Sponsor found for Team Mabire-Merron

Food distributor Campagne de France back Anglo-French Global Ocean Race campaign

After several months spent with the large question mark over whether or not they would manage to secure sponsorship, so Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron’s Class 40 campaign for the Global Ocean Race now has a backer...

A sponsor has stepped forward in the form of food distributor Campagne de France. Part of France Frais, the history of the company goes back to the 1960s when the provisioning of local shops was carried out by independent regional distributors. France Frais was set up to be a nation-wide network to pool resources and expertise, via its key brands Campagne de France, Terres de Fraîcheur and Au Coeur des Passions, promoting locally produced food, in each region of origin as throughout the rest of France. They also supply outside of France, with for example Tesco being a client of theirs in the UK.

While there is a long legacy in France of companies in the food sector backing sailing, for France Frais, this is their first time and interestingly the deal is purely a commercial one, as the management there are not sailors.

According to a rather tired Miranda Merron, the deal came off about three weeks ago, the budget just enough to get them through the doublehanded round the world race, although they are still looking to supplement their budget. “At the moment we have only one set of sails and we won’t be able to replace any, and we can’t afford to have a shore crew throughout the race, so we will try and get some extra from somewhere.”

That they have managed to get this far has been down to the support their ‘family’ of technical partners ranging from Structures, builder of their Pogo 40S2 to DCNS which built the keel, to Axxon Composites, Facnor, Sparcraft Rigging, Musto, Dubarry, Antal, Lombardini, etc.

Right now, their newly christened Campagne de France Class 40 has been moved from Mabire’s boatyard in Barneville-Carteret to JMV Composites in Cherbourg, where the keel is in the process of being offered up. This will be followed by antifouling next week, after which they will put the boat in the water ready to carry out its mandatory 180deg inversion test for the Global Ocean Race. They will then start finishing the boat off, adding the on-deck electronics, fitting the Axxon Composites mast as they await the arrival of their sails from All Purpose in La Trinite.

First sailing is expected to be towards the end of July and the boat is expected to put in an appearance during Cowes Week.

“We would have liked to have been on the water earlier, but we are still okay time-wise although we will have to carry on with our seven day a week work schedule to get to the start,” says Merron.

With their new backing they have been able to throw more manpower at finishing the boat and to help they have roped in fellow former Royal&SunAlliance crewwoman Mikaela von Koskull.

With time being short between now and the 25 September start of the Global Ocean Race from Palma, Mabire and Merron will be treating the delivery to Majorca as their qualifier. They are required to be in Palma form 4 September.

“So we have a lot on - all the logistics to organise for the RTW race now that we know we are definitely doing it, like a round the world race’s worth of food that has to go into the container, spares, charts, the safety has been ordered, and so on,” Merron continues. “There is a huge amount of organisation that goes into it.

“I am very much looking for to the race. I occasionally realise now that we are actually going to get to sail our boat! It is a shame we won’t have had more time on the water, because we will have big competition in the Global Ocean Race between Michel Kleinjans and Ross and Campbell Field and Jacques Fournier and Jean-Edouard Criquioche on Groupe Picoty who have had their boat for a while and are both pretty solid sailors.”

So the second piece of good news this week for British shorthanded offshore racing...