Victory for Jourdren/de Pavant

As 1000 Milles Brittany Ferries concludes in St Malo

Bruno Jourdren and Kito de Pavant on Lord Jiminy-Lepal.com won the second 1000 Milles Brittany Ferries. The duo crossed the finish line off Saint-Malo at 22:13:05 with an accumulated elapsed time 6 days 11 hours 13 minutes and 05 seconds spent at sea.

Jourdren and de Pavant, both seasoned Figaro sailor and de Pavant now having graduated up to the helm of the Groupe Bel Open 60, dominated this event. On the first leg from St Malo to Plymouth they made some good tactical calls passing the Channel Islands and were first home. They continued to lead the charge on the next leg across the Bay of Biscay to Santander where they arrived just 15 minutes ahead of Arnaud Aubry and Antoine Carpentier on Auto-Maxi. This margin was even closer on the final leg as the two lead boats traded places. There was a last scare off the Cotes d'Armor when the leaders were forced to kedge, Jourdren and De Pavant dropping 120m of chain in order to get the anchor to hold. However eight miles behind, Auto-Maxi was hardly better off.

Behind the two leaders, the last step of the podium was fought between Miranda Merron and Peter Harding ( 40 Degrees) and the duo Grassi-Gaymard. Grassi-Boats finally finish one hour and 12 minutes ahead of the British.

With 17 starters there were 13 finishers of this event.

With no time to draw breath Bruno Jourdren flies on Sunday for China to work with the France team at the Paralympic Games, while Kito de Pavant returns to the Mediterranean to oversee the latest enhancements to Groupe Bel in preparation for the Vendee Globe 2008-2009.

"The race was relatively complicated with a lot of railway level crossings and we had to be careful that our competitors didn't catch up," said Bruno Jourdren. "The main quality of Kito? It is the way we work toether on board, because we have been lifelong friends. My main fault? I'm really not patient. I am a little too impulsive when the wind is dropping! I will come back next year to defend my title with Kito, I hope, because I like the concept of 1000 Miles-Britanny Ferries. The race is intense and the course very nice "

Kito de Pavant added: "We shares everything. - as always of course. We divided the navigation and the helming at regular intervals. The competition was tough and it was necessary to remain focussed for six days. The 1,000 Milles Brittany Ferries was good training before the start of the Vendee Globe."



A final report from 40 Degrees:

After much time spent going nowhere fast yesterday due to no wind and lots of foul tide, we discovered that we had a forest of weed around the keel. It is not good for boat speed, and backing down didn't get rid of it. Peter kindly volunteered to go swimming, so we stopped the boat as best we could, and dived in and removed it. In the meantime, our nearest competition got ahead of us. Within two hours, we were just ahead of them again, and other boats visible behind. Many boats to mark, and still 100 miles of race course. In this time, we had only covered 9 miles in 6 hours, due to no wind and foul tide.

Last night, we were short tacking amongst the rocks to try and stay out of the 3.6 knots foul tide, an exercise that you wouldn't happily undertake in daylight if you could actually see all the rocks.. Fine on a pitch black night, however. Unfortunately, Grassi Bateaux proved more adept and got ahead of us. So did CG Mer, but that was one too many, and it wasn't long before we got ahead of them, and made sure they stayed to leeward all night (yes, it has been upwind for a couple of days). It really was a beautiful starlit night, some shooting stars and a stunning dawn as we approached St Malo. After so many whale sightings over the last couple of races, Peter was convinced that we had a whale right next to the boat this morning, but it was a rock (the navigator is getting rather brazen..)

At the end of a 1000 mile race, seven boats finished within less than 10 miles of each other, which is pretty impressive. 40 Degrees finished 4th at about 0930 French time, a result we are delighted with - as Peter says "Not bad for an amateur and a woman". All this proves what we already know, which is that Class 40 is for everyone.
Since her launch at the end of June 2007, 40 Degrees has sailed approximately 18,250 nautical miles, including three transatlantic races. This amounts to more miles than Peter has driven in his car in the same period. Our current mainsail has done 12,500 miles, so not surprising it requires maintenance. Good stuff, that adhesive spray!

The team is looking forward to the next event - the Mondial Morbihan (Class 'worlds') in La Trinite at the end of September - great racing and apres-racing. in the meantime, a much-earned rest for boat and crew alike.

Miranda and Peter/ 40 Degrees/ St Malo