La solitaire du figaro

La Solitaire du Figaro – Eric Bompard Cachemire is a one-design racing, unassisted, at times, which takes place in stages. Each step is a race. Classification at each time step and the overall time to award points championships of France Offshore Racing Solitaire.

The 44e édition takes place from 2 june untill 26 june 2013.

All well-known French skippers launched their carreer in this race.  It’s the ultimate proove of worth for the younger blood.   It’s a technical race and the oponents are strong, for example Armel le Cleac’h, Michel Desjoyeaux, Jérémie Beyou, …

Yann Elies and his Groupe Queguiner-Leucemie Espoir crossed the finish line off Dieppe at 20:05:09 to take second on the fourth and final leg from Roscoff, but overall honours in the 2013 Solitaire du Figaro.

On cumulative elapsed time, Elies won by 26 minutes and 30 seconds from Xavier Macaire (Skipper Herault) and was 33 minutes 6 seconds ahead of leg 3 winner Morgan Lagraviere (Vendee) in third. Over the last 24 hours both Macaire and Lagraviere had been in a position to take overall victory in this year’s race.

Significantly after he won last year, Elies is the only back to back winner in the race’s recent history, (the only other person ever to have scored consecutive victories being Guy Cornu in 1975/6). He also joins the elite club of double Solitaire winners including fellow competitors in this race Armel le Cleac’h (Banque Populaire), Jeremie Beyou (Maitre CoQ) and Gilles le Baud (Carnac Thalasso & SPA), plus in past years Cornu, Nicolas Troussel, Jean Marie Vidal, and Gilles Gahinet. Only Jean le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux and Philippe Poupon, are the super-elite to have won the race three times.

For Elies, 39, this is his 14th participation in La Solitaire du Figaro, his first having been back in 1997. Aside from his being a regular fixture in this event, Elies is also a two time winner of the Jules Verne Trophy on both occasions with Bruno Peyron, first on board Orange 1 in 2002 and then with Orange 2 in 2005. In 2000 he competed in The Race aboard the Cam Lewis-skippered Team Adventure maxi-catamaran. However he is perhaps best known for competing in 2008 Vendee Globe when he had to be rescued from his yacht Generali by the Australian navy aft breaking his femur. He is also a second generation Figaro sailor – his father Patrick won the predecessor to La Solitaire, the Course de l’Aurore, in 1979.

Elies started this year’s Solitaire du Figaro in emphatic fashion. On leg one he survived the big conditions at Cape Finisterre and by heading offshore managed to find breeze when the wind shut down on the course for the final run down the west coast of Spain and Portugal. His victory into Porto gave him a 44 minute 4 second advantage over second placed Fred Duthil (Sepalumic). His overall lead grew to 57 minutes 6 seconds after finishing fifth into Gijon on leg 2.

But on leg 3 Elies’ fortunes turned on their head. First he chose the wrong side of the course en route to Ile d’Yeu that left him mid-fleet. But worse was to befall him when, as the wind piped up off Belle Ile, Groupe Queguiner-Leucemie Espoir’s forestay came tumbling to the deck. This might have been game over, but anticipating the wind freeing up Elies limped on to finish 21st into Roscoff, leaving him third overall, still in the fight, 32 minutes 28 seconds behind the new overall leader Fred Duthil, with leg 3 winner Morgan Lagraviere (Vendee) just 2 minutes 32 seconds ahead of him.

Current overall standing