Another home turf victory for Groupama

Franck Cammas' team another step closer to Volvo Ocean Race glory

Franck Cammas and the crew of the Groupama VO70 took another step towards overall victory in the 2011-2 Volvo Ocean Race when they followed their leg 8 win into the round the world race's French stopover with victory in today's Bretagne In-Port Race on the teams' home waters off Lorient.

The Emirates Team New Zealand-crewed Camper got off to the best start mid-line, overcoming the added pressure of having team manager and Volvo Ocean Race veteran Grant Dalton on board to rocket off the line in 11 knots of westerly breeze ahead of Sanya and Groupama. Abu Dhabi was slow starting, punished for a late tack late in the start sequence.

A split in the fleet up the first leg saw Groupama heading out to the right with Sanya after their committee boat end starts, while the rest of the fleet went left. But this did little to shake up the order with Camper first to the top mark three boat lengths ahead of Groupama, followed by Puma, Sanya, Telefónica and with Abu Dhabi bringing up the rear.

On the run, Puma managed to pull off a slicker gybe than Groupama and then rolled past them to move into second but then gave up their gain when the crew lost control of the jib sheet coming into the leeward mark. Camper led around ahead of the French boat by 30 seconds, while Ian Walker's team on Abu Dhabi were able to capitalise on a Telefónica’s inshore weakness edging into fourth place.

On the final run, Groupama was showing better pace than the Kiwi crewed boat and Cammas' crew pulled off a well executed gybe squeezing them in ahead of Camper to lead on to the finish line.

Picking up a maximum six points, this now puts Groupama 25 points clear of second placed Puma, 29 ahead of Camper and 31 in front of Telefonica with the final leg to Galway and the last in port race to go, or a maximum 36 points left on the board for the winner.

"This is a very good day for us, especially seeing as we didn’t plan on winning," said Cammas, who has now led his crew to three victories in the in-port series. "It’s incredible to be doing so well. We were aiming for at least third place today - we out did ourselves."

A disappointed Camper skipper Chris Nicholson recognised that his team had thrown away the victory. "We snatched defeat from victory there. We had that race. We sailed 95% of it spot on and then just let ourselves down at the end.”

Focus now turns to the final offshore leg of the 2011-12 edition, a 550-mile sprint from Lorient to Galway in Ireland, starting at 1102 UTC on Sunday.

Bretagne In-Port Race results:

1. Groupama sailing team, 56:12 (6 points)
2. CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, +0.13 (5 points)
3. PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG, +0.24 (4 points)
4. Team Telefónica, +1:34 (3 points)
5. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, +1:48 (2 points)
6. Team Sanya, +4:45 (1 points)

Overall results

Photos by Ian Roman/Paul Todd - Volvo Ocean Race