PRB takes line honours

After tense wait in Calais at end of Round Britain Race

At 23:18:51 BST this evening Vincent Riou's PRB crossed the finish line of the first Calais Round Britain Race. Riou and his team of Jérémie Beyou, Jean Marc Failler, François Laurent and Nicolas de Castro took 9 days 9 hours 48 minutes and 51 seconds to cover the 1850 miles at an average of 8.19 knots.

"I’ve never done an offshore race with so much contact," commented Riou upon his arrival. "We left without any pressure and without obligation. We sailed without any stress but it was still pretty aggressive. From our experience in the Figaro we are used to contact. Today was the only day we haven’t seen a boat.

"The crew was fabulous. None of us had too much experience of large boats but we adapted to the abilities of each person. Jeremie and I helmed a lot, as did Nicolas. As for Jean-Marc and Fanchig they did everything else like the manoeuvres and the day-to-day stuff. We didn’t really have an organised watch system. We handled our sleep patterns well; we’re tired but nothing extreme. We will take some rest now the race has finished as we had to work on the boat a lot. We’re really happy to have reached our objective. Now the next project is to learn how to make the best use of the boat and above all be able to sail it single-handed.”

PRB was an early leader in the Calais Round Britain and Ireland Race until they were overtaken by race favourite Roland Jourdain on Sill. The red boat however was suffering from a ripped Solent jib for most of the course and the crew on PRB were able to move in for the kill on last night when they pulled out a 12 mile lead over Jourdain's boat.

In November Riou will sail PRB in the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre with Beyou and next year plans to enter the Vendee Globe, hoping to repeat the success of the former skipper of his boat, Michel Desjoyeaux, who beat Ellen MacArthur to first place in 2000-1.