#rdp13 – Video of yesterday's dramatic capsize in Dun Laoghaire depicts the trimaran fleet start of the first inshore race in the Route Des Princes regatta on Dublin Bay. The video posted on youtube shows the build up to the Spindrift capsize that led to a major emergency operation and the airlift of one crew man with a broken pelvis.

"I was unable to do anything at the helm, the boat was turned over with a single blow. We let out the staysail immediately, but it was too late as it all happened in a split second, Skipper Yann Guichard said. 

As reported yesterday by Afloat.ie, the trimaran has been recovered to Dun Laoghaire but the 70-footer's mast was broken in the capsize. 

The mast, rigging and sails that were disconnected from the hull by divers prior to towing by lifeboat remain at sea pending salvage today

#Spindrift - The race-winning multihull Spindrift has capsized in gale force winds off Dun Laoghaire this afternoon (22 June) at the start of the Route des Princes series of inshore racing spectacle on Dublin Bay, as David O'Brien reports on scene.

The MOD70 trimaran that was first into Dun Laoghaire from Lisbon on Wednesday capsized meres from spectators in Scotsman's Bay ahead of the first of three inshore races.

Rescue photos below.

The accident happened about 700 metres off the starting line in the first race, as the boats were accelerating in the strong and gusty winds. The boats were not carrying full sail as a precaution against the strong offshore winds blowing in the bay. Today's in–port racing was billed as 'fast and furious'.

At least one person is injured and is being treated upturned hull of the stricken craft. As of 3.08pm a rescue helicopter was dropping its winchman to the vessel. 

It is feared by National Yacht Club personnel that the mast of the inverted trimaran is stuck in the sea bed and may be broken.

All racing has now been postponed as rescue services attended the scene. Eight crew were onboard the vessel at the time of the capsize.

Update 3.10pm: All other boats have returned to Dun Laoghaire Harbour as rescue services continue to attend to the capsized Spindrift and its crew.

Update 3.18pm: Weather conditions in Dun Laoghaire continue to be strong and gusty, and it's reported that some local DBSC RC racing had already been cancelled earlier today.

Update 3.27pm: A news update on the Route des Princes website (via @sailracewin) says one crewman on the upturned Spindrift has a back pain.

Update 3.35pm: Twitter users Mark Lloyd (@Lloyd_Images) and Philip Bromwell (@philipbromwell) have posted photos of the failed Spindrift in Dublin Bay as emergency services attend to the scene.

Update 3.39pm: The crewman casualty has been winched to the helicopter and is being airlifted to Tallaght Hospital. His condition remains unclear.

Update 3.41pm: Triage for any injured racers has been set up at the National Yacht Club and all rescue boats have been asked to report to the NYC to account for numbers.

Update 3.53pm: Assessments are currently being made as to how to recover the 70ft hull still floating north of Dalkey Island.

Update 4.04pm: Sailing journalist Kate Laven comments on Twitter re the Spindrift capsize: "Everyone recovered but two injured"

Update 4.08pm: The Route des Princes website has followed up its earlier update with a news post which confirms that weather conditions at the time of the Spindrift capsize were 20 knots with strong gusts.

Update 4.55pm: Dun Laoghaire lifeboat towing the upturned Spindrift hull (minus mast) towards Dun Laoghaire harbour

Update 6,00pm: The upturned hull has been successfully righted, the hull is intact but the mast is broken. 

Update 7.00pm: There are unconfirmed reports that the injury to the Spindrift crew man is a broken pelvis. 

Update 8.00pm: Spindrift racing team release statement on capsize and injury to crew member

Rescue craft, local boats and the Dun Laoghaire lifeboat attend the upturned hull. Photo: Gareth Craig

The Coastguard helicopter arrives on scene and a winch man is lowered to make an assessment. Photo: Afloat.ie

Rescue personnel and Sprindrift crew on the upturned hull in Dublin Bay this afternoon. Photo: Afloat.ie

Spindrift minus her mast is lifted in Dun Laoghaire harbour this evening. Photo: Michael Chester

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.

#D2D –  The Round Ireland Race of 1992, like all stagings of the classic circuit, was one of mixed memories. It started in sunshine with a fair wind which carried us all the way to the Fastnet. But that wind stayed very determinedly between north and northeast, so we knew there'd be windward work round the Kerry coast.

In fact, we were on the wind until Mayo. Then it drew eventually from the southwest and there was the usual scamper across Donegal Bay and around Tory Island. Then the breeze was all over the place down the Irish Sea until we were sitting nicely, breeze off the land, aroma of the Wicklow countryside to be savoured and all that, finish line nicely in sight......and suddenly we were in a flat spot which lasted just long enough to turn a close class win into second in class by 17 minutes.

So all we really remember of the race of '92 is that sweetness of the summer evening made sour by the breeze turning off. It takes a real effort to remember that, three day earlier, we'd actually been having a right pasting off the Kerry coast. For sure, we'd known we'd have headwinds past the Blaskets. But the forecast had missed out on a deepening low to the east. So much so, in fact, that the Irish Sailing Association subsequently launched an informal enquiry into why the severe rise in the wind strength had gone largely unanticipated, as there were wholesale retirals, with much damage.

With hindsight, of course, it was there to be seen - we just didn't want to see it. We may have approached the Fastnet on a reach in sunshine. But there was a harshness to the evening, and any God's amount of warning clouds at a high level, to tell us that this wasn't going to be a straightforward bit of windward work on a summer's night. And even on a gentle summer's night, the Atlantic off Kerry can be a rumbly place. So when it came in a real stinker between north and northeast, it was boat-breaking stuff, with several ports in West Cork and Kerry acquiring their quota of retirals.

South Pacific? No, just Dingle as it can be when, as was happening in this case, most of the rest of Ireland was in heavy rain. Photo: W M Nixon

One such was the Sigma 41 Koala (Peter Cullen and Martin Crotty), which split her mainsail and did well to get to Dingle. As they put themselves together again and breathed in that Dingle air with its unmistakable sense of being in the far west and everything well with the world, they got to thinking how it would just be perfect if the race had just been to Dingle, instead of battering all the way round Ireland simply to end up back where they started from.

That's what it is with Dingle. It's one of those places that everybody thinks they're really the first ever to discover properly and understand and appreciate. It is unique, there's no doubt of that. But when you sail in there and get enveloped in its hospitable warmth, you soon think it's uniquely unique. So naturally the crew of Koala got to thinking about a sort of Round Ireland Lite, a race from the east coast finishing at Dingle.

It took Dingle to show just how effective a combined fishing/sailing port can be. It's a favoured destination for cruising boats, yet it continues to have an impressive tally of fish landings. Photo: W M Nixon

It would have been a grand thing to talk about in the convenient first stop at Flahive's before moving on to one of the excellent Dingle restaurants. And for most crews, that would have been the end of it. But the crew of Koala were made of sterner stuff. They sailed home eventually, and they just wouldn't let go of the idea of a biennial race to Dingle alternating with the round Ireland. If they were going to do it, 'twas best 'twere done soonest. So 20 years ago, in 1993, Martin Crotty on behalf of the National YC organised the first 280 mile Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, Peter Cullen with his jelly bean manufacturing company put up the sponsorship, and one of the best events in the Irish sailing calendar became an instant success.

It's on again next Friday, June 7th, the 11th D2D, starting before the weekend to facilitate the boats using it to get to the ICRA Nationals in Tralee Bay from June 13th. And there's an excellent line-up, an interesting balance of 22 good boats which – considering the times we live in – is a fine turnout, particularly when we look at the calibre of the boats involved.

Fond memories of the great Denis Doyle and his enthusiasm for every offshore race going are evoked by the Cork presence of Anthony and Peter O'Leary's Ker 39 Antix, briskly back to Ireland from the RORC Vice Commodore's campaigning in the English Channel series in order to race to Kerry, and make the lineup in Tralee Bay.

Anthony O'Leary (Royal Cork) and Peter O'Leary (Baltimore SC) will be racing the busy Antix in the biennial D2D next Friday. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Antix has been in the frame if not on the podium in this year's RORC racing, so her presence sets a benchmark. Defending champion in the D2D is the Galway Reflex 38, curently sailing as Discover Ireland/The Gathering. She didn't exactly cover herself in glory at last weekend's Scottish series, but then she'd all the disadvantage of being the highest rated boat in IRC 2, which made her an easy target, and the offshore scene seems to suit her better.

Certainly the Dingle Race is important to Aodhan Fitzgerald's crew as a Fastnet qualifier. With the absence of any seriously large biggy to challenge the course record set by Mick Cotter's 77ft Whisper two races ago, there's a possibility that Antix and Discover Ireland will be battling for line honours, though that is an outcome which could well be upturned by the presence of boats like the Farr 42 Wow (George Sisk RIYC), and the three Beneteau First 44.7s - Adelie (Peter Hall NYC), Legally Blonde (Cathal Drohan & Paul Egan RStGYC), and White Tiger (Anthony O'Brien, Kinsale).

Mick Cotter's 77ft Whisper almost broke the 24-hour barrier for the record for the Dingle Race in the race of 2009. Photo: David O'Brien

Although the Irish Sea's champion J/109 Sgrech (Stephen Tudor) won't be involved, there are four of these useful all-rounders taking part, and Liam Shanahan's Ruth from the National YC was showing promising speed in the Scottish Series.

And a seriously interesting entry from further down the size scale is Paul O'Higgins' Corby 33 Rockabill V from Dun Laoghaire, which has an enviable racing record. The Corby 33 is more than sparse enough for most folk for a night or two at sea. Add in the increasing demands of the seaways as you get further west, and you have a challenging proposition which nevertheless could serve up a race win if conditions fall the right way. The smart money might just be on Rockabill V.

Paul O'Higgins' Corby 33 Rockabill V offers only the most austere comfort for offshore sailing, but in the right conditions her proven racing record might find itself augmented by the Dingle title.

National YC/Skellig Hotel Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2013 Entry List

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#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.

July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta is running a coastal series as part of the fifth edition of the combined club's event and judging by entries to date (see below) there it looks like the initiative is getting a good response.

Entry in the class this year is expected to reach approximately 15 boats with the list of entries to date below.

Some say organisers are on the right tack with the new coastal course and may have in fact underestimated demand from crews looking for a change of scene.

There are plenty of standard cruiser designs not suited to prevailing tight inshore courses and who cannot compete on handicap with some of the out and out racing machines. Instead this coastal series will accommodate those larger cruisers who prefer to take part in races where the distances between marks are greater.

Already DBSC regular Lively Lady, a Beneteau 44.7 is signed up as well as the Nicholson 58 Rebellion. Smaller boats are also involved including Lulabelle, the Beneteau 36.7.

It is hoped that this will attract the increasing number of boats that are opting to race offshore as evidenced in part by the work of Peter Ryan running a 20-boat ISORA fleet from the National Yacht Club.

The courses for the VDLR series will take place outside of the Burford Bank and in an area north of the "Bray Outfall" buoy and south of the "North" Howth Yacht Club race mark.

The courses will be set on the day of the July race and will reflect the conditions prevailing at that time, boats will race one long race per day.

Ashore the plan is those taking part in the Coastal Series will be able to enjoy the fantastic social scene around Dun Laoghaire as much as their inshore competitors as the race duration and time limits will get all boats back at the same time as the inshore fleets

Ireland has an opportunity to become an example of best practice in diaspora engagement and policy. That's according to the organisers of the European strand of the Global Diaspora Forum, which is taking place in Fitzpatrick's Castle Hotel in Killiney over the next two days (14th and 15th May). Opening the conference, Gerry Dunne, CEO of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company, said: "Despite its size, Ireland punches far above its weight when it comes to diaspora issues. This makes us so well-placed to be the first partner, outside of the US, to collaborate in the delivery of the Global Diaspora Forum.

The Global Diaspora Forum is a celebration of diaspora communities, and has been held annually in Washington DC since 2011. The forum is coordinated by the International Global Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA), the US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development.

The European strand was organised by the Irish International Diaspora Centre (IIDC) Trust, which is working to deliver a world-class diaspora centre in Dublin. The Trust operates under the auspices of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company.

"Ireland's diaspora – estimated to be in the realm of 70 million – have permeated every corner of the globe and most professions, ranging from medical to political to culture and the arts. This Irish diaspora experience is an enormous untapped resource, which we are only awakening to. By reaching out to our diaspora, we can create communities centring on business, technology and the creative industries. We can share ideas and collaborate to bid for business and implement initiatives for the common good.

"However, diaspora engagement needs to be facilitated by governments," said Mr Dunne. "Given the scale and good reputation of Ireland's diaspora, we are ideally placed to become a best-practice model in terms of how we engage with our diaspora communities and how we implement policies and structures to maximise benefits.

"Issues such as voting rights for diaspora; structures for creating business linkages; and ways to help generations of diaspora connect with their roots are some of the areas that can be explored as measures to maximise the benefits of connecting with our diaspora. Of course, diaspora communities who have established themselves in Ireland in recent decades present another area from which we can garner new insights and connections.

"This Global Diaspora Forum is about exploring diaspora engagement and its benefits. Given plans by the Irish international Diaspora Trust to create a world-class diaspora centre at Dún Laoghaire Harbour, we are delighted to be in a position to host this historic event. We hope that it will be the precursor to much more proactive diaspora engagement in Ireland and at an EU level," added Mr Dunne.

Speaking ahead of his input to the forum, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore said: "I look forward to addressing and meeting the international and Irish experts who will gather in Dún Laoghaire. Ireland is extremely fortunate to possess a diaspora that makes an enormous contribution to our country. The forum allows us to share our experience and to learn from others.

"This Government believes strongly in building partnerships with our diaspora. With initiatives such as the Emigrant Support Programme, the Global Irish Network, and the third Global Irish Economic Forum which will take place this October, I want to ensure that Ireland will continue to lead the way in demonstrating how governments, the business sector and civil society can all harness and encourage the potential of our migrant communities," he said.

Highlights from the two-day conference programme include:

A keynote address by Robert Guest, Business Editor of The Economist, on the topic of 'Borderless Economics'.
A live link between the Global Diaspora Forums in Washington and Dublin, featuring a keynote address by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore, and an address by US Under Secretary of State, Robert Hormats.
A panel discussion on 'Emerging Trends in Diaspora Engagement', led by Kathleen Newland, Co-Founder of the US-based Migration Policy Institute.
A panel discussion on the benefits of diaspora networks, with inputs from Sean Brown, Director of Global Alumni Relations at McKinsey, and David Leblang, Chair of the Politics Department at the University of Virginia.

Themed workshops with contributions from a wide range of leaders on diaspora matters, including: Hugo MacNeill of the Worldwide Ireland Funds; Council of State Member and Councillor in London, Sally Mulready; Deputy Damien English, Chairperson of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation; Nicola Cobbold, CEO of the Portland Trust; and Gidi Mark, CEO of Taglit – Birthright Israel.

#RNLI - Dun Laoghaire RNLI was involved in the recovery yesterday afternoon of a sinking boat following the rescue of three people after the vessel began to sink off the Wicklow coast.

Three people were pulled from the water when their small boat got into difficulty off Bray on Sunday 12 May.

A local boat responded to the Mayday alert and brought the casualties to safety.



The RNLI lifeboat from Dun Laoghaire and the Greystones Coast Guard boat took the boat that was almost fully submersed under tow to shore.



Winds gusted to storm force towards the end of the operation but conditions were otherwise fresh, with only choppy waves off the coast.



The incident occurred shortly after midday when the 15ft speedboat was almost one mile from Bray Harbour.

#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