Tour de France à la Voile - Groupama 24 - Trading places

by Vincent Borde on 26 Jul 2015 2015 Tour de France à la Voile - After sixteen days of races contested at eight French stopover venues and one Spanish, the top two in the 38th edition of the Tour de France à la Voile finish tied on points. Unfortunately for the crew of Groupama 24, it’s their rival Spindrift who is declared winner as a result of the extra number of second places it gleaned, given that the two teams had an equal number of victories.

Never leading throughout this past month between Dunkirk and Marseille, the Swiss crew have staged a hold-up by benefiting from the last day in Nice, cancelled due to overly strong winds, to take the win by the smallest possible margin.

Fate, like sport, can deal a cruel blow at times. That is what the five crew on Groupama 24 are telling themselves today after taking it in turns to sail the one-design trimaran between Dunkirk and Nice from 3 July to 26 July.

Leading for 80% of the time, the crew led by Franck Cammas and Pierre Pennec has been knocked off the top of the leaderboard just three times: in the first coastal course contested in Dunkirk, a race won by Grandeur Nature Vérandas, in Gruissan by a CombiWest firing on all cylinders and finally by Spindrift in Nice, at the worst possible moment.

First in the Stadium races and second in the coastal courses, utterly dominating on the water, Groupama 24 has let victory slip out of its grasp: 'We came here to win, not to finish second. As such, it's bound to be disappointing, but that's life. There's no point pawing over where we lost points. Like all our rivals, we lost them in silly fashion. What I take away from this experience though, is our great speed and the quality of our manoeuvres,' says an inevitably disappointed Pierre Pennec: 'I've been lucky to be part of this Groupama project. We've had a very fine season, never finishing lower than second place. We've performed well with a superb crew and a boat that was well prepared by our very professional shore crew. Despite this second place, we can all be proud of what we've achieved'.

From Portsmouth, where he's competing in the first event of the ACWS, Franck Cammas had this reaction: 'It's really unfair'. Having helmed the boat after the World Nacra 17 Championship in Denmark and again before Portsmouth, the skipper of Groupama has been following his team's performance on a daily basis: 'It's always hard when things go right to the wire and you get beaten. This edition of the Tour has been very rich in competitive terms, with a bigger fleet and some very hotly disputed races. We've discovered some very high performance young racers like those on Vannes Agglo. I greatly enjoyed going to Roscoff, Les Sables d'Olonne and Roses'.

Questioned about his two main rivals, Pierre Pennec expressed his viewpoint: 'Spindrift made up a 31-point deficit in two of the last three coastal courses. The crew are all-rounders. They made some errors, particularly when they got slammed by the black rule in the Stadium courses. In the end, they secured victory so congratulations to them. As for CombiWest, at times their level of control was impressive, though maybe they weren't quite consistent enough to win'.

One thing that the majority of teams will agree on is the quality of the organisation provided by ASO. For a first edition in multihull format, the Groupama team is as happy about the public village on shore as the racing on the water: 'Obviously there are a few adjustments to be made and there is room to progress, but the Tour has certainly risen to a new level this year. The number of visitors in the race village is up and the entertainment on offer with Centaure on the subject of road safety proved very successful,' commented Matthieu Agostini, Head of Sponshorship at Groupama.

Overall ranking in the Tour de France à la Voile 2015

1/ Spindrift with 747 points
2/ Groupama 24 tied on points
3/ CombiWest 3 points behind
4/ Vannes Agglo 43 points behind
5/ Grandeur Nature Vérandas 52 points behind
6/ Prince de Bretagne 83 points behind