And they're off

James Boyd reports from Plymouth on the start of the Artemis Transat

Despite this morning's forecast predicting no wind for the 1400 (1300GMT) start, the 24 boats in the Artemis Transat got under way in 7-9 knots of southwesterly breeze (thanks to a thundercloud on the Cornish side of the Tamar) after the gun was fired by 2004 winner Mike Golding aboard the Royal Navy fridge HMS Argyll. The publicity machine surrounding the race, particularly throughout Plymouth, had clearly worked as a giant spectator fleet had turned up, relishing the summery conditions while obediently following Julian Hocken's orders to remain along the perifery of the race corridor. The IMOCA 60s and Class40s started at the same time on the line, but the two fleets were separated by the warship, the smaller boats to the southeast.

In the IMOCA class there was a highly competitive start with Seb Josse on BT luffing Marc Guillemot on Safran a minute out from the line. With everyone seeming to want the northwest end while furthest from the warship, former Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou on PRB had prudently made some early separation minutes before the gun and crossed closest to the Argyll. With a large contingent of Figaro sailors taking part, very few skipper hung back from the line and it seemed as competitive as any fully crewed race with the frontrunners hitting the line at speed, neck and neck.

Burning away on the favoured starboard tack, Michel Desjoyeaux on Foncia slowly pulled ahead but Loick Peyron's Gitana Eighty had found a higher mode and made ground to weather while PRB prefered to maintain pace and stayed down to the leeward. Rather later than she had anticipated to the line was Sam Davies on Roxy. Sam later admitted to us that around 10 minutes prior to the start the furling line for the genniker had jammed and it had taken a while to sort out - luckily there wasn't much wind.

While the majority of the IMOCA Open 60s headed off on starboard tack, Armel le Cleac'h's BritAir was the only boat to flop on to port soon after the start to take on the sizeable spectator fleet. He appeared to come out unscathed, but ultimately this proved not to be a great tactic.

Like expectant puppies we scurried off towards the Eddystone expecting the boats to loop around it in a neat procession. Sadly there was none of this - the lead 60s prefering to stay on starboard and head out to sea, giving the Eddystone light, 10 miles off Plymouth Sound, a wide berth. The only exception was BritAir.

According to the organisers the results at the Eddystone Omega race gate were as follows:
1 - Gitana Eighty at 15:16:17 GMT
2 - Safran at 15:19:23 GMT
3 - Brit Air at 15:19:46 GMT
4 - BT at 15:21:01 GMT
5 - Foncia at 15:21:44 GMT
6 - Generali at 15:26:58 GMT
7 - PRB at 15:28:59 GMT
8 - Roxy at 15:51:21 GMT
9 - Cervin EnR at 15:51:21 GMT
10 - Aviva at 16:09:58 GMT

However these are something of a mockery as the boats seemed more intent on heading south than being first to cross the line due south of the lighthouse. If BritAir had seen fit to tack after she'd shaved the Eddystone then she would certainly have been first, while in fact on the water there were probably six boats ahead of her. Nonetheless it will be Gitana Eighty skipper Loick Peyron who will receive an Omega Seamaster timepiece.

While a nice southwesterly breeze had filled to ease the boats away from the start line, as they approached the Eddystone so it slowly dropped. But this was far worse for the Class 40s further back up the race track.

At the start there was less pressure at their end of the line - just 5-7 knots. As the gun approached Christophe Coatnoan's Groupe Partouche and Boris Herrmann's Beluga Racer closed on the line too early with Herrmann being forced to bail out and head around the back of the Class40 fleet to re-attack. In the end it was Groupe Partouche, Yvan Noblet's Appart City and local favourite Alex Bennett's Fujifilm that pounced on the line on starboard tack forming the front rank, sailing along the startline away from HMS Argyll towards the pin end. Again it was another close start with Appart City crossing first just inches ahead of Groupe Partouche.

Within minutes, the fleet split with a group of four boats - Groupe Partouche, Custo Pol, Louis Duc's Groupe Royer and Simon Clarke's Clarke Offshore Racing dropping to leeward with the remaining seven yachts remaining high with Beluga Racer the windward boat in sixth place and race favourite Giovanni Soldini's Telecom Italia the windward pack's backmarker. Just eight minutes in, the wind shifted west, but only Simon Clarke chose to capitalise on the lift and left the leeward group, climbing to join the windward yachts.

While the Open 60s had a reasonably solid breeze until they approached the latitude of the Eddystone, for the Class 40s there was generally less and what was there appeared much more patchy. When we caught up with the Class 40s still on starboard tack around two hours in, Miranda Merron appeared to be leading from Alex Bennett with Soldini, Clarke and Louis Duc all closely bunched up astern. However a haze had descended limiting visibility and we didn't see Thierry Bouchard, Boris Herrmann, Christophe Coatnoan nor Halvard Mabire, who must have been a long long way down to the leeward.

According to the organisers these are the official Class 40 Eddystone rounding times:

1. Mistral Loisirs - Pole Santé ELIOR (Thierry Bouchard)1633 BST
2. Beluga Racer (Boris Herrmann) 1644 BST
3. Groupe Partouche (Christophe Coatnoan) 1646 BST
4. Custo Pol (Halvard Mabire) 1650 BST
5. 40 Degrees (Miranda Merron) 1653 BST
6. Fujifilm (Alex Bennett) 1659 and 24 seconds BST
7. Telecom Italia (Giovanni Soldini) 1659 and 43 seconds BST
8. Clarke Offshore Racing (Simon Clarke) 1659 and 50 seconds BST
9. Groupe Royer (Louis Duc) 1701 BST
10. Prevoir Vie (Benoit Pernaudeau) 1718 BST
11. Appart' City (Yvan Noblet) 1719 BST 

Conditions may have been light this afterrnoon but were expected to pick up sigficantly, but only for a few hours this evening.