Damian Foxall's campaign for the inaugural Route des Princes title got underway today on Oman Air-Musandam's when the flag went up on the start line in Valencia against a backdrop of cheering crowds.
All four 70 foot trimarans, including Oman Sail's flagship MOD70, lined up alongside the four Multi 50s and a Maxi 80, making for a spectacular sight for the crowds who watched from the beach at Malvarossa.
"We should see some wind in the early stages so it should be fun and we are looking forward to it," said Foxall as the crew docked out at the Marina Real Juan Carlos ahead of the 800nms leg to Lisbon, Portugal.
"We had a good offshore race with Groupe Edmond de Rothschild in the ArMen Race a couple of weeks ago and are pretty comfortable with our speeds so I think once we get offshore we will make good progress.
"It is important we don't miss any tricks on this or any of the legs. If we get a transition that we miss by a couple of minutes it could cost miles straight away. Even if it is a three or four day leg, we have to treat it like a sprint and we will."
Months of training have underpinned the crew's confidence in their offshore performance but the size and power of the MOD70s mean that success will come down to smooth manoeuvres and minimizing errors, according to Neal McDonald, who will share helming duties with skipper Sidney Gavignet.
"This is a big challenge," he said. "These are short but difficult legs. The only bit I would call offshore sailing is the stretch from Lisbon to the Fastnet rock. The rest of it is coastal sailing so there will be a lot of headlands and corners to turn and tricky moments so sleep will be a no-no. It will be hard to pace ourselves and get into a rhythm. There will be lots of sail changes but this will also bring plenty of opportunities to make gains. It's going to be pretty intense.
"There are some incredibly talented multihull sailors in this race who have been doing this for a long time though we have put in a lot of time into our training.
"We have to keep our errors to a minimum because they get compounded and cost you more and more. The boats that don't make mistakes will extend and extend."
With Mohsin Al Busaidi back in Oman attending the birth of his child, the six-strong Oman Air-Musandam were looking to Fahad al Hasni for some classic Omani inspiration and after spending four years now with the elite flagship programme, he was raring to go.
"This has become a very strong team and we are all confident that we can put in a good performance in this fleet of MOD70s. I'm looking forward to helming in any or all the conditions we come across but my main job will be trimming sails," said Fahad.
"We have prepared well and feel strong. We will be racing for between three and four days which means eating the freeze-dried food.
"It's going to be a hard race but we are all competitive and want to win so will be doing our best right from the start," he said.
Racing starts at 1400. The Route des Princes is an around Europe race from Spain to Portugal, Ireland, the UK and finishes in Northern France.
