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.

#routedesprinces – Damian Foxall is Ireland's most successful ocean racer. After winning the Volvo Ocean Race with Franck Cammas' successful Groupama crew, his fourth participation in the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race, Foxall has returned to grand prix Multihull racing some ten years after he enjoyed a good run on the ORMA 60 Circuit racing with Sergio Tacchini, Foncia and Groupama. He lines up on Oman Air – Musandam along with skipper Sidney Gavignet and Brit Neal McDonald to form a core unit with a remarkable level of round the world and ocean racing experience between them.

Foxall joined the programme in January and says they have done more training miles this year than any of their rivals:
" I think we are in very good shape. This is the second year of the boat racing. This is the peak of the pyramid of the whole Oman Sail project so it is a very interesting mix of guys like myself, Neal, Sidney and Thomas and the best Omani sailors that have come through, the likes of Fahad is absolutely brilliant, as good as anyone else on these boats and a new young guy from the F18's who is learning really, really fast.
Some of these young guys coming on board are impressed by the speed, but not overly so and their approach is just great."

" We started sailing in January so we were the first boat in the water this year. We have been sailing around the western European coast since then. In January we went to Lorient to Portimao in Portugal where we sailed for ten days, inshore mainly sailing six up and so that was a good session. We have done more on the water than any other team. We went to try the Round Ireland but it was just too windy, we saw over 50 knots. And then we have been involved in the smaller races, the ArMen Race and in Douarnenez with Virbac Paprec 70. They confirmed that it will be very close racing for sure. Virbac Paprec are just getting up to speed with the machine, it is new to Jean Pierre but he has a fantastic team and the boat will go in the right direction for sure and once it is up to speed they will be very competitive. I think between the four boats it will be very tight. For example in the ArMen race we were five minutes behind Gitana."

A past winner of the Barcelona World Race with Jean Pierre Dick, now he finds himself back racing against his former co-skipper.
" I have not raced Jean Pierre since the Barcelona World Race but that is typical of our industry. There are great new teams which are formed around old alliances. In fact my first contact with the Whitbread was stepping on board La Poste on the Quebec Saint Malo and Sidney Gavignet who introduced me to Michel Desjoyeaux who got me to Port La Fôret and gave me an invitation to there. That was one of the main launching points of my career, and at the same time Sidney was doing a Figaro campaign and so we had parallel careers, and I have sailed round the world with Neal at least three times. So it is a very familiar team. Phil was a boat builder with Groupama, Ericsson and so on. And of course I have sailed against the other guys a lot. It is a great fleet. There is a great ambience. You keep things tight and close to your chest but on the other hand it is one big family."

The Oman Air – Musandam Team are ready to race:
" We are ready. We went out yesterday and did the most complicated manoeuvres possible and made sure we put them to bed with no skeletons in the closet. We pulled them all off and I think we are in a good place to go round the course looking to win. We are fast in most conditions. Last year I think they were less comfortable with their speed tight reaching and maybe in some boat handling but I think we are well up to speed on both counts now.

Inshore we sail with eight and offshore with six. We have a slightly different set up. Giles Favenec completments Thomas on the grinders inshore and helps Neal and Sidney on tactics inshore."

Foxall is very happy to be in the MOD70 fleet, seeing it as the best racing there is at the moment:
" I am not sure if our career passage is linear, circular or spirals but this certainly feels like where to be. I stepped on the boat for the first time in January and it was like I had stepped off the 60 foot trimarans. In fact these boats are a little bit easier. On the 60 foot trimarans you could cant the rigs fore and aft. I did two Transat Jacques Vabre races, a third and a capsize. We won the Quebec-Saint Malo. I did three years with Sergio Tacchini, Foncia and Groupama. At that time that was the very best sailing circuit in the world, 15 boats on the start line, fully crewed around the buoys, coastal races, ocean races single and double handed. This is the result a few years later, one design is great. The boats are solid and you can sail them with two or three people, and run them shoreside with two or three people."

" The boats are absolutely rock solid. We did 40 knots on the way down here. Of all the classes these are the best racing boats in the world right now. Yes the America's Cup boats are maybe faster but you would never take them offshore and do 40 knots. So to do that with between two and six people is just awesome. We race them round the buoys and offshore. They are brilliant. Now hopefully we will see more boats being built and coming into the class."

And most of all he is looking forwards to returning to Ireland:
" I have not been back to Ireland for more than six months. It is fantastic to see the momentum continuing in Ireland and Spain acknowledging that sailing events bring revenue and a lot of activity, they animate towns and cities and ports. Two Irish cities put in bids for this and that is a great endorsement after what the Volvo Ocean Race achieved."

#routedesprinces – For those crews competing in the MOD70 class, the Route des Princes kicks off for real tomorrow. Indeed, on Friday and Saturday – 7 and 8 June – the first of the event's inshore races will take place offshore of Valencia, the start venue for this European tour for multihulls. During these short format races close to shore, Sébastien Josse and his seven crew will be up against the crews of Spindrift Racing, Virbac Paprec and Oman Air. After a few days of training on the Spanish race zone, Edmond de Rothschild's crew are making no secret of their desire to get down to business and get out on the racetrack.

Tomorrow, Friday 7 June will see the Route des Princes fire into action in Valencia. In store in this European tour are four legs from Spain to Portugal (Lisbon), Ireland (Dublin), England (Plymouth) and finally France. It's in Roscoff, on 30 June 2013, that the winner of this new race will be crowned. With over 3,000 miles on the programme and some three weeks of racing, where the sailors will switch between offshore and round-the-cans races, the 2013 edition promises to be run at a steady pace for those crews who've signed up for the event.

Aboard Edmond de Rothschild, Sébastien Josse's crew is tackling its second season on the circuit. Boosted by the experience they racked up in 2012, the men of Gitana Team are making it clear that they have their sights on victory, but they are very much aware of the stiff competition they face: "We made Valencia last Saturday after spending a few days in Marseille. Since that time, the team has been able to make the final technical checks and we've been able to do a spot of training so as to get the measure of the race zone and its specific features. In early May, our victory in the Armen Race showed us that we were on the pace and able to maintain a high speed in boisterous conditions. It was the perfect warm-up but the Route des Princes is the first race of the season where the four MODs in this year's line-up will be able to do battle. On paper, Spindrift is the crew to beat, but Oman and Virbac Paprec will have to be kept a close eye on too, as the sailors in both crews are very talented and, to my mind, have made good progress. The competition is going to be wide open! For our part, we've put a lot of work into preparing for the upcoming sailing season and today we're ready to go and keen for the competition to begin," Sébastien Josse admitted.

With less than 24 hours to go till the first confrontations, the skipper of Edmond de Rothschild reveals his 'player list' for the Spanish races: "The crew accompanying me on the inshore races in Valencia is pretty similar to last year with Thomas Rouxel and Olivier Douillard trimming, Cyril Dardashti and David Boileau grinding and then Florent Chastel on the bow. To this hard core is added Charles Caudrelier doing the nav and monitoring performance and finally Sébastien Col, who will be in charge of calling tactics. Sébastien is one of the top French inshore racers and has expert knowledge of Valencia and the bay, having sailed here on many occasions during his years in the America's Cup."

Helmsman on the French challenger, K-Challenge, from 2007 to 2009, Sébastien Col is indeed very familiar with the Spanish bay, where the Louis Vuitton Cup and then the America's Cup were held in 2007. His knowledge of the race zone, combined with his qualities as a fine tactician, will unquestionably be an asset aboard the trimaran fitted out by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild. He analyses the weather conditions that may colour the playing field from tomorrow: "I've spent nearly two and a half years sailing here. As such I'm relatively familiar with the race zone. In Valencia, this season is characterised by a solid thermal breeze. It's a very localised weather system created by the difference in temperature between the land and the sea. As the land warms up quicker than the sea, that creates a kind of drawing up of the air in the vicinity. Indeed, the air over the sea is drawn up by the heat rising up off the land. It's a phenomenon that remains hard to predict, both in terms of strength and direction. That's why the race zone in Valencia calls for you to remain fairly open-minded and to adjust your strategy according to a direct observation on the water. It's not always easy: the wind coming from the sea is accompanied by chop and isn't really something you can spot on the water. In terms of the sea, it's not unusual to have big seas, especially towards the end of the day if the thermal breeze is blowing at around 20 knots."

Tomorrow, Sébastien Col will endure his baptism of fire aboard Edmond de Rothschild. He knows the craft well, having been among Michel Desjoyeaux' crew during the Krys Ocean Race in 2012, but this time the sailor will be participating in the very specific exercise of inshore racing on a 70-foot trimaran: "I'm eager to get down to it! I love this intense, close-contact race format, which reminds me a great deal of match racing. You have to make the right decisions in a very short space of time and, above all, make these decisions early enough for the tactical execution of the manoeuvres to be smooth."

The attention signal for the opening race is set to be fired offshore of the Real Juan Carlo I Marina in Valencia shortly before 1600 hours local time. The four crews competing in the MOD70 class will have three races in which to establish the first hierarchy.

The crew of Edmond de Rothschild in the Valencia inshore races
Sébastien Josse (skipper)
Charles Caudrelier (navigator, performance monitor) / Sébastien Col (tactician) / Thomas Rouxel (trimmer) / Olivier Douillard (trimmer) / Cyril Dardashti (grinder) / David Boileau (grinder) / Florent Chastel (bowman)

The major dates for the Route des Princes:

Valencia (Spain)

Inshore races: on 7 and 8 June

Start of leg 1: on 9 June

Lisbon (Portugal)

ETA: on 12 June

Inshore races: on 14 and 15 June

Start of leg 2: on 16 June

Dùn Laoghaire (Ireland)

ETA: on 20 June

Inshore races: on 22 and 23 June

Start of leg 3: on 24 June

Plymouth (England)

ETA: on 26 June

Inshore races: on 28 and 29 June

Start of leg 4: on the evening of 29 June

Roscoff (France)

ETA: on 30 June

Kerry's Damian Foxall is preparing for one of the toughest tests of the season when he sets off from Valencia in Spain on Sunday to stake his claim on the first ever La Route des Princes crown.

Foxall is part of the elite crew on Oman Sail's MOD70 Oman Air-Musandam

The brand new race strictly for multihulls, La Route des Princes will take the nine-strong fleet of boats on a challenging 3,045nm course around Europe from Spain to the Bay of Morlaix in France before heading for Dublin Bay.

They will have to deal with light fluky winds in the Mediterranean Sea, the full force of the Portuguese trade winds and Atlantic depressions as well as the dangers posed along the rocky Irish and British coasts, with a final blast along the French Finistère shoreline.

For Oman Air-Musandam skipper Sidney Gavignet, a veteran of four Volvo Ocean Races and 20 Trans-Atlantics, with thousands of offshore racing miles under his belt, the next three weeks will ask a whole new set of questions of both him and his crew as they make the switch from training to performance mode.

"We are setting out on THE important race of the year so need to change our focus to performance," said Gavignet.

"Our 2013 training at Grand Prix Guyader Douarnenez and the ArMen Race has been very valuable and of course we will continue to learn but the emphasis now has to be on performance because this is a one design class and the other teams are very good so we will have to be at the top of our form.

"We are going clockwise around Europe from south to north and have a big chance to get into the Portuguese trade winds which will be pretty hard on everyone because these boats are very uncomfortable."

Winning or doing well in such a difficult race will be complicated, Gavignet added.

"Our aim is to do well right from the start and try to maintain. We will be happy if at the end we have done a good job and it shows in the results."

The Oman Air-Musandam crew features a mix of highly experienced internationals, including offshore veterans Damian Foxall from Ireland and Neal McDonald from the UK. Fahad Al Hasni from Oman is in his second season on the MOD70 and is growing in experience by the day, while Ahmed Al Hassani is new, coming from the F18. Frenchmen Thomas Le Breton and Gilles Favennec bring Olympic and America's Cup experience to the project. And Mohsin Al Busaidi who is one of Oman's most celebrated sailors as the first Arab to sail around the world non stop, is currently in Oman with his wife who is due to give birth, but hopes to return to the boat as soon as he is able.

"I'm really happy with things on the boat," Gavignet added. "There is a good team spirit and everyone is working well together on the boat and on the dock. Ahmed [Al Hassani] is quite new to the project but I'm very happy with his progress – he is learning quickly and showing some good potential and coming from an F18 background he brings good solid dinghy experience."

Before they set off on the first leg to Lisbon on Sunday, there are two days of inshore racing (on Friday and Saturday) and an opportunity exists to open their account on the points table.

According to Omani crew Fahad Al Hasni, this will not be an easy task but one they have been practising tirelessly to achieve with 10 points on offer for an inshore race win, compared to 20 for an offshore leg.

"The inshore racing will make a difference at the end if things are tight so we need to try and earn as many points as we can from the first possible opportunity," he said.

"We have been out sailing every day, doing what we can to eliminate errors in our manoeuvres because the fewer mistakes we make in this sort of racing the better we will do.

"It has been good fun and we are looking forward to the competition though it will be one of the hardest we have done because the standard is so high."

La Route des Princes, with its accent on regional food and culture at stopovers in Lisbon in Portugal, Dun Laoghaire in Ireland and Plymouth in England, appeals to a diverse audience with interests across top level multihull racing to maritime history in Europe and Benicarlo artichokes, olive oil from Portugal, the famous Irish Timoleague Brown Pudding and clotted cream and fudge from Devon!

The first edition of the Route des Princes, a new European Tour which is solely for racing multihulls, will take on a challenging new course over three weeks of racing, starting on June 9th from Valencia in Spain to the Bay of Morlaix in France via Lisbon, Dun Laoghaire and Plymouth.

Irish interest will be in the MOD70 Musandam Oman-Air where Irish offshore sailor Damian Foxall will be part of the crew. Damian is one of the world's leading offshore sailors and has sailed around the world a remarkable 9 times and has won both the Barcelona World Race and the Volvo Ocean Race.

The nine multihulls led by the flagship new Maxi 80 multihull Prince de Bretagne will arrive in to Dun Laoghaire Thursday 20/Friday 21 June depending on weather conditions. The race seeks to mix exciting competition on the water with engaging activities and festivals ashore. The host organisations are Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the National Yacht Club who will host a festival on the East Pier from Friday to Sunday.

The festival in Dun Laoghaire will start at 5pm on Friday 21 June with a concert from the Band Stand on the East Pier and will continue until Sunday 23 June with food courts and childrens amusements. On Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 June, the multihulls will race in the bay from 2pm to 5pm and there will be live commentary from Irish Olympic sailor Ger Owens.

The concept of this new yacht race is unique: associating the maritime and the land, by highlighting the town and the region's food and culture at each stopover. Valencia, Lisbon, Dun Laoghaire, Plymouth and Roscoff, five stopovers, five European countries, where those multihulls competing in the Route des Princes will tie up to the dock.

The tour starts in Valencia on June 9.

#routedesprinces – A fleet of some of the fastest sailing craft in the world will make an attempt on the Round Ireland Speed Sailing Record next month.
The giant 70-foot Route Des Princes multihulls which race to Dun Laoghaire (June 20-23) in a stage of their innovative Round Europe race will now also take in a Round Ireland speed challenge when the fleet departs Dublin Bay on June 24th.

Irish World speed sailing commissioner Chris Moore confirmed the bid for the prestigious National Yacht Club trophy and the World Speed sailing record last night.

'Sylvie Viant of the race organisers has confirmed that the boats will compete for both the WSSR record, and also the National Yacht Club's own "Round Ireland" record, to beat Lakota's time in September 1993 of 1 day, 20 hours and 42m', Moore told Afloat.ie

Speed sailing fans will recall Damian Foxall's aborted bid in March when the giant Omansail MOD trimaran came to break the record but was beaten back by strong winds. At that time the Kerry Round the world race winner promised to return and this June (if the weather gods permit) it looks like Foxall will make good on his commitment to challenge the 20–year–old record set by the late adventurer Steve Fossett.

It is understood the fleet of six or seven multis will depart the bay on Monday 24th June but instead of heading directly to Plymouth on the next leg of Route Des Princes they will take in a north or southabout circuit of Ireland as part of the course. The record times will be taken at the Kish lighthouse at the entrance to the bay.

In Early Sept 1993, the 60ft. trimaran 'Lakota' shattered the previous record for the fastest circumnavigation of Ireland by almost one full day.

Sailing with a crew of 5 – American co-skippers Steve Fossett and David Scully, English yachtsman Brian Thompson and Irish husband and wife team, Con Murphy and Cathy Mac Aleavey from the National Yacht Club – "Lakota" crossed the start line at the Kish in Dublin Bay on Wednesday, 8th September 1993 and headed North East, finishing at 09.12 on Friday 10th September, completing the course in 44 hours, 42 mins and 20 seconds, averaging 15.84 knots.

The National Yacht Club is the keeper of records of Round Ireland speed record attempts for solo, monohull and multihull records.

#routedesprinces – For the first of the season's battles with their MOD70 counterparts, Sébastien Josse and the men of Edmond de Rothschild came good and such a performance augurs well for the Route des Princes, the classes first official competition for 2013, the start of which will take place on 9 June 2013 in Valencia, Spain and calls to the National Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire on Dublin Bay June 20th.

Crossing the ArMen Race finish line after a 320-mile sprint between La Trinité-sur-Mer, Belle-Ile, Yeu and Groix, they stood out in their category. The trimaran fitted out by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild finished ahead of Oman Air and Virbac Paprec.

Given the weather forecasts, the 3rd edition of the ArMen Race was set to be lively and fast. The race, which this year gathered together some 130 competitors, certainly lived up to expectations! Setting out from La Trinité-sur-Mer, Brittany, yesterday, Thursday 9 May at 1500 hours local time, the one-design trimaran Edmond de Rothschild was back in the bay of Quiberon this Friday morning at 0418 hours. Sébastien Josse and his five crew completed this year's theoretical 320-mile course in 13 hours and 18 minutes, at an average speed of nearly 24.06 knots. This race time enabled the men of Gitana Team to take victory in their category: "I'm very happy with this victory as the weather conditions weren't easy. As expected, we had a good 20-25 knots of breeze throughout the course, with stronger gusts in the squalls, which punctuated the second part of the race.

We had as much as 30 knots as these squalls rolled through. There were big seas, with a swell of 2.5 metres or more as we navigated Les Birvideaux, but it was quite manageable.

Tactically, the race didn't give us a great deal of choices and the difference was made with the sail configurations and the crew's ability to anticipate and manage the coastal phases during the successive roundings of the islands dotted along the course," commented the skipper of Edmond de Rothschild, before explaining the key phases behind their success: "A few miles after the start, once we rounded Belle-Ile for the first time, we managed to get the upper hand over Oman Air through some fine trajectories and moved up to the front of our fleet. However, we did have to battle to the end... As we rounded Groix with a 2-3 mile lead, a squall had it in for us, accidentally unfurling one of our headsails. It was nothing really serious, but it cost us time and Oman subsequently made up ground on us. The second downwind run to the island of Yeu was a really close-contact drag race and we came out on top. The crew worked superbly well and everyone gave their all throughout the night to secure this place. It's a great reward and a real satisfaction for Gitana Team, even though we still have to up our game before the Route des Princes. We made some mistakes, which can easily be erased for the next competition. This breezy race with a six-man configuration was an excellent trial run."

Handing over the event record

As predicted by Sébastien Josse prior to the start, the event record previously held by Gitana 11 of 14 hours and 5 minutes has been broken. Winner of the overall ranking for the 2013 edition,

Banque Populaire VII, not surprisingly secured the best time for the ArMen Race with a race time of 12 hours and 40 minutes, at an average speed of 25.26 knots. With her giant proportions, 31.5 metres in length with a beam of 22.5 metres, this maxi-trimaran from the Ultimate class is none other than the ex-Groupama 3, winner of the last Route du Rhum. "Conditions were ideal for them and we knew from the outset that they'd improve on our reference time set in 2011 with Gitana 11. However, we're pretty proud as ultimately we finished the course just 38 minutes astern of them, which is a very honourable performance given the architectural differences between our boats," smiled Sébastien Josse. It's worth noting too that last year, in the MOD70 category, Michel Desjoyeaux completed the 330-mile 2012 course in a little over 14 hours.

Ranking for the Mod70s in the ArMen Race 2013

1.     Edmond de Rothschild, finished at 0418 hours after 13 hours and 18 minutes of racing

2.     Oman Air, finished at 0423 hours after 13 hours and 23 minutes

3.     Virbac Paprec, finished at 0541 hours, after 14 hours and 41 minutes

The crew of Edmond de Rothschild

Sébastien Josse (skipper)

Charles Caudrelier – Thomas Rouxel – Florent Chastel – Olivier Douillard – Jean-Christophe Mourniac