Finally the bride

As Cercle Verte skipper Gildas Morvan claims victory in the Figaro's solo race to Marie Galante, the Transat BPE

Our profound congratulations go to Gildas Morvan and his Figaro Cercle Verte, who on Saturday claimed victory in the class' solo transatlantic race, the Trophee BPE, between Belle Ile (the outlying island off La Trinite-sur-Mer, France) and Marie Galante (the island to the south of Guadeloupe). In a classic example of always the bridesmaid and never the bride, Morvan has previously won this event in 2001 when it was twohanded, sailing with Charles Caudrelier, and has won numerous smaller solo events in the Figaro and has podiumed in most of the major ones in his impressive 16 year tenure in the class. But this represents his first victory in a major singlehanded event.



Morvan took over the lead from last year's Solitaire winner, Nicolas Troussel and Financo seven days out from the finish as the boats were mid-Atlantic, about one third of the way between the Canaries and the Caribbean. At this point there was massive north-south separation in the fleet with former Mini Transat winner Armel Tripon on Gedimat taking a long detour south, a powerful group in the north led by Troussel, and followed by Gerard Veniard's Macif and Thierry Chabagny's Suzuki Automobiles. Erwan Tabarly and his Athema were leading the group in the middle with Morvan between the middle and northerly groups.

Slowly over the next few days Morvan ground out his lead and at one point was up to 33 miles ahead as a monster battle was taking place for the places beihnd between Troussel and Veniard, who had fallen in on Morvan's track, Chabagny who had remained north and Tabarly and Francois Gabart on Espoire Region Bretagne just to the south.

On Tuesday last week Tabarly eventually managed to pull into second place and as the leaders encountered the large cumulus clouds, kept on closing in on Morvan, who on his own towards the end of last week found himself taking a more northerly approach towards Marie Galante than his rivals. And so it was that for three nail biting scheds at the end of Friday, Tabarly had pulled into the lead, the two boats Cercle Verte and Athema within sight of one another for the last 100 miles as they made a last charge for the line. Come the first sched on Saturday morning Morvan had pulled back into the lead, just half a mile ahead of Tabarly with six miles to go. Eventually the 'green giant' crossed the line to clinch first by just four minutes 40 seconds...!

Final results:

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Arrived	Time
1	CERCLE VERT	Gildas Morvan	25/04/2009 at 05:24:12	19d 14h 24m 12s
2	ATHEMA	Erwan Tabarly	25/04/2009 at 05:28:52	19d 14h 28m 52s
3	ESPOIR REGION BRETAGNE	François Gabart	25/04/2009 at 06:26:27	19d 15h 26m 27s
4	FINANCO	Nicolas Troussel	25/04/2009 at 07:03:24	19d 16h 3m 24s
5	MACIF	Gérald Véniard	25/04/2009 at 08:54:11	19d 17h 54m 11s
6	SUZUKI Automobiles	Thierry Chabagny	25/04/2009 at 11:22:30	19d 20h 22m 30s
7	GEDIMAT	Armel Tripon	25/04/2009 at 15:29:05	20d 0h 29m 5s
8	LENZE	Franck Le Gal	25/04/2009 at 15:31:35	20d 0h 31m 35s
9	SYNERGIE	Isabelle Joschke	25/04/2009 at 19:05:53	20d 4h 5m 53s
10	AGIR Recouvrement	Adrien Hardy	26/04/2009 at 07:02:26	20d 16h 2m 26s
11	Pays Marie-Galante	Victor Jean Noël	26/04/2009 at 12:24:28	20d 21h 24m 28s
12	CINT 56	Yannig Livory	26/04/2009 at 13:26:19	20d 22h 26m 19s
13	NANNI DIESEL	Louis-Maurice Tannyères	26/04/2009 at 14:52:39	20d 23h 52m 39s
Ret	LUISINA	Eric Drouglazet	Retired