The Calais (which way?) Round Britain

From Calais James Boyd looks at the impressive line-up for Sunday Open 60 lap of the British Isles

A fine fleet of eleven IMOCA Open 60 monohulls is due to set sail this Sunday on the third biennial Calais Round Britain Race. The race starts at 1430 local time on a course that will take the boats on a 1,850 mile on a lap of the British Isles, either clockwise around or anti-clockwise according to which is the most favourable weather-wise as determined by the organisers in conjunction with the skippers prior the start. The Calais Round Britain Race is one of the rare fully crewed races in the IMOCA calendar, each boat allowed to sail five up.

Among the line-up are four new generation boats - the two Farr Yacht Design offerings, PRB of Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou and Jérémie Beyou's Delta Dore plus Swiss ocean racing veteran Dominique Wavre's Owen Clarke design Temenos II. These three boats we saw prior to the start of last year's Route du Rhum (read about them here). The fourth new boat, the Calais Round Britain Race marking her competitive debut, is Yann Eliès new Finot-Conq design Generali. This looks like a complete weapon with a very ABN AMROy hull shape aft but with an even more extreme chine and a typical Finot-Conq heavily pinched-in bow. The boat is a sistership of Alex Thomson's new Hugo Boss, and it will be interesting to compare the two Hugo Boss rolls out of the shed in a month or so's time. More on Generali next week.

No one has a clue who is going to win this race. It would make sense that one of the new boats takes it particularly if there are any sort of strong reaching conditions. Perhaps Generali is too new? On the delivery to Calais she was forced to pull into Brest to sort out some rudder issues. Neither PRB nor Delta Dore made it out of the Channel in the Route du Rhum last autumn, but one imagines that they might have their teething problems sorted out by now. Having been beaten by older generation boats in the Route du Rhum it will be interesting to see if Dominique Wavre has found any more speed from his Temenos II.

If crews on the new boats are still finding their feet, then one man who knows his vessel intimately is Jean le Cam in his lividly pink/red Lombard design VM Materiaux (ex- Bonduelle). Having finished second in the last Vendee Globe and in the Route du Rhum and dismasted while competing in this race two years ago, the talented le Cam will be gunning for a race win and this could be his moment. On this occasion le Cam will not be up against his old friend and foe Roland Jourdain on his sistership Sill et Veolia, as this boat is presently currently having major modification work carried out on her with the help of Juan Kouyoumdjian.

If the new generation boats are likely to have their own race, then the competition in the rest of the fleet will be between the different generation of boats. Also built for the last Vendee Globe is the new Cheminees Poujoulat sailed by two time Around Alone winner Bernard Stamm. This boat was originally Jean-Pierre Dick's Farr-designed Virbac Paprec and has always done well two handed or fully crewed. While Stamm's previous round the world steed was the only Open 60 to be designed by Pierre Rolland and thus unquantifiable against the competition it will be interesting to see how Stamm fares on a boat that does have a known performance. Racing with Stamm are a slightly odd mix including hardcore Figaro sailor Bruno Jourdren, one of the most experience offshore racing crews in France in Jacques Caraës and Britain's own Conrad ' what time is it?' Humphreys.

While Stamm is a highly experienced skipper on a boat that is new to him, others in the race are having their first stab in the driving seat. Most promising of these must be Artemis Ocean Racing's Jonny Malbon who gained the skipper's position after Brian Thompson moved on to run Offshore Challenges's new Open 60 earlier this year. Malbon has since been joined by former Mike Golding right hand man Graham 'Gringo' Tourell with whom he'll be racing the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre later this year.

Malbon lived up to his nickname 'Mr Lucky' in the final throws of a delivery trip back from the Caribbean recently. Coming into the Needles two handed with Gringo they managed to lose their favourite fractional kite over the side. While for any normal mortal the errant sail would have become the permanent property of Davy Jones, in this case it happened to be brought up in the catch as a fisherman was hauling up a lobster pot and later happened to be recognised on the dock in Lymington by a passer-by as an Artemis kite and reunited with the team. The kite was bearly torn but required several hundred pounds worth of laundering to remove the smell of fish.

For this race Malbon and Tourell have sailing with them an elite squad including Gareth Rowley, and infamous double act of Fraser Brown and Paul Larsen.

For Sam Davies this will also be her first go in the driving seat of the Roxy Open 60 after taking over the helm from Anne Liardet. Roxy has one of the best pedigrees of any in the fleet being the boat that won the last two Vendee Globes as PRB first in the hands of Michel Desjoyeaux and then with Vincent Riou.

Sailing in Davies' all-female crew are her navigator and former Open 60 skipper Miranda Merron and Kiwi Yngling helm Sharon Ferris (both who sailed with Sam a decade ago on Tracy Edwards' Royal & SunAlliance), plus top Figaro sailor Jeanne Grégoire and fellow Roxy-girl and pint-sized Mini sailor Alexia Barrier.

In much the same boat as Davies is solo round the world non-stop the wrong way record holder Dee Caffari for whom this too will be her first Open 60 race in anger. While Davies has considerably more time in Open 60s and previously in Figaros and Minis, Dee is further down the learning curve to the extent that she doesn't feel comfortable being referred to as skipper of the boat for this race. This role will be given to Nigel King, taking time off from his fledgling Figaro campaign. Also on board are North Sails France's Laurent Mahy, former Hugo Boss crewman Simon Clarke and Papua New Guinea's finest Liz Wardley, still dining out on her fourth place in the Figaro class' Trophee BPE transatlantic race earlier this year.

Aviva is of course the former Mike Golding Open 60 Team Group 4 Caffari once upon a time apprenticed on, which latterly became the first Ecover, before being sold to Conrad Humphreys to sail in the last Vendee Globe as Hellomoto.

Of a similar nine-year old vintage to Aviva is Akena Verandas of former Mini and Figaro sailor Arnaud Boissières. Previously this boat was Thomas Coville's Sodebo in the 2000 Vendee and then Seb Josse's VMI four years later. Boissières' ride has come about in a fairly unique way. He became skipper of Jean-Philippe Chomette's Nacara 60 monohull Round Britain record breaker Solune before moving into the Open 60. Clearly Chomette is still involved as for the Round Britain Race he is co-skippering and regular navigator Cowes' own Chris Tibbs is on board too, having now got considerable experience of the course not only from Solune but from Steve Fossett's PlayStationwhen she set a new record for the course back in 2002.

Finally somewhere into this mix we have Maisonneuve Basse Normandie, formerly Galileo of Brazilian Walter Antunes (read more about this boat here). Designed by Open 60 veteran designer Angelo Lavranos, this boat was launched just three years ago and to date has not shown her potential. She is now being skippered by ex-Figaro sailor Alexandre Toulorge.

So what's going to happen?

Prior to Sunday's departure there are two coastal races today and on Saturday and these might give some slightly better indication of the form, particularly how the new generation boats go compared to the more sorted of the last generation.

In terms of a weather forecast - present indications are showing a large area of high pressure moving northeast across the UK and thus it seems highly likely that the race will for the third time circle the British Isles clockwise. On start day the centre of the low is still at the latitude of central France extending its reach out along a northeast-southwest axis. However there appears to be no wind in the eastern Channel for the start. At this point the performance of the boats will be squarely the responsbility of the navigators gauging whether to be inshore or offshore to make best use of the tides, tidal gates and the sea breeze - if inshore then close to the UK or the French coasts? Today the forecast is showing the breeze building (yesterday it was looking pretty flat for the first 24 hours) but show the wind northwesterly on the UK side of the Channel and lighter but more northerly on the French coast.

Come Monday morning the centre of the high is forecast to be over Ireland and thus the boats will find themselves sailing into a building northeasterly. At this stage the race will become less tactical. With the onset of a depression from the west, so the wind will veer south and as the boats round Ireland and sail up the west side of the high they will find themselves in phenomenal 25-30 knot broad reaching conditions. This will be an occasion when the new boats should prove themselves. The forecast beyond this is getting vague - perhaps the high will establish itself over Norway or perhaps the depression will push on through.

So who will win? Our money is on PRB or VM Materiaux, but we're rotten at gambling.

Programme

Friday, 1 June
11:40 hours: exit of the boats
14:00 hours: start of the first race prologue

Saturday, 2 June
12:15 hours: exit of the boats
14:00 hours: start of the second race
21:00 hours: Didier Lockwood concert
23:00 hours: Firework display

Sunday, 3 June
13:00 hours: exit of the boats
14:30 hours: start of the Calais Round Britain Race

Crew lists:

DELTA DORE
Jérémie Beyou (FRA)
Sidney Gavignet
Pascal Bidégorry
Fanch Guiffant
Yvan Ravussin

AKENA VERANDAS
Arnaud Boissières (FRA)
Jean-Philippe Chomette (co-skipper)
Chris Tibbs
Samy Villeneuve
Gérald Véniard

AVIVA
Dee Caffari (GBR)
Nigel King
Laurent Mahy
Simon Clarke
Liz Wardley

ROXY
Samantha Davies (GBR)
Alexia Barrier
Sharon Ferris
Jeanne Grégoire
Miranda Merron

GENERALI
Yann Eliès (FRA)
Sébastien Audigane
Philippe Laot
Pierre Emmanuel Hérissé
Philippe Legros

VM MATERIAUX
Jean Le Cam (FRA)
Yann Régniau
Pascal Dourden
Frédéric Berra
Florent Vilboux

ARTEMIS OCEAN RACING
Jonny Malbon (GBR)
Graham Tourell
Gareth Rowley
Fraser Brown
Paul Larsen

PRB
Vincent Riou (FRA)
Sébastien Josse
Hugues Destremau
Eric Carret
Jean Marc Failler

CHEMINEES POUJOULAT
Bernard Stamm (SUI)
Jacques Caraës
Xavier Briault
Bruno Jourdren
Conrad Humphreys

MAISONNEUVE
Alexandre Toulorge (FRA)
Joé Seeten
Gwénael Riou
Nicolas Lecarpentier
Vincent Vachette

TEMENOS
Dominique Wavre (SUI)
Michèle Paret
Denis Girardet
César Dohy
Pim Nieuwenhuis

Photos of the boats on the following pages...