Crêpes by a country mile

Franck-Yves Escoffier's 50ft trimaran first home in the Transat Quebec-St Malo

At 18:49:14 GMT Franck-Yves Escoffier and his 50ft trimaran Crêpes Whaou! sped across the finish line of the seventh Transat Quebec-Saint Malo at 20 knots. After 11 days 3 hours 19 minutes and 14 seconds of racing, at an average speed of 10.68 knots, the skipper from Saint-Malo and his three crewmen, Yves Le Blévec, Bertrand Chambert-Loir and Christophe Aillet were first to finish this 2855 mile west to east transatlantic by a considerable margin, having made their break in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Setting sail on 20 July on board the most recently built of 50ft multihulls, they led the way from the start building up a comfortable lead of more than 500 nautical miles over their nearest rivals.

Escoffier, who's family come from Saint-Malo has repeated his success from 2004 when he won his class (as opposed to line honours) in this race. Already triple winner of the Route du Rhum (1998, 2002 and 2006), twice winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre (2005 and 2007), the sailor who's profession is as a deep sea fisherman now has another trophy for his mantlepiece.

The Crepes Whaou! crew included two professional yachtsmen with some great successes already under their belt, aided and abetted by two skilled amateurs:

Franck-Yves Escoffier, fisherman, boat-owner, 50
Yves Le Blévec, skipper, 42, Mini Transat winner, former Orange II maxi-cat boat captain
Bertrand Chambert-Loir, head of development at Whaou!
Christophe Aillet, Managing Director of Pain Concept

Crepes Whaou! is a 50ft trimaran designed by Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost and built by CDK Composites in Port la Foret. She was launched in April 2005.

Length: 15.24 m2
Beam: 14.55 m
Clearance: 23.80 m
Number of sails: 7
Mainsail surface: 105 m2
Gennaker surface: 140 m2
Laden weight: 4.2 tonnes