Tour de France à la Voile – Battle against two biggest rivals

by ASO on 26 Jul 2015 Tour de France à la Voile - Last Stadium Racing day canceled due to strong wind. François Morvan and Xavier Revil win the 2015 TFV after three weeks of astounding competition against their two biggest rivals Groupama and CombiWest. It was tight until the end, and although today’s racing was canceled due to strong wind, a winner had to be crowned and it is Spindrift!

Tied in points with Groupama on the leaderboard after yesterday’s coastal race, the two teams had the same amount of victories, but Spindrift had more second places than Pierre Pennec and his crew.

It’s been a crazy last day on the water in Nice. From very light this morning the wind turned into a blast to reach up to 30 knots+ in the afternoon with rough seas that saw Engie capsize and crash into Armor Lux. Around 4pm the conditions on the water were becoming nasty and forced the Race Committee to cancel this last Stadium Racing day. As always in this format, the fleet was split in two groups of 14 boats to sail the qualification races. But the yellow group (including Spindrift) sailed two races, while the grey group (including Groupama and CombiWest) only sailed one, as starting a second one would have been too dangerous in winds exceeding 30 knots at times. The Race Committee had to send the fleet back in the harbour and cancel the racing without taking into account today’s results in the qualification races.

“It’s an incredible scenario. We are so happy”, said François Morvan. “Even if we had a tough time about half way through the event, we never gave up. We keeps pushing hard and we were always looking to improve our boat speed. Today it was a bit painful to wait for the wind to kick in and then it was hard to wait not knowing if we would be able to keep racing or not. Over the two races we sailed today, we scored a second place and a win and we were waiting for the committee to start Groupama’s fleet second qualification race. But following our results, it was done deal anyway, even if they were to win their next race”.

Pennec: “we’ll be back and win it”

François Morvan, Xavier Revil, Matthieu Vandame, Thierry Douillard and Fred Moreau also win the Coastal Race Rankings, while Groupama win the Stadium Racing Rankings. “We really wanted to win this Tour and finish second tied in points with the winner”, said Groupama’s halmsman Pierre Pennec. “We lost 30 points over two coastal races in Gruissan and in Nice when the wind was very shifty, but apart from that we sailed really well. I am disappointed because I wanted to win this Tour because you can’t always get what you want. We will come back and win it. The Race Committee was right to cancel the racing because the wind was strong and most of all the sea was rough. There would have been a lot of capsizes and potentially some injuries. It was too rough. It’s a shame the wind got so strong because it was nice when we started the first race. I would have like a real final against Spindrift. But it’s interesting to finish tied in points with them. We know where are the missing points. I don’t want to think about it too much”.

CombiWest finished third overall, only three points behind Spindrift and Groupama. And they take second place in the Stadium racing rankings. “Maybe we topped the leaderboard too early” said skipper Frédéric Guilmin. “We were on a peak between Pornichet and Roses and then we had some downs that cost a lot. But we are not disappointed with this third place because it we’ve reached our objective. When we look back, we can be proud of ourselves. Well done to the winner. They came out in the light and took everything they could and they really deserve their win because they sailed really well today. They were definitely the best on the water”.

The young guns of Vannes Agglo – Golfe du Morbihan finish fourth overall and win the Corinthian Rankings. The youngest crew of the fleet are still students and they don’t make a living out of their passion for sailing…Yet. They are a promising team who will very likely come back on the Tour next year to try and win it overall. “It’s a fantastic reward for our first Tour”, said co-skipper Matthieu Salomon. “We will always have fond memories of this first experience. We were in competition with some of France best sailors and it’s amazing for us. We are delighted to finish fourth and to win the corinthian rankings. We trained really hard with Daniel Souben and being a group of friends helped us too I think. We never had any pressure on. We always enjoyed sailing together. And when you enjoy it, you can perform. We’ll be back for sure. Vannes Agglo is a three year campaign so we will aim to finish on the podium next year”.