Nice start for Nouvelle-Calédonie

It’s a simple recipe: sun, ten knots of wind, some training and a tough prologue in a pleasant first day! Today’s schedule: four fake starts followed by a prologue with a naught coefficient.

Winning this first inshore race doesn’t count for the race’s ranking but is highly symbolic. Nouvelle-Calédonie took a beautiful first place, enjoying a pleasant lead on the finish line in front of Courrier Dunkerque, second, and Oman Sail’s Renaissance, a promising third.

Attention must be paid to the Dutch, who also enter nicely this 2010 edition with a fourth place for Brunel (first amateur) and a sixth place for TU Delft (first student).

The first M34, Batistyl – Ville de Pornic, was also there. He finished second of the prologue. This Joubert-Nivelt design will be the official boat for the Tour de France à la Voile 2011. “It was only her third day sailing, and she shows a lot of promises,” explains Dean Barker, the boat’s godfather, when christening the M34 in Dunkerque. The Kiwi skipper helmed the boat for two days off the North beaches. “It has been nice to sail for two days. I hope to sail more onboard later this year.”

Sailing? That’s what Supelec can finally do! The student crew didn’t pass the first gauge control and had to stay on the dock today. At the end of the day, they were finally allowed to take part to the TFV. The 28 Farr 30 are now together, and the show can go on.

Interviews

Dean Barker, M34’s godfather:
“It’s a great honour to be asked to be here to christen the boat. It has been nice to sail two days onboard. It was great – there is still a lot to do to keep tuning, to make it better. But I think today was good. It was only her third day sailing, and it shows a lot of promises. The racing today was very interesting. The Farr 30 fleet is very competitive. I think it’ll be a difficult race, because the level of the competition is high.”

Damien Iehl, Nouvelle-Calédonie’s helmsman:
“Before the prologue, we did four starts with very close upwind marks. It was a good training. The team is rather happy about the sails and the boat now. Every body onboard is used to sail on a Farr and it’s a good thing. We still need to get used to each other. It’s great to start like this, but the road is long.”

Koen De Smedt, Brunel’s tactician and helmsman:
“It was amazing! The weather was amazing and it was great. We finished fourth. We didn’t know what to expect since we didn’t train much. We’ll see what’s gonna happen! If we have fun, it’s great. And today, we surely had fun: before the prologue, we sailed very short triangle races and it was exciting.”

Natacha Combier, Supelec’s crew (before the second gauge control):
“We didn’t sail today because we didn’t succeed to pass the gauge control yesterday. We were missing lots of material. We had issues with our van: we had a car crash and it was a mess. Our boat’s renter also told us the boat was ready to sail, and it wasn’t. Both skippers had to leave and we found ourselves alone. We were late. But a first control allowed us to make a list of the missing components and the other teams helped us. We are now ready! Our goal? Racing!”