Victory for Gitana Eighty

Last minute collision for Desjoyeaux as Peyron is first home to Port la Foret in Transat Ecover BtoB

Gitana Eighty arrived in Port la Foret at 00:13:25 this morning after 14 days 9 hours 13 minutes 25 seconds of racing to take line honours in the Transat Ecover BtoB race from Salvador, Brazil. Skipper Loïck Peyron and his new boat from Farr Yacht Design, built in New Zealand by Southern Ocean Marine, averaged 11.94 knots for the 4,120 mile race.

With the boat launched in La Trinite-sur-Mer back in July, this victory makes amends for Peyron losing out in the Doldrums during the Transat Jacques Vabre race south.

The French skipper sailed a near faultless race making his first big gain in the place he had lost out so badly on the TJV - coming out of the Doldrums, he had edging ahead of Yann Elies' Generali and Marc Guillemot on Safranpulling out a 40 mile lead. From here Peyron continued to lead the fleet north through the bumpy northeasterly Trade Wind belt.

Meticulous preparation by the Gitana shore team allowed Gitana Eighty to endure more than three days of fast but uncomfortable and potentially boat breaking closing reaching conditions at this point and the navy blue and white boat held on to her lead as the front runners were able to pick up a band of favourable southwesterlies whisking them home.

Gitana Eighty was not without her problems, Peyron reporting that his masthead wind gear had broken and as a result hadn't been feeding his routing software nor his autopilot.

"The race was very interesting on several levels," said Peyron on his arrival. "Firstly we all need to sail these boats singlehanded. I really wanted to retry sailing them solo - I had not done that since the first Transat Jacques Vabre in 1993! It confirmed that these are very physical monohulls, but if you manage them well, you can learn to cope. but you must not allow yourself to be overcome by events ... Trouble can come very quickly:

"The competition promises to be intense over the coming months because the level of sailors frankly has changed! There is no one who wants to let go ... And me neither! But when we are alone, it's much more complicated and there is a lot of work. The first maneouvre after the start took me a good half hour ... This means that we must not make mistakes and time passes very quickly finally on board since there is always something to do. These are hard enough boats to drive - exciting and quite fast. Gitana Eighty is a very good boat, well prepared particularly when we see how well her sistership [ Paprec Virbac 2] is doing on the Barcelona World Race. It shows the boat has very good potential! "

While Peyron was approaching the finish line, the French rescue authorities reported that second placed Foncia of Michel Desjoyeaux had struck a small fishing boat off Penmarc'h. Foncia is intact but her leeward deck spreader was broken in the incident. Impressively Desjoyeaux has managed to keep the rig standing and will gingerly head for the finish line. The incident cost Desjoyeaux second place that has been taken by Kito de Pavant on Groupe Bel.

Groupe Bel arrived in Port la Foret at 03:22:49 this morning, three hours and nine minutes adrift of Peyron. Desjoyeaux was due in towards dawn.