ITW with Fred Le Peutrec :
Summary of the coastal course : Gitana 11 – 5th.
« We got off to a good start and we were ready to round the mark in second place, when fifteen minutes after the start as we passed the Iles du Frioul, we found ourselves stuck by Géant, who had managed to push us into a wind hole from which we had a spot of bother freeing ourselves. The rest of the round was more a question of pure speed with little place for tactics. Never the less, we managed to overtake Banque Populaire and came very close to Foncia but never managed to overtake her before the end of the round, as she pulled away once again on the last upwind leg. It was not a frustrating course as there were just straight line tacks to sail, so pure speed with little room for recovering from our tricky situation at the start of the round. Just like yesterday, this round was raced in erratic light air with its fair share of concentration and stress. »
Summary of windward-leeward loop : Gitana 11 – 2nd
« No-one was certain that this 4th round was actually going to take place as on the starting line, the wind continued to drop, whereas the remainder of the day’s thermal breeze was still active on the right hand side of the course. This gave a very unbalanced line which meant having to cross the line on the port tack at the committee boat in search of the puffs near to Frioul, on a tack which does not give you right of way. Fortunately, everyone made the same choice Heureusement, tout le monde a fait ce choix. We took lots of risks with Gitana 11 and really went for it at the start, running the risk of crossing the line before the starting whistle, for example). However, our determination paid of form the word go and put us into the front line with Groupama II. A great 2nd place which makes it possible for us to maintain our ambition for a place on the podium in the Grand Prix de Marseille. »
Crew of Gitana 11 for the Grand Prix de Marseille
1-Frédéric Le Peutrec
2- Baron Benjamin de Rothschild
3- Yann Guichard
4- Yann Marilley
5-Christophe Lassègue
6-François Denis
7-Jean Baptiste Epron
8-Nicolas Berthoud
9-Fred Brousse
10-Xavier Dagault
11- Yann Eliès
TODAY’S RESULTS
Results round n°3 – coastal course – Start : 12h 35 – Finish first boat : 15h 22
1 – Groupama II – 1 point
2 – Sergio Tacchini – 2 points
3 – Géant – 3 points
4 – Foncia – 4 points
5 – Gitana 11– 5 points
6 – Banque Populaire – 6 points
7 – Sopra Group – 7 points
8 – Banque Covefi – DNS –10 points
9 – Sodebo – DNS – 10 points
Result round n°4 (Provisional) – Start : 16h 54 – Finish first boat : 17h 52
1 – Groupama II – 1 point
2 – Gitana 11 – 2 points
3 – Géant – 3 points
4 – Foncia– 4 points
5 – Banque Populaire – 5 points
6 – Sergio Tacchini – 6 points
7 – Sopra Group – 7 points
8 – Banque Covefi – DNS –10 points
9 – Sodebo – DNS – 10 points
Overall rankings (provisional) after four rounds
1 – Groupama II – 5 point
2 – Sergio Tacchini – 14 points
3 – Gitana 11– 14 points
4 – Foncia – 16 points
5 – Géant – 18 points
6 – Sopra Group – 22 points
7 – Banque Populaire – 23 points
DNS – Banque Covefi – 30 points
DNS – Sodebo – 30 points