Ville d'Antibes steps ahead

The latest from the Tour Voile following it's longest leg

The 37-strong Mumm 30 fleet is about to leave Brittany to head for St-Nazaire (Loire Atlantique). For the last few days, the wind has been fickle and is expected to remain very light for this next 137-mile offshore race. As a consequence of the light air, the previous offshore leg, from St-Quay Portrieux to Camaret, had to be shortened.

Julien Farnarier and Marc Audineau¹s Antibes NEC became the new overall leaders after crossing the line in first at the Lizen Ven Ouest mark where the leg was shortened.

Though a disappointing 27th place in yesterday¹s inshore race off Camaret, the Antibes NEC team keep their overall lead but are highly threatened by the defending champions on board Bouygues Telecom. Pierre-Loïc Berthet and his crew stand in second position only 4 points behind the leaders. To aid them they now have extra expertise as trimaran sailor Loïck Peyron has stepped on board their Mumm 30. Jimmy Pahun's Région Ile de France, who stands in third place, also remains as one of the most serious contender. The latter also has some fresh blood on board with the arrival of Kiwi Morgan Trubovitch who has sailed many times in the Tour de France à la Voile.

The Aussies of Southern Sun Team Australia were a happy bunch of young men after winning the second place in the race to Camaret. A race of tactics and navigation. As explained Melbourne's Mike Smith, co-skipper: "Mike Broughton (the navigator) chose the inshore route amongst the rocks and inside the islands, whilst most of the rest of the fleet went outside - it paid off big time, sailing along some of the most spectacular coast anywhere in the world".

The Aussies, who came in 10th in yesterday's inshore race, now stand in 9th place overall. They had come up from 12th to 9th in Camaret. Ahead of them is Federico Michetti's Joe Fly Sailing Team who has been standing in the 8th place for a while now. The Italians, who now have Farr 40 World Champion Vasco Vascotto onboard, are still hoping for a wake up call in order to gain a few places in the overall ranking. But they seem to have subscribed to 8th place as they finished in 8th in yesterday's inshore race. According to many skippers, that race was a bit of a lottery, as there seemed to have no logic in the winds favouring those who were conservative.

However, the current ranking might as well change after the coming 137-mile race to St-Nazaire. It should be a most tricky race especially in light air conditions. The most difficult part should be the passage of the feared Raz de Sein, known for its strong current and often rough sea. "To survive, they will have to pass the Raz de Sein before 20:00. After that the current will be against them", said René Boulaire, race director.

Several major tactical decisions will have to be made along the way.

The boats are expected in St-Nazaire on Thursday evening.

Results:

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Points
1	VILLE D'ANTIBES NEC	Julien Farnarier Serge Madec	682
2	BOUYGUES TELECOM	Pierre Loïc Berthet	678
3	REGION ILE DE France	Jimmy Pahun	675
4	CAP SPORT	Xavier Lecoeur	665
5	DEFI PARTAGE	Thierry Bouchard/Maxime Paul	655
6	THEOULE MANDELIEU-MBH	Sylvain Chtounder	639
7	TOULON-PROVENCE-MEDITERRANEE-COYCH	Pierre Laurent Garnero/Fabien Henry	627
8	JOE FLY SAILING TEAM	Federico Michetti	624
9	SOUTHERN SUN-TEAM AUSTRALIE	Michael Smith kirwann Robb	567
10	COTES D'ARMOR	Vincent Biarnes	559
11	VILLE DE GENEVE-CARREFOUR PREVENTION	Julien Dibiase Etienne David	555
12	DIEPPE SEINE-MARITIME	Jean Rodelato	517
13	VILLE DE DOUARNENEZ-ARMOR LUX	Corentin Douguet	513
14	CSC ESSEC	Hervé Gautier	505
15	MITSUBISHI MECENAT CHIRURGIE CARDIAQUE-ESCP EAP	Jean Charles Scale	498
16	ACCENTURE	Franck Munier/Francois Dore	495
17	THALES	Morgan Riou	491
18	BREST GRANDES ECOLES ENSIETA ENST BRETAGNE	Tanguy Mahe	483
19	INSA	Bruno Barbarin	481
20	CODIAM - ENSP -dh	JeanClaude Nicoleau/Nicolas Loday	475
21	BELVEDERE-MARTINIQUE-LES COPAINS A BORD	Eric Basset	473
22	SAINT PAUL- ILE DE LA REUNION	Gabriel Jean-Albert	470
23	L'ENFANT@L'HOPITAL X-HEC	Jean Marie Gout/Philippe Legros	469
24	ESTUDINES.COM PORT DE COMMERCE	Pierre François Le Poutre	452
25	DEFI SEP-LEONARD DE VINCI- ESTACA	Jean Baptiste Lion	447
26	DEFI TOTAL GRANDES ECOLES ENSAM ESSEC	David Abrard	433
27	TEPACAP	Yannick Bestaven Philippe Boudgourd	430
28	ESPOIRS AQUITAINS	Xavier Cantegrel	394
29	BIENNE VOILE	Lorenz  Müller/Peter Luzius	389
30	REGION ARCHIPELGUADELOUPE	Claude Thellier	376
31	MER & MAISON-BERMUDES CENTRALE PARIS	Ferdinand Rey	371
32	SOUTHAMPTON INSTITUTE-ALPHA LAVAL	Yoann Richome Antoine Cardin	349
33	NANTES SAINT NAZAIRE	Adrien De Belloy	345
34	DEFI JEAN BART	Olivier Gellez	334
35	PSA-PEUGEOT CITROEN PSA-PEUGEOT CITROEN	Eric Blouet	326
36	T SERVICE INTERIM REGION DE BRUXELLES CAPITALE	Jean Marc Fobert	302
37	ENTPE ENSAE ENSC SECURITE ROUTIERE	Oswenn Le Foll	267

Camaret-Sur-Mer
The sweetest little town. It only has four hotels, but we managed to get ourselves into one that even has a pool, and a car park, in which they have allowed us to set up our campervan, so that we can cook on site and eat around the pool - a real treat after the usual treck down to the Village camp site. A quaint harbour that typifies why Brittany is my favourite part of France. Nothing like the Med, quiet, it is small winding streets clearly built before cars, with small buildings, all very old. There is basically one main street, it runs along the water, with the hotels, bars and restaurants along the water. Brittany is quite proud of it's heritage, which is quite different to the rest of France - a band of marching bag pipers welcomed us in this evening as we arrived! And the food is just .... But, right now it's 1am in the morning, and some one at bar downstairs is playing the bag pipes - as you do after a few vin rouge apparently!

Offshore: Saint Quay Portrieux to Camaret-Sur-Mer
There was a particularly happy group of young men in town last night, and they have Australian accents. We have won second place on the longest race of the Tour. A very fickle race, with constantly changing tide and little wind, we even had to anchor for a while to avoid drifting backwards with the tide in no wind. Surprisingly, this came after a bad start, but it was a race of tactics and navigation, and by going the right way, with the crew very focussed on moving ahead, the crew worked the boat to get every bit of power that was there to be had out of the light breezes. Micky B chose the inshore route amongst the rocks and inside the islands, whilst most of the rest of the fleet went outside - it payed off big time, sailing along some of the most spectacular coast anywhere in the world. A long day, remembering we started at 9pm the day before after an inshore race during the day, it was 26 hours before we arrived at the next town. We had motivated ourselves to achieve one position on the ranking a day, this success, and the positioning of our closest competitors back in the race results, sees us move up from 12th to 9th place overall. So I rang home with the good news, and only a 6 year old can deliver wisdom so flawlessly - Me "Hi Tim, we did really well today, we came second", Tim "Oh good Dad, that's better than when you hit the weed and came 23rd". Indeed.

Inshore: 2 races
The first race started with the quite common general recall, then an abandonment after the fickle winds disappeared and made a mockery of the first beat.

The second race, the winds were still quite fickle, but sufficient to run the race. There seemed no logic to the winds, and at one time boats to the left had huge gains, then boats to the right - we have learnt now to be conservative and took a central track. The breeze was winging enough to drop the kites on the last run, and while others persisted, we went to jib and gained a few places - this payed off by positioning us well to pick off or guard against boats, and we achieved a very satisfying 10th - so we hold our 9th place, and with many of the boats ahead of us on the point score finishing behind us today, we move a little closer..... But Joe Fly is 60 points ahead, so we need to really work hard for 8th place!