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.
Earlier today the race organisers also announced the round Europe multi fleet would also make a bid for the Round Ireland Speed record during their time in Irish waters.
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. There will be an emphasis on shared music traditions at the festival with the well known Breton guitarist Dan Ar Braz topping the list with a performance at 5pm on Saturday 22nd. Other acts performing over the weekend include Crash, Dirty Epics, The Shoos, Jupe and Robert Delaney.
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. Five opportunities to smell, taste, marvel and thrill at, stroll around and let yourself be carried away by the entertainment on offer at each of the host venues.
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.
Quotes:
Gerry Dunne, Chief Executive Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company
'This year's Route des Princes festival on the famous east pier is being hosted by the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company in association with the National Yacht Club and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council promises to be a great weekend. The event combines high quality sailing with a wide breadth of entertainment, from live music to face painting, amusements for kids to a great selection of food and much more. The event will be a great experience for the whole family. The Masterplan for the Harbour fully recognises the importance of increasing public participation in all the leisure activities within the harbour.'
An Cathaoirleach, Councillor Tom Joyce, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
"The Council is delighted to be involved in such an innovative race and looks forward to an exciting and fun filled weekend of activities for all the community"
Paul Barrington, Commodore, National Yacht Club
'We are delighted to welcome this new race concept to Dun Laoghaire. Last year we hosted the MOD70s and it was a great spectacle with thousands lining the East Pier and Sandycove to watch these giant multihulls racing. This year the festival will be even bigger.'
Jean-François Jacob, Secretary General of St Pol Sica, one of the leaders of Prince de Bretagne
"The basic idea is to combine the maritime world and the local regions... After discussion with various European countries, the decision was taken to create this event. We want to foster friendship and sportsmanship, to develop the regions connected to the sea. On this first edition we will want to do more, our desire is to build the Route des Princes to become an internationally renowned European festival. The ambition is to make it one of the top ten European events.
The general organization of the event will be provided by the Commercial Society for the land promotion, a subsidiary of Sica St Pol de Léon in Brittany"
Details of the multihulls are as follows:
Multi 50
The Multi50 fleet musters amateurs, well known skippers and highly skilled crews. Given that the racing spans three weeks of competition most of the teams are professional. One of the most watched will be Lalou Roucayrol whose new Multi50 Arkema-Région Aquitaine has just been launched in March. A regular on the podium of Multi50 races is Yves Le Blevec, winner of the tenth edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre on Actual, just weeks after losing his mast. Erwan Leroux of Fenêtré A-Cardinal is a serious contender in this fleet on the helm of the former Crepes Wahou! 3, a boat which he knows well after supervising its development and build and with which he has already done well, especially in the 2012 Quebec St Malo race.
Another key competitor will be Gilles Lamire on Rennes Métropole - Saint-Malo Agglomération (ex Prince de Bretagne), a skipper who has two Route du Rhum races in the Multi 60 fleet under his belt.
MOD70
Since it was launched in 2011 the MOD 70 race has attracted some of the top exponents to compete in the exciting one design fleet of identically matched high performance multis, created to race on equal terms inshore and across oceans.
Sébastien Josse, Yann Guichard, Sidney Gavignet and Jean-Pierre Dick skipper the MOD70's which will follow a reciprocal course to the European Tour that most followed in September 2012. This time it goes from the south to the north, from Mediterranean Spain to the Atlantic coast of France. There might still be an air of revenge again as the challengers face the 2012 Multi One Championship winners, Yann Guichard and the Spindrift racing team.
Newest boat is is Dick's Virbac Paprec 70 which has just been launched and which will have a stellar team on board including Vendée Globe winner Vincent Riou, Roland Jourdain and Thierry Duprey du Vorsent.
Sidney Gavignet's crew proved a talented, tough outfit when they raced last year on Musandam-Oman-Air. This season Gavignet has the highly experienced Briton Neal McDonald and Ireland's Volvo Ocean Race and Barcelona World Race winner Damian Foxall on board.
Erwan Tabarly and Pascal Bidégorry sail alongside Guichard and Charles Caudrelier, Antoine Koch, Thomas Rouxel and Sébastien Col are with Josse on Groupe Edmond de Rothschild.
With the depth of talent shared between the Multi50s and the MOD70s the assembled fleet will be of an exceptional calibre. They will be complemented by a perfect ambassador to open the course, Lionel Lemonchois on the new Multi 80 Prince de Bretagne.
The objective for the double Route du Rhum winner Lemonchois is to fly the flag for all of the values which the brand represents, excellence of taste, the collective strength and loyalty of its constituent members whilst also publicising the region itself. These are just some of the reasons that Lemonchois and his team will race the course throughout June, from Spain to Portugal, Ireland, England to finish in their native region of France, setting a reference time for each leg. The aim for the future is also to attract more of the Ultimate multis to compete in 2015. Lemonchois' 80 footer, developed from a 60 foot multi, will be in 'record mode', building miles on the Route des Princes as a prelude to a series of records which Lemonchois is expected to challenge.
