Grand Prix Petit Navire - Day 4

Dragons move to centre stage as the 60 and 40 footers bow out

Today saw further racing in the fourth day of the Grand Prix Petit Navire with the grand entrance of the Dragons, the event’s most loyal protagonists over its 10 year history. The 40 and 60 foot monohulls sailed their last race today with a coastal course reminiscent of yesterday’s, but with added pizzazz!

BT and Telecom Italia take victory

The 60 and 40 footers really showed what they were made of in the bay of Douarnenez in NW France today, such is their presence as they power along. Two starts were given this morning with remarkable precision on the part of the race committee headed by Loïc Ponceau: 1038 hours on the dot for the Class 40s and 1108 hours for the 60 footers, in exactly the same manner as yesterday. In contrast though, today’s weather conditions were very different, with 15 knots of N’ly wind and clear blue skies. The monohulls quickly devoured the 47 miles of the course which took them as far as the Tas de Pois and ultimately line honours at 1517 hours went to BT. As such the British contingent stood out, with Artemis getting off to the best start.

Meantime Le Pal was the first out of the starting blocks in the 40 foot category and the self same Bruno Jourdren and his crew of Bernard Stamm and Kito De Pavant also led proceedings yesterday, even beating in two 60 footers, DCNS and Artemis. Today there was a bit of a frosty reception on Jourdren’s boat as the crew were forced to retire for technical issues, which nobody onboard wished to comment on. In substance, Nono (Jourdren) did admit that they could have continued but not without risk of damaging the boat, “a bit like when you have tooth decay and you don’t get it seen to so you end up with a stomach ulcer”. In short, this retirement gave Giovanni Soldini outright victory today. “It’s to thank him (Soldini), because he’s come a long way to come and sail on our waters”.

For the Class 40, the Grand Prix Petit Navire is a gathering which completely corresponds with the mindset of the sailors in this series: a clever mix of sport and conviviality. So much so that the Class, which has seen a spectacular rise since 2006, is opening itself up ever more on an international level and gathers together both experienced amateurs and professional sailors. “They are boats which are easy to power up and incredibly entertaining on the water” explains Bernard Stamm, skipper of a 60 footer. “It’s rather nice to be invited to sail on a Class 40”.

Fifteen nationalities in the Dragon class

“The Grand Prix Petit Navire Dragon is the second largest French meet after Hyères Week” comments Jimmy Pahun, who’s racing on British Dragon Jerboa. “There are 15 nations, which is extremely interesting and the fact that there are so many craft on the water makes it an exciting exercise. It’s an admirable mix of cultures”. The president of the SRD who’s organising the Grand Prix, Louis Urvois, is also a Dragon enthusiast. “It’s a series which gathers together the greatest number of Olympic medallists. The technical level is very high. This boat requires a huge amount of precision and to finish in the top quarter of the fleet is a great result in itself. It’s hard to say who could win this year, but we can rely on the kings of the series such as Vincent Hoesch and Thomas Müller, as well as the Finnish crew of Rat-Pack, the Danish African Queen and a young French crew could really put on a good show on Q-Ti-Too”.

Passion, precision and… loyalty is an asset and Bijou Bihen’s crew have an abundance of this as they haven’t missed a single one of the Douarnenez meets over the past 10 years. Francis le Bihan, Francis Mouremble and Régis Brachet form a closely-knit trio. Pure amateurs, they come all the way from Toulouse in SW France to the bay of Douarnenez ‘for the sheer enjoyment and conviviality’, even though they sincerely hope they’ll pull off a few blinding performances along the way. The race organisation was able to give the starts on three races today as conditions were great. The local trio of Dirastarc’h (FRA 355) got off to a great start as the top French crew after two races, before giving up pole position to a fellow local crew on Ar Youleg (FRA 365), currently in third. It came as no surprise that the battle has been raging between the Bunker Boys (UKR 8) and Sinewave (GER 996), with the latter winning two races but nevertheless lie in second tonight behind today’s start performers, the Ukrainians.

The low-down on the pontoons this morning

François Angoulvant (Fermiers de Loué-Sarthe): “We’re happy with how the day went yesterday. We worked well scoring a series of third places. Today things will get a bit more complicated as there are three of us tied in second with Telecom Italia (Giovanni Soldini) and Zed 4 (Gérald Bidot). As such there are three of us battling for second and third place. Fortunately there’s more wind than yesterday: the race will certainly be more dynamic because yesterday’s racing was about as calm as you can get. I’m sailing with a group of students who are finding their way around the boat. This has always been the scenario on the yacht: it was designed by Olivier Gouard at the Institut Supérieur des Matériaux et Mécaniques Avancés (ISMANS), the engineering college where I’m employed as teacher and researcher. Consequently my crew is made up of students.”

Christopher Pratt is sailing on DCNS 1000, skippered by Marc Thiercelin: “The Grand Prix Petit Navire has enabled us to express ourselves on a number of levels. For the first two days we concentrated on speed with the runs across the bay. That was very entertaining and, in addition to that we had a good result on the last day. Yesterday and today the onus has been on strategy and control during manoeuvres. We’ve been struggling a bit on the latter in relation to the others as we don’t know our boat so well. Today’s course was reminiscent of yesterdays, but longer. It’s going really well on the boat: we’ve been able to rub shoulders with people from many different backgrounds. It’s interesting to show them the boat and let them share the sensations we get from sailing”.

Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia): “It’s already the third time I’ve been to the Grand Prix Petit Navire with Foncia. We’ve taken part in the event ever since we’ve had the boat. I’d already participated here in the Dragon class some years ago too. Since we began coming here we’ve been trying to share it with as many people as possible, not just confirmed sailors, but also the shore crew, friends and economic players. Yesterday was a bit drawn out. We sailed in light airs but we finished just a few minutes shy of six o’ clock, which was aperitif time so the timing was perfect. In the Class 40s though, some of them missed dessert! This Sunday is likely to be a little livelier on the water…”

More information at www.grandprixpetitnavire.com