Tanguy de Lamotte wins the Class40 Fastnet race

De LaMotte arrived at 03:59:30 GMT, just over two hours ahead of Italian Giovanni Soldini’s Telecom Italia, scoring his best Class 40 result to date. « It was quite a big race, there are a lot of boats and it was very close between the top three at least. I was third in the Quebec-St Malo and I had a third with Liz on a doublehanded race and now a win ahead of the top guys. So I am looking forward to the Class 40 Worlds next week. »

Soldini says Telecom Italia came into her element yesterday in the slightly stronger downwind conditions to Bishop Rock and on to the finish and during this time caught up to within five miles of the leader. At the Lizard, shortly before the finish, they tried to coax the French boat inshore. « We tried to make some ’gybes’ - you never know ! - we were doing some suicide gybes ! But he didn’t fall for it, » said Soldini.

Portimao Global Ocean Race winner, Boris Herrmann and his Beluga Racer came home third, just nine minutes after Telecom Italia.

« We never sailed together before and we knew the boat very little compared to the first and second placed boat, so we can be very happy with the result, » commented Herrmann. They had been slow to get out of the Solent, but were one of the few boats that managed to pick up places sailing along the south coast of the UK, moving up to second by day two, neck and neck with the leader. « After six hours side by side eating 50m out of him, we got in front, so it was a really exciting day with a lot of trimming and steering. But suddenly a sail slipped from the deck into the water and it was our very important Code Zero. So we made a crash gybe and got it back out of the water, but lost 250m and it took about six hours to get it back ! »

 Press info Rolex Fastnet Race Media Office / Key Partners / http://fastnet.rorc.org