Both BT boats and crews are in the final stages of preparation for the biggest events of their season… There is just a week to go before the final event of the iShares Cup in Almeria, Spain and Nick Moloney and the BT Extreme 40 crew will have to put in a strong performance to secure their current overall 5th place. For the BT IMOCA 60 team, the countdown has started for Sébastien Josse and Jean François Cuzon who will start the double handed Transat Jacques Vabre, the pinnacle race of the IMOCA season, in just over one month…
After five events across Europe in the 2009 iShares Cup, BT is currently in 5th place just behind the world’s best multihull skippers – Loick Peyron (Oman Sail Renaisance), Franck Cammas (Groupama 40) , Yann Guichard (Gitana Extreme – Groupe LCF Rothschild). Not a bad place to be perhaps, but the BT team, who have finished third on the podium at the last two annual iShares Cup series, are disappointed that the podium this time is beyond their reach. BT skipper, Nick Moloney, remains positive and knows they must put in a good performance to fend off the other teams vying for position:
“Almeria is the last event and the sailing conditions should be completely different to Kiel and Amsterdam, where we had our worst results. In Spain we will have an open race course and more wind, and we clearly are better in those conditions. We are still 5th on the overall leaderbord, we are determined and we will fight until the end of the last race!”
This Wednesday (30.9.09) BT skippers Sébastien Josse and Jean-François Cuzon took a break in their training and headed to Paris for the official press conference of the Transat Jacques Vabre. The gathering of the 14 IMOCA duos who will compete in the Transat Jacques Vabre starting on 8th November, put the race under scrutiny and an intriguing tactical option that could divide this very competitive fleet of latest generation IMOCA 60s. For Sébastien and Jean-Francois a victory in the IMOCA class of the Fastnet race was a reassuring win, but they know the competition in this year’s Transat Jacques Vabre will be intense. Racing against the likes of Michel Desjoyeaux’s Foncia, Kito de Pavant’s Groupe Bel and Roland Jourdain’s Veolia Environnement all who have recently been sharpening their racing skills by competed in the Istanbul Europe Race.
