The start of the ninth Route du Rhum-La Banque Postale will be given at 1302 hrs off the Pointe du Grouin, in what will be perfect sailing conditions: an E’ly breeze of around ten knots, flat seas, a small tidal coefficient and the tide just on the ebb. Gitana 11 should be able to fully benefit from this situation to extract herself as quickly as possible from the huge fleet, which was gradually making towards the race zone this Sunday morning.
85 race yachts then, but above all hundreds of other craft of all kinds, from the traditional rigs like the Recouvrance or the local Bisquine sailboats, to the huge ferry, the Pont-Aven, from where the start gun will be fired, alongside a throng of pleasure boats and ribs. Indeed it was an impressive armada which exited the locks of Saint Malo, from the marina in Saint Servan, as well as moorings in the Rance, Cancale and as far as Saint Quay-Portieux! Gitana 11, which spent the night at the mooring off Dinard, cast off at 1000 hours to enter the outward channel in the company of the other competitors, some of which were already hoisting their sails.
On flat seas under an overcast albeit clearing sky, pushed along by an E’ly breeze of around ten knots, Yann Guichard accompanied by the crew from the Gitana Team for the final manœuvres prior to the start, should be particularly at ease in these moderate downwind conditions. The trimaran fitted out by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild is especially fond of these light conditions, which will enable her to quickly get away from the coast to exit the English Channel…