There may be no Multi One Championship points at stake for the MOD70’s when they bid farewell to Newport RI late this Monday afternoon and head to New York, but all of the five skippers confirmed this morning that that the memorable experience of arriving in to New York under sail would be made sweetest by leading across the finish line tomorrow.
It is the first time that all five MOD70’s will line up in anger against each other and the crews will be supplemented by a number of media guests who have front row seats for this first initial skirmish.
The start on Narrangansett Bay off Newport is at 1700 hrs (local) where the fleet make a short, two leg opening gambit before leaving on the short, most direct of the three course options.
Course A takes them out to a turn SW at Block Island, then the course runs parallel to Long Island to a finish line just shy of the Verrazano Narrows bridge. That makes a course distance of around 150 miles. After the boats finish they will regroup and make a sail past the Statue of Liberty and up to the North Cove Marina.
The first boats should reach the finish line between 1000 hrs and 1100 hrs local time (1500 to 1600 hrs GMT) Tuesday morning. Though it is something of a delivery trip, a dress rehearsal which serves the purpose of getting the fleet to the start city for the KRYS OCEAN RACE, all of the teams will be pushing hard to be there first.
“We will be in full race mode.” FONCIA’s skipper Michel Desjoyeaux said this morning. “Though it is not a part of the classification for us all, it will be one more training race for us. And we want to show that we are in a good racing shape for the boat and for the crew. I think we will have medium winds and a light finish. I have never ever arrived in New York by sail and so it will be nice to sail past the Statue de la Liberté and I am looking forwards to that”
Desjoyeaux and his Foncia crew will be joined by CNN MainSail’s presenter, double Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson for the passage to New York. Among the other media guests who will enjoy the unique race are Sailing World’s Stuart Streuli on Musandam-Oman Sail, Sail magazine’s Adam Cort on Race for Water, Chris Museler from the New York Times and Jeniece Pettit from Bloomberg News on Groupe Edmond de Rothschild.
Quotes
Sidney Gavignet, skipper, MOD 70 Musandam-Oman Sail; “There will be a full moon which is always great, it is nice to have some light. Everything is easier. Otherwise for us it is useful after a week of non sailing just to get all the team into racing mode again. It maybe does not count but we take it very, very seriously as a set up for the race. So we will be out early. We are very happy. And for our Omani’s it will be fantastic to arrive in New York for their first time ever, by sea. I arrived many years ago on La Poste from Puerto Rico and it is a magical memory.”
Sébastien Josse, skipper, MOD 70 Groupe Edmond de Rothschild: “What is important is next Saturday, but it is good to leave here and do some offshore sailing with our team. If we are there first that is great for us, but if we are last it is no big deal.”
Stève Ravussin, skipper of MOD70 Race For Water: “A prologue is a prologue but everyone will be going for it. It will be a short course but it is useful before the start of a Transat! This trial run will allow us aboard Race For Water to get just a little more experience and refine the work cohesion on board because we have not sailed so much together. But we are happy to be going racing and see the dividend for all of our hard work.”
Leo Lucet, crew of MOD70 Spindrift racing: “For our young team which is racing Spindrift, the KRYS OCEAN RACE is really a trial run at all levels. The MOD70 Spindrift racing is a brand new boat, Yann has put the crew together from scratch and we have had some training and the delivery passage here to the United States. This will be a first race for our team. So we go with great humility but we are cool about it.”
www.krys-oceanrace.com
2nd July 2012: Prologue Start – Newport
3rd July 2012: Prologue Arrival – New York
5th July 2012: New York Speed Match
Mid-July 2012: Launch of MOD
PAPREC-VIRBAC 70
7th July 2012
KRYS OCEAN RACE
OFFICIAL START, N.Y.C
