Tour de France à la Voile – PRB in action in Marseille

by ASO on 24 Jul 2015 Tour de France à la Voile – And Groupama extends the lead overall, two days from the finish in Nice. The mistral wind was not as strong as forecast and the fleet ended up having amazing sailing conditions on Marseille race course. Hot temperatures, big blue sky, warm water, nice 10-12 knots wind...

As always the 28 boats were split in two groups to compete in a series of four qualification races and one final. None of the race leaders finished in the top three today. PRB scored three race victories and won the day, Prince de Bretagne finished in two and Vannes Agglo in three.

It's their best Act so far. Vincent Riou and his crew have had two fantastic days in Marseille. After a second place yesterday on the Coastal course, they scored victory today in Stadium racing format. A great result for PRB team who started the Med in ninth position just a week ago and made its way up to sixth on the Tour's leaderboard. Although the Top five seems to be out of reach, Vincent Riou can already be satisfied with their progression so far. “Everyone is happy with his result. We came to the Tour de France à la Voile to try and do our best and that's what we did today”, said the skipper. “Billy has been phenomenal all day. It took great starts and we managed the make the most of them”.

PRB's results have been in progress since Nacra 17 world champion Nacra 17 stepped onboard and took the helm of the Diam 24 in Roses. Offshore sailing and solo round the world winner Vincent Riou knows it and that's why he called Billy. “He told me he never sailed a Diam 24 before so of course there has been some failures, like our crash last week. But let's say this was a training time! Now he's officially a Diam 24 pilot! Unfortunately he will be leaving tonight. So in Nice I will try and take one race at a time and put into practice what I've learnt from him”.

Consistency

Tonight the boats are being dismantled to be delivered to Nice and put back together for a Coastal Race tomorrow and the next two days should offer light wind sailing, with less than 10 knots of wind forecast. It will be the last opportunity for CombiWest and Spindrift to shake the podium positions and try to stop Groupama from winning the event. For now, Pierre Pennec and his crew have extended their lead to eight points over CombiWest. None of these top three teams have finished on the podium today, but Groupama and Spindrift have had consistent result leading to equal points on the day's rankings, while CombiWest struggled to find the right pace and finished the day in ninth. “We made a few mistakes today but less than CombiWest and Spindrift so it's a positive day. I like Nice race course as I won two Extreme Sailing Series event there. I think the start will be important and so far we've been good starting upwind, so I am confident. We are a few points ahead and I prefer to be in my position than in theirs, knowing that we are also more consistent than them in our results”, said Pierre Pennec after racing.