13 for the 1000 Milles

The Class 40's Brittany Ferries race to set sail on Friday

Following their World Championship in the Solent, so the Class 40s are back in action this weekend with the start of the annual doublehanded 1000 Milles Brittany Ferries, the third time this race has been held.

Cleverly the course takes the boats - you guessed it - down some of the Brittany Ferries routes. Starting from St Malo on Friday, 4 September, the race heads first across the Channel to Plymouth where there is the briefest of stopover - just six hours - before the boats set sail again on the long leg south across the Bay of Biscay to Santander in north Spain. Here there is a 12 hour pitstop before the boat return to St Malo via a mark off Roscoff in northern France.

The 13 boats are now docked in St Malo's Bassin Vaubin and include some powerful entries. Favourite for the race is certainly Cheminees Poujoulat sailed by former Figaro sailor Bruno Jourdren and Velux 5 Oceans double winner Bernard Stamm, taking time off between IMOCA Open 60 campaigns. The majority of entries are French with the exception of Axel Strauss and Juerg Burger on the German Akilaria 40 Tzu Hang and Anglo-Australian duo Tim Wright and Nicko Brennan on their Palanad II.

This is the last major offshore dust-up in the class before their autumn transatlantic race, the Solidaire du Chocalat from St Nazaire to Yucatan, Mexico, starting on 18 October.

Line-up

CHEMINEE POUJOULAT	Bruno Jourdren	Bernard Stamm
PALANAD II	Tim Wright	Nicko Brennan
TZU HANG	Axel Strauss	Juerg Burger
REV 86	Pierre-Marie Bazin	Louis Duc
VILLE DE GUERANDE	Damien Seguin	Armel Tripon
TECHNEAU	Arnaud Daval	Benoît Daval
VOILES SANS FRONTIERES	Marc Joly	Lucie Queruel
GROUPE PARTOUCHE	Christophe Coatnan	?
ZED 4	Gérald Bibot	Didier Le Vourch
LES CONQUERANTS DE NORMANDIE	Marc Lepesqueux	Jean-Charles Monnet
GRASSI BATEAU	Eric Galmar	Olivier Grassi
APPART CITY	Yvan Noblet	Damien Guillou
GROUPE 5	Patrice Carpentier	Rune Aasberg