Fastest, meanest, fleet for Transat

by Lou Newlands on 15 May 2004 Just 17 days are left before the signal from the Royal Navy's HMS Tyne will mark the start of the 12th single-handed Transatlantic race on Bank Holiday Monday, 31 May.

At the Plymouth Yacht Haven, a short ferry ride across the Cattewater from downtown Plymouth, construction starts on The Transat Race Village next week.

Under race rules, the competing boats in The Transat are required to arrive in Plymouth on or before Saturday, 22 May - the contingent of American skippers Rich Wilson, Kip Stone and Joe Harris are all already berthed safely in Plymouth following their trans-oceanic delivery trips.

With eleven 60ft trimarans, and one 60ft catamaran, along with 18 Open 60 monohulls making up the bulk of the entries, the race fleet will take up considerable acreage and will be one of the most impressive gatherings of the world's fastest and most advanced ocean racing machines ever seen.

This is the only occasion in the four year offshore yacht racing cycle that these two classes of boat gather in the UK and it will be a spectacle not to be missed.

The Transat Race Village will be open to the public from 22nd May to 31st May and will house a multitude of exhibitors. The Royal Navy display will include a submarine simulator and Renault will be displaying one of their Formula 1 racing cars alongside many exhibitors from the British and French marine sector.

More qualification passages for The Transat have now been completed, the latest being Alain Gautier's trimaran Foncia and Temenos, the Swiss Open 60 of Dominique Wavre. The only remaining boats still to carry out their obligatory qualifiers are the Open 60s Bonduelle, Sill, Pro-Form and Quiksilver - skipper Anne Liardet departed last night on her qualifier.

This week, six of The Transat's IMOCA Open 60 fleet competed in the 1000 Milles de Calais crewed race. The event started last Sunday afternoon from Calais, then the boats headed west down the Channel across the Celtic Sea, rounding the Fastnet Rock off southern Ireland before returning to Calais.

The event has been the race debut for the two brand new Marc Lombard-designed Open 60s Bonduelle and Sill, respectively of former trimaran skipper Jean le Cam and Roland Jourdain - both favourites for a monohull win in The Transat.

These boats are an evolution of Jourdain's previous Sill and feature a rotating wing mast with deck spreaders, a canting keel and twin asymmetric daggerboards, a unique chine in the aft quarters of their hull, transom hung rudders and a much modified cockpit layout.

After a race-long battle with Mike Golding's team on Ecover, it was the bright yellow form of le Cam's Bonduelle that arrived first in Calais - an excellent result for her first race.

Sill, launched just 12 days before the start, was less fortunate and retired with keel problems. As with the results from the ORMA grand prix the weekend before, little can be read into these results because the race was fully crewed whereas the Transat is single-handed.

TENTH EDITION: 1996

Unusually this ran in a similar fashion to the race four years earlier with Loick Peyron, once again, taking line honours in the 60ft trimaran class aboard Fujicolor followed by Paul Vatine taking second on board his Region Haute Normandie but this time by a much closer margin than in 1992 - only four hours separated the two boats.

The surprise in the French trimaran race for line honours came from Francis Joyon who chose a route not used by anyone since Blondie Hasler in 1960 - the Northern route. Joyon went far to the north passing over the top of the depressions that were slowing his adversaries on the direct route.

He had more than 300-mile lead by the time he had reached the Newfoundland Banks and nothing seemed capable of stopping him from breaking the record for the passage. But with just over 400 miles to go to the finish, his Banque Populaire trimaran capsized. A similar fate befell Laurent Bourgnon on Primagaz soon after.

Peyron went on to win line honours, the only person since Tabarly to have won the race twice (Philippe Poupon won in 1988 and crossed the line first in 1984 but lost the race on a time penalty).

The Transat starts on 31st May and email updates will be sent out every week until the start, then daily for the duration of the race. To unsubscribe, please email info@thetransat.com