First rocket ship to have left her mooring, Gitana 13 is the former Orange (2002 Jules Verne winner), launched in 2000 as Innovation Explorer… Her skipper is a certain Lionel Lemonchois, Mr. rock solid himself, recently crowned as you remember "King of the Rhum" (which has nothing to do with drinking abilities). Loïck Peyron, head of the Gitana Team, is also part of the crew - he knows this boat very well, for having led her to a nice second place during The Race in 2001. Gitana 13 has seen a major refit this winter, and has a new mast, the previous one having broken off the Kerguelen Islands when Ellen MacArthur was making an attempt at the Jules Verne in 2003. Yes, these big Ollier cats do have looooong careers. But so much for history, the mighty cat only stopped for 2 hours and a half in Spain in order to get rid of the propeller shafts, and crossed the starting line right away ! Soon after the light airs encountered at the start, the boat picked up speed and was doing 25 to 28 knots under reefed main and staysail (the crew had a 40-mile lead over Fossett 24 hours after the start).

Now let's look at the second record-hunter with its sights set on PlayStation's trophy: no history here, the big trimaran has only seen a setup season for now. Let's all welcome the mighty VPLP-designed green machine, aka Groupama 3! Franck Cammas chose to go the 'light' way, with a 105' boat, that owes a lot to ORMA 60s. Mind you, the battleship will be the first maxi-multihull to be fitted with curved foils. The idea behind this concept is to be able to be fast in medium / light airs, thus making good progress in transition phases such as the Doldrums (the Jules Verne Trophy is obviously the major objective of this campaign). Sure, with her not-so-high freeboard, she might get scary in heavy Southern seas, but the guys are pretty relaxed and confident - there are several RTW vets aboard, among which a couple of Jules Verne holders. Just before Groupama 3 left, I was invited aboard for a nice little test drive (yes, there have been worst days at the office, thanks for asking) and was blown away by the power of the machine. I mean… blasting along at 22 knots (75° TWA) in only 10 knots of breeze on a 32 metres boat? And all of this while needing only 2 fingers to steer? Amazing! It'd be interesting to see where the speedometer goes with a reef in the main and the small gennaker when it's blowing 25 knots outside. I won't go through the crew list here, but I can assure you the men aboard are clearly among the finest in this very special trade.

A Gitana 13 - Groupama 3 showdown would've been a treat, but that just won't happen since Cammas' team will start their standby on the 26th, due to sponsor-related obligations (a contingency Gitana does not have to deal with, since it's a private effort - some people just have bigger toys). So each team will fight on its own against PlayStation's benchmark time… which is 9 days, 13 hours and 30 minutes.

Jocelyn Blériot