BARCELONA WORLD RACE : 9 ENTRIES AND A MYTHICAL PROLOGUE
The 2007 edition of the RORC’s Rolex Fastnet Race will also be used as the official prologue to the two-handed Barcelona World Race. The Barcelona World Race duos will be racing in the same two-up format for the 608-mile race that starts this Sunday, 12th August. The Barcelona World Race now counts nine official entries, following the announcement of the all-Spanish crew of Mutua Madrileña and the Franco-Catalan duet aboard Educacion Sin Fronteras who have joined this highly competitive fleet.
And then they were nine! The Barcelona World Race organisers are delighted to officially announce the participation of two new Spanish teams: Javier Sansó and Pachi Rivero will be lining up onboard Mutua Madrileña (Mike Golding’s former Ecover 2), while Albert Bargués and Servane Escoffier are currently carrying out the last preparation phase of Ellen MacArthur’s former Kingfisher. Both duos will take the start of the Rolex Fastnet next Sunday (12th August) in Cowes.
Mutua Madrileña – Sansó / Rivero
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Spaniards Javier Sansó, and Pachi Rivero have confirmed their entry in the Barcelona World Race. Javier Sanso Widmann, 38, is no stranger to the Open 60 class. He has competed in two Transat Jacques Vabre races – 2001 onboard SME Negoceane, finishing 4th, and 2003 onboard Objectif 3. Sanso was co-skipper of 4th place Gartmore in the EDS Atlantic Challenge in 2001, and also competed in the 2001/01 Vendée Globe but unfortunately had to retire. He has done 18 transatlantic crossings, and was the 2001 Spanish sailor of the year.
Pachi Rivero, aged 43, father of two is also one of Spain’s most accomplished sailors, with two America’s Cup under his belt as crew member in the Spanish team Desafio Español in 1992/1995 and having competed in more than 20 World Championship regattas in the Maxi and Swan class. He was also part of the winning crew onboard Caja Madrid Open 60 in the Regata Cadiz-La Habana in 2000, and won this race in 2006 onboard the Volvo 60 Cantabria Infinita.
The two men have completed the majority of their Barcelona World Race qualifying passage, onboard the very competitive Owen-Clarke designed Ecover (today Mutua Madrileña), which finished 3rd in the 2005 Vendée Globe, and won The Transat in 2004. After finishing the Rolex Fastnet Race they will have completed the total 2800 miles required for the qualification.
Educacion sin Fronteras – Bargués / Escoffier
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Albert and Servane will sail onboard the ex-Kingfisher, now re-named ‘Educacion sin Fronteras’ (Education without Frontiers). While ‘Educacion sin Fronteras’ will sail for the Calella de Palafurgell Yacht Club and the Fundació Navegació Oceànica Barcelona (FNO), it has been agreed that if FNO attract other sponsors for the team, some of the funds will go towards the ‘NGO’ (Non-Government Organisation) programme which have among their priorities, creating schools and education programmes for children in developing countries. Albert Bargués, aged 47, from Barcelona has an impressive sailing CV as an ocean sailor including the 1985/6 Whitbread Round the World Race onboard Fortuna Lights, the 1997 Transat Jacques Vabre onboard Budapest Open 60, two Mini-Transats in 1987 and 1999. He has also worked on the shore team of several IMOCA Open 60 campaigns including PRB in 2000 and more recently Sill-Veolia last year, as project manager.
Female French sailor Servane Escoffier, aged 26 from Saint-Malo, also has a very respectable list of accomplishments to her name including podium positions in the 2006 Route du Rhum and 2005 Transat Jacques Vabre, and winning the 2006 Record SNSM onboard her previous boat, the Open 50 Vedettes de Bréhat. Servane has had some valuable experience working behind the scenes on IMOCA Open 60 campaigns including being part of Nick Moloney’s shore team for his 2004 Vendée Globe onboard Skandia.
First confrontation!
These two new teams alongside six other Barcelona World Race IMOCA 60s will be taking part in the famous Rolex Fastnet Race, which this summer doubles as the official Barcelona World Race prologue. This mythical event, organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club and established in 1925, starts Sunday, 12th August from Cowes, Isle of Wight. In total 17 IMOCA Open 60 Boats, each of them having a media person onboard, will line up on the start line along with close to 300 other boats who will race the 608-mile course via the Fastnet Rock finishing in Plymouth.
© A major event on the IMOCA Class calendar, this year’s edition will see several new-generation monohulls compete against each other for the first time. Recently launched Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss and Guillermo Altadill’s Estrella Damm, both future Barcelona World Race adversaries, will be closely observed following the initial foray in the Channel Race. And if Vincent Riou and Seb Josse, onboard PRB, are clearly the ‘team to beat’, all the entrants know they should fear the fast Delta Dore while Roland Jourdain’s Veolia has been thoroughly optimised this winter and is making her major comeback and the duo of Dominic Wavre and Michèle Paret on Temenos II have already proved themselves competitive!
Unfortunately for Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall, Paprec-Virbac is not able to compete in this Rolex Fastnet Race due to keel problems, but this Barcelona World Race prologue promises to be an exciting first race test for the campaigns all looking to get the psychological advantage before the 11th November start of the non-stop,two-handed Barcelona World Race.
Roland Jourdain, Veolia Environnement
“All the great boats sailed that course. It’s one of those races that have become mythical. We will of course observe the boats which will be our rivals on the Barcelona World Race, but most of all we’ll check out how Veolia Environnement behaves. The boat has been re-launched last week, and we’re not going to push her hard for the first outings. We have to learn her new subtleties.”
Jérémie Beyou, Delta Dore
“This race has an unequalled aura. For the IMOCA 60 monohulls, it will be the match of the year. During the Calais Round Britain Race, we were able to examine the potential of the boats. During the Fastnet, the potential of the crews is what will be put to the test. We’ll try and obtain a result of course, but the boat is now optmised for a round-the-world race, not a coastal course.”
Alex Thomson, Hugo Boss
“I look forward to lining up against some of the world’s best sailors in a fiercely competitive fleet on Sunday. This will be my first race with Capey, my co-skipper for the Barcelona World Race, and our first offshore race on the new HUGO BOSS. We want to learn as much as we can about this new boat in order to optimize her performance in preparation for the Barcelona World Race. The Rolex Fastnet Race will be an ideal training ground and we will certainly be keeping a close eye on the other competition.”
During the Rolex Fastnet Race, the Barcelona World Race organisation will be testing several new systems due to be used during the round-the-world event. All information, including live tracking, will be available on the ‘race ready’ website which will go online for the start of the prologue on Sunday.