition rate will be on this occasion. We hope it will be small.

An equally competitive class will be the IMOCA 60 monohulls. While this time round no new 60ft trimarans have been built for the Route du Rhum, there are three brand new Open 60s. These represent a wholescale evolution over the previous generation of boats, however they are all freshly out of the box and it remains to be seen if they have had enough work up time to compete with the more tried and tested older generation boats.

The most exciting development with this Route du Rhum has been the introduction of the new Class 40. With canting keels and carbon fibre construction prohibited, campaign costs are dramatically reduced and this format is clearly proving to be a winning one with 25 boats competing, making it the biggest class in this year's race with a line-up that includes three budding stars of the British solo sailing scene - Nick Bubb, Phil Sharp and Ian Munslow, all seasoned former Mini Transat competitors.

While the outcome of every Route du Rhum on the water seems to warrant holding a major place in the annals of yachting racing history, part of its attraction is the spectacle of the fleet amassed inside St Malo's basin. This attracts spectators like no other sailing event - the Vendee Globe many be huge, but the Route du Rhum has many more boats to see (including the extraordinary looking ORMA 60s), a longer history and thus more 'heroes', a bigger village, and a fairy-tale looking old town complete with Disney-style turrets as a backdrop. It is for this reason that an estimated one million people will pass through the Route du Rhum village over pre-start week.

One thing lacking from St Malo this year has been driving wind and rain and the general feeling that the skippers are about to set out into a week of hell on the water (as statistically they will be - any race leaving the English Channel at this time of year is going to come up against a major depression sooner or later). But for the last 24 hours St Malo has been calm and uncharacteristically sunny, umbrellas replaced by Oakleys. This clement weather looks set to be with us all the way through to the start when the forecast is for a disappointing 5-10 knots from the west - at least this is upwind, otherwise the event might losing its reputation...

(See more pics from St Malo on the following pages....)

As ever thedailysail will be looking at the form in the Route du Rhum's three most significant classes, starting today with the Open 60s:

Open 60 form guide

Odd x:1	Skipper	Boat	Nat	Designer	Built	Launched	Ex
5	Jean Le Cam	VM Matériaux	FRA	Marc Lombard	JMV Industries	Jun-04
6	Roland Jourdain	Sill & Veolia	FRA	Marc Lombard	JMV Industries	Apr-04
8	Vincent Riou	PRB	FRA	Farr Yacht Design	CDK Composites	Sep-06
10	Brian Thompson	Artemis	GBR	Owen Clarke	Southern Ocean Marine	2002	ex Hexagon/Pindar
12	Dominique Wavre	Temenos	SWI	Owen Clarke	Southern Ocean Marine	Jun-06
15	Jean-Pierre Dick	Virbac-Paprec	FRA	Farr Yacht Design	Cookson	Apr-03
18	Jérémie Beyou	Delta Dore	FRA	Farr Yacht Design	JMV Industries	Aug-06
25	Armel Le Cléac'h	Brit Air	FRA	Groupe Finot		Jun-98	ex Sodebo/VMI
30	Marc Guillemot	Safran	FRA	Owen-Clarke, Humphries, Gautier, Belgrano	Martin Marine	Feb-00	ex Kingfisher/Team 888/Skandia
60	Anne Liardet	Roxy	FRA	Groupe Finot		May-00	ex PRB
80	Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty	Maisonneuve-Région Basse-Normandie	FRA	Angelo Lavranos	Walter Antunes	2005	Ex Galileo
200	Philippe Fiston	Adriana Karembeu Paris	FRA	Groupe Finot	JMV Industries	Jun-94	ex Sceta Calberson/Geodis/Voila.fr/UUDS

While the field of Open 60s competing in this year's Route du Rhum may be of a similar size to the race four years ago, the line-up is much more competitive and features not only three brand new boats but also several new and highly talented skippers.

The three new boats are the two Farr designs - the new PRB of Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou and Delta Dore of last year's Solitaire du Figaro winner, Jeremie Beyou - and the new Temenos of Swiss Whitbread round the world race and solo round the world veteran Dominique Wavre. All three boats are more powerful than their predecessors - they have more stability, more beam, probably heavier keels, more water ballast and larger sail plans - and all three are phenomenal pieces of 21st century yacht racing machinery.

We will look at the design and detailing of these three boats in more detail next week but in essence the Farr boats seem more quirky each featuring a wealth of gadgets and widgets, compared to Wavre's boat. Just looking at their rigs for example - PRB has a spreadless rotating wingmast with deck spreaders, Delta Dore (below) has a rotating wingmast but with three set of spreaders which hinge on the mast, while with Temenos the highly experienced Dominic Wavre has stuck with what he says he likes - a classic fixed mast with three spreaders, but which is large and able to carry a considerable acreage of sail.



While all three boats will be weapons reaching or upwind in moderate to heavy conditions, all lack time on the water and our feeling - and those of the other race pundits who have kindly provided input into our form guide - is that only the highly talented Riou and his team, having previously had experience of two other Open 60 new builds and a wealth of technical expertise, have the ablility to launch a race boat and make it competitively straight out of the box. Weather-wise in the race if conditions prove moderate to heavy, when these boats should excel, but it is also likely in these conditions that being so new they may suffer gear failure given their short work-up period. In lighter upwind conditions, as the boats are likely to experience on start day, the narrower, older boats should still have the upper hand.



So who do we think will win? Race pundits are giving the nod to the two Marc Lombard designs, Sill et Veolia of Roland Jourdain and the former Bonduelle of Jean le Cam, who came second in the Vendee Globe. Le Cam, one of two three time Solitaire du Figaro winners, a past Formula 40 champion, Whitbread sailor and generally one of the most talented offshore sailors in France now has a new sponsor in VM Materiaux and his boat's paintjob has changed from flourescent yellow to an equally startling shade of strawberry (see above). Both Lombard designs have had considerabe work carried out on them since the Vendee Globe. Sill, readers will remember, suffered severe resonance problems with her carbon fibre keel foil from the outset and despite this being beefed up developed a crack during the Vendee Globe forcing Jourdain to retire. The keel has now been replaced and quietly Jourdain has been working with ABN AMRO and BMW Oracle Racing designer Juan Kouyoumdjian on the optimisation of the boat. While work has been carried out on Sill below the water, the focus on le Cam's boat has been above it. The boat was dismasted in the Calais Round Britain Race and has since been fitted with a new taller spar and a larger sail plan (both boats are fitted with rotating wingmasts and deck spreaders).

Given the optimisation work on both boats and level of Open 60 experience of their skippers, we feel that le Cam and Jourdain are favourites for the Route du Rhum, le Cam beating Jourdain, because past form shows he normally does. For the reasons stated above we put Riou in third place, although there is equal chance of him romping home in first place by a country mile or pulling into Port la Foret with gear failure if the boats receive a typical hammering from a North Atlantic autumnal depression.

Guaging the form after this becomes even harder each skipper/boat combination having different attributes. Among the next four boats there are strong arguments for why anyone of them should be top of this group.

Brian Thompson is the sole British class one entry in this year's Route du Rhum and the fact that the Open 60 class in the race four years ago was won by a 26 year old girl from Derbyshire can only add to the pressure for him to perform. Thompson is obviously one of the UK's most experienced offshore sailors, having sailed or skippered maxi-multihulls around the world (Qatar/PlayStation) and on a legion of record attempts. He has also notched up many miles on Open 60s be it the EDS Atlantic Challenge on Kingfisher or the Calais Round Britain on Ecover. He is not so well known as a solo sailor however and admits that his last major singlehanded race was the 2001 Mini Transat. The boat is quick, the skipper is experienced as is his shore team, so it is entirely possible Artemis could arrive in Guadeloupe on the podium.



Dominique Wavre's Temenos - at speed

Dominique Wavre and Jeremie Beyou fall into this group, as we have explained, for slightly different reasons. Both skippers have the talent and hardware to win the Route du Rhum, but lack time on the water. Beyou, while a top class Figaro sailor, also lacks Open 60 experience, hence his lower rating.

Jean-Pierre Dick and Virbac is another combination that should do well on paper. Having only taken up singlehanded racing relatively recently compared to his peers, Dick has now completed the Vendee Globe. His boat is obviously powerful and quick as it has won the Open 60 class in the last two Transat Jacques Vabres. However Dick, despite a lot of training in Open 60s and this year in the Figaro class, has still to prove himself as a solo sailor, hence why he is in this group.



Aside from Thompson there are two other experienced hands making their debut in the Open 60 class in the Route du Rhum: Armel le Cleac'h and Marc Guillemot. Le Cleac'h comes from one of Brittany's most well known sailing families and is a hot shot Figaro sailor having won the coveted Solitaire in 2004. Le Cleac'h did take over from Alain Gautier as skipper of the trimaran Foncia and started to achieve some respectible results in the 'ultimate French class' until capsizing in last year's Transat Jacques Vabre, crewman Damian Foxall narrowly escaping this incident with his life. This experience proved too much for Le Cleac'h who soon after terminated his career as an ORMA 60 skipper, turning his attention to Open 60s and the Vendee Globe. At present he is racing the former Sodebo/VMI, now called Brit Air, which despite being relatively ancient, Seb Josse successfully campaigned in the Vendee Globe and still has some pace. Meanwhile a new Brit Air is currently under construction at Multiplast to a Groupe Finot design.



Above: Armel le Cleac'h bow acrobatics, below: Safran , formerly Ellen's Kingfisher



Marc Guillemot entered the Open 60 class from a background more akin to Thompson's. He is a former Whitbread sailor ( Charles Jourdain/ La Poste) and for more than 20 years raced on some of the most successful maxi-multihulls such as Jet Services V and Fujicolor, before ending up skipper of the Irens ORMA 60 Biscuits la Trinitaine. Unfortunately with costs escalating in the 60ft trimaran circuit, the ORMA game became too large for his sponsor and Guillemot found himself boat-less and sponsor-less. However La Trinite's son has fought back from the brink and now has secured backing from Safran, a giant French military and aerospace company - possibly the biggest company now sponsoring sailing in France. Guillemot is presently sailing Ellen's former Kingfisher which obviously knows the way to Guadeloupe well having arrived there in first place in a time only fractionally outside that of trimaran winner Michel Desjoyeaux four years ago. Guillemot says that the most major modification he has made to the boat is replacing the Ellen-sized bunks with ones he can sleep in (Nick Moloney, who took the boat in the last Vendee Globe, we understand, only ever slept in his chart table chair). Like Le Cleac'h (and we hope Thompson), Guillemot also has a new Open 60 in build and has taken the radical step of commissioning Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost - both trimaran designers - to conjure up his new boat along with the talented Guillaume Verdier. Guillemot is keeping his lips tightly sealed over any details of the new boat, currently in construction down in Arcachon by Thierry Eluere (who built Yves Parlier's Aquitaine Innovations Open 60and Meditas Region Aquitaine hydroplaning catamaran), but we suspect it will be a one-hulled trimaran.

The final three boats will be also-rans. Anne Liardet may be sailing Vincent Riou's old PRB, the two time Vendee Globe winner, but has yet to make any impression with this fine craft. The boat is bequeathed to fellow Roxy skipper Sam Davies who will be sailing it as of next year and ultimately in the Vendee Globe.

28 year old Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty is a name that is new to us, however we understand he has a background in the Mini class (3rd in the Mini Fastnet in 2004) and in the Figaro. He has acquired the Brazilian built Lavranos design previously known as Galileo, built and skippered by Walter Antunes in the Transat Jacques Vabre last year.



We know even less about Philippe Fiston who is racing Christophe Augiun's 1994 BOC Challenge and 1996 Vendee Globe winning Groupe Finot design. According to his CV Fiston is a former match racer and Laser sailor who for many years has run a 20m charter catamaran out of his native Guadeloupe. While his form may not be much to write home about it is good that Fiston is possibly the first black skipper ever to have entered a singlehanded transatlantic race.