La Solitaire Bompard Le Figaro - Leg 4 Finish

Agony for Dalin as king Richomme reigns in La Rochelle

Yoann Richomme sailing Skipper Macif 2015 adhered rigidly to his final game-plan and stuck close to his one real title rival, teammate Charlie Dalin all through the 130-mile, 24-hour sprint finale around the Ile de Yeu, to win the 47th La Solitaire Bompard Le Figaro in La Rochelle by only five minutes and 10 seconds.

Dalin, on Skipper Macif 2015, had led Richomme all the way around the unusually short final stage. He extended his lead by over three-quarters-of-a-mile during the early afternoon transition into a new sea breeze and it looked like Richomme's first Solitaire title was in jeopardy.

When Dalin crossed the finish line in sixth place at 14.58hrs and 36 secs, Richomme was 1.4 miles from the line and the only thing standing between him and overall victory was the clock. But, as if on cue, the wind increased, and Richomme accelerated to over nine knots – his fastest speed of the afternoon - to clinch the Solitaire title for the first time. As he approached the line, he knew he had done enough and the 32-year-old Frenchman from Lorient leant back, let the tiller go and raised his arms above his head. With the cheers of well-wishers ringing in his ears, he stood and punched the air before rocking back onto the side deck in sheer joy.

"I was quite scared actually," admitted Richomme of his run against the clock to secure victory. "The wind can drop off. You can so easily get slowed down for two or three minutes and that got me worried. I had done the calculations beforehand in terms of what I had to do. "I have dreamt of doing this for so long but you can't ever imagine what it feels like now, what this is like. It is going to take me a long time to grasp what this means."

This was the first time in the 47 editions of the multi-stage, solo offshore championship that one team has taken the top two positions. Richomme and Dalin's Skipper Macif 1-2 completes the sponsorship programme's remarkable portfolio of blue riband victories, now adding the Solitaire to the Transat Jacques Vabre, the Vendée Globe and the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe.

Brothers-in-arms, Richomme and Dalin have trained together in the Skipper Macif colours at the famous Pôle Finisterre programme that has produced the last 14 winners of the Solitaire, strengthening each other's game. Richomme and Dalin were dismasted 154 miles from Madeira in April when racing together in the Transat AG2R La Mondiale two-handed transatlantic which they started as favourites to win.

Britain's Will Harris, 22 from Surrey sailing Artemis 77, held his nerve to win the top rookie title. It is the third time in four years that British sailors from the Artemis Offshore Academy have won the top Rookie award, after Jackson Bouttell in 2013 and Robin Elsey in 2015. The final match between Harris and his French rival Pierre Quiroga on Skipper Espoir CEM was played out alongside the Richomme-Dalin showdown. Harris sailed to his best ever finish, the best British result of this edition, when he crossed the La Rochelle finish line in eighth position, 17 seconds ahead of the championship winner Richomme and nearly two minutes ahead of Quiroga. His final margin over the Mediterranean skipper is 13 minutes and 10 seconds.

British skippers take 16th, 17th, 18th and 21st positions in the 39-boat fleet, led by Alan Roberts on Alan Roberts Racing, followed by Harris and Nick Cherry on Redshift. Sam Matson on Chatham finished 21st.

Richomme's winning race Richomme may have finished second on Stage 1 but he had put four minutes and 30 seconds on the skipper who would be his closest rival through the race, Dalin. Significantly, into Cowes the top-four skippers already had one hour or more on those chasing.

Stage 2 was where Richomme laid the foundations for his overall victory, winning the leg into Paimpol, but adding a further 26 minutes to his lead over second placed Dalin who was third. In Stage 3, Paimpol to La Rochelle, Richomme led but he let Dalin off the hook during the early morning beat from the BXA turning mark past the Isle d'Oléron. Dalin finished ahead – winning after Xavier Macaire was penalised – and took 16 minutes back from the championship leader. Richomme started the last, all-Macif showdown leg at 14 minutes and 8 seconds up on Dalin.

Richomme, 32, always listens to music when he is racing - "I could not race without it," he says - is something of a late starter to offshore racing. It was only 16 years ago on a family cruise across the Atlantic with his father that his passion for sailing offshore was really ignited. In 2003 he enrolled on a yacht design degree course at Southampton Institute and immediately set up a student project to compete in the 13-stage, 1,000-mile Tour Voile fully-crewed race around France. He managed three subsequent Tour Voile projects. He won his selection to the Skipper Macif project in 2014. Dalin was chosen the following year.

Richomme worked as preparateur for Charles Caudrelier and Nicolas Lunven before starting out on a low budget Solitaire programme in 2010, going on to finish second rookie. It was only on his third attempt at the Skipper Macif programme that he was chosen.

The Skipper Macif project is one arm of what is one of France's biggest and most successful sailing sponsorships. The giant insurance company, which has a large leisure marine division, supports grass roots training of cruising sailors in concert with the Féderation Francaise de Voile. The Skipper Macif initiative is focused on the Solitaire, selecting and nurturing talent over a three-year period. The company has a long history of sailing sponsorships but started the Skipper Macif programme in 2008. The competitive selection process includes practical exams, race results, media training and psychological profiling to measure motivation. The reward is a top-level programme with highly successful preparateurs – boat technicians who prepare and maintain the boats – dedicated coaches within the Pôle Finisterre training centre in Port La Fôret, meteo training, strength and conditioning and nutritional support.

The most successful graduate is the prodigious François Gabart who was selected to the programme in 2009 and finished second in the Solitaire in 2010, becoming France's solo offshore champion that year. Successively Gabart then won the Transat Jacques Vabre and Solo B2B on his Macif-backed IMOCA 60, a prelude to becoming the youngest ever winner of the Vendée Globe at 26-years-old in 2012-13. Gabart is now engaged in setting solo records on the giant 30-metre maxi trimaran Macif.

They said:

Yoann Richomme:

"I feel so great. I don't even feel tired now. It is such a huge achievement and you don't ever really think you will do it. It was a very tough Solitaire. The winds were so unstable all the time. It was hard to sleep on all three-and-a-half legs. But I have never pushed so hard. I have never pushed myself so hard. I have never trimmed the boat so much. I think Charlie and I just raised the level a bit this year. We did so much tuning of the boats together, even more than I have done on any programme over the last 13 years of my sailing career. We do so much mast and rudder trimming, always tiny changes to the sail trim. We have done an awful lot.

"I have done more than most other skippers. Charlie is very driven, very aggressive and pushes himself so hard. I learned a lot from sailing with him on the AG2R LA MONDIALE although we did not finish it. We messed it up. That seems so far away right now. It was Charlie's boat so congratulations to him to get the boat set-up and back in the top of the fleet so quickly.

"We race for the same sponsor, we have the same preparateur and we share a lot of things. We stay in the same houses and try to have the best possible approach to every aspect of our sport. We are professional and have a cook working with us through the race so we don't lose time in the restaurants. There are so many little things that we have raised the game with.

"There has been some tension and we have not really spoken much. But there has not been much to say. We know each other well. I have known him since 2006. We can talk about anything. I don't know what this will do for my career. I want to take some time now and think about it. Professionally I want to keep on getting better. I want to be involved in bigger and better projects. I want to do the Vendée Globe or the Volvo, that is for sure. If at one point it slows down I might do something else. I love crewed racing. I miss it a lot. I come from the Tour de France and I am not a big fan of single-handed racing but I do it because it is the single most competitive circuit that I know where you can actually make a living. A Volvo would be amazing me. But at the moment I just want to see."

Charles Darbyshire, GBR, project manager Artemis Offshore Academy:

"Winning the Rookie division is not the key to future success but it is an important rite of passage. When you look at who has been top rookie in the past, almost all the top names of French sailing, then it will be great for Will. And for him to have such a great battle with Pierre all the way around, to finish with an eighth place in the final leg, it is great to see.

"I think most of the British sailors will be disappointed with where they have ended up, all for different reasons. But if you were not in the top-eight after the end of Leg 1 then you were not in the game anyway. That may have had a knock-on effect. Alan Roberts could never really improve on where he was after Leg 1 and that is hard mentally through the rest of the race. Particularly this year we had such high expectations. Sometimes the race does not go your way. It was the toughest course I have seen since I have been watching since 2003. The conditions were not so tough but if you were not in absolutely the right place at the right time it spat you out the back. But it was a great contest. In the last 10 miles between Yoann and Charlie the race was won and lost, and won and lost, so many times."

Will Harris:

"I am amazed. In my dreams that leg could not have gone better. As it was a night race I could keep pushing and pushing and I did not need that much time to rest. Getting top rookie was my main goal but to get an eighth and push my overall result up in the rankings is just great. And to beat Yoann across the line was a good feeling. When the new sea breeze came in Pierre (Quiroga, rookie rival) made a good tactical choice and I followed him and I got through Yoann. I get on well with Pierre, we are good friends, and before races we always line up together and are very close."

Yoann Richomme's Record in the Solitaire:

• 2010: 19th and second rookie
• 2011: 6th
• 2012: 19th
• 2013: 4th
• 2014: 19th
• 2015: 8th
• 2016: 1st

Final Standings:

1 Yoann Richomme, (Skipper Macif 2014), 9 days 19hrs 14 mins 12s
2 Charlie Dalin, (Skipper Macif 2015), + 5 mins 10 seconds behind winner
3 Nicolas Lunven, (Generali), + 55 mins 10 secs
4 Erwan Tabarly, (Armor Lux), +1hr 23m 42 secs
5 Thierry Chabagny, (Gedimat), +1hr 26m 44 secs
GBR
16th Alan Roberts (Alan Roberts Racing), +9hrs 29mins 27secs
17th Will Harris (Artemis 77), +10hr 21m 41s
18th Nick Cherry, (Redshift), +10hr 26m 35s
21st Sam Matson, (Chatham), +11h 58m 27s
25th Robin Elsey, (Artemis 43), +13hrs 14m 38s
26th Andrew Baker, (#seachange), +15hrs 43m 19s
32nd Mary Rook, (Artemis 37), +24hrs 54m 50s
35th Hugh Brayshaw, (Artemis 23), +30 08m 39s

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