Brits win prologue

Paul Worswick and Mike West off on the right foot in the Class 40's Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables race

The warm-up for this weekend's start of the Class 40's Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables race, so today the Prologue for this event took place with the surprise winners being Brits Paul Worswick and Mike West on their Akilaria, Keysource.

Under a hot sun, a light breeze, it was Giovanni Soldini on Telecom Italia, accompanied by Yvan Noblet's Apart City and Gérald Bibot's ZED 4 that led up the first beat until a wind shift allowed Keysource to pull ahead and to lead into the weather mark. The Brits were then able to extend down the run to finish ahead of David Augeix and Jean-Claude Turpin's Akilaria EDF Energies Nouvelles Vestas - France.

For most the prologue was an opportunity to check out the proper functioning of their equipment, while hosting 40 passengers who had won the opportunity to sail on board the boats.

With the race due to start on Sunday the forecast indicates an upwind start with the Azores high centred just to the north of the Azores and forecast to move slightly east over the first three days of the race. In short there will be little competitors will be able to do other than sail through it...Nice

Top ten results - prologue race

1 - GBR 42 Keysource (Mike West – Paul Worswick)
2 - FRA 45 EDF Energies nouvelles (David Augeix – Jean-Claude Turpin)
3 - FRA 64 CG Mer (Wilfrid Clerton – Loïc Le Helley)
4 - ESP 65 Tales (Gonzalo Botin – Alvaro Lopez-Doriga)
5 - BEL 81 ZED 4 (Gérald Bibot – Didier Le Vourc’h)
6 - ITA 55 Telecom Italia (Giovanni Soldini – Karine Fauconnier)
7 - GBR 43 Palanad II (Nicholas Brennan – Oliver Bond)
8 - FRA 17 Entreprendre en coopérative (Benoît Parnaudeau – Jean Saucet)
9 - FRA 60 Groupe Partouche (Christophe Coatnoan – Sébastien Figue)
10 - FRA 25 Appart City (Yvan Noblet – Damien Guillou)