SUMMER IS BACK AND SO ARE THE CHAMPIONS

It's back to the helm at La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan) for the 18^th Trophée Clairefontaine des Champions de Voile, which will be raced till Sunday at the sailing stadium in the harbour and in the Bay of Quiberon.  The eight guest champions and their crews were all on time at midday when their names were called, and to celebrate the occasion it is a sunny day with a clear blue sky and a light breeze.  So, summer is back in La Trinité.

For the Trophée Clairefontaine, eight champions will take part in a three-crew regatta (the champion at the helm assisted by two crewmen on the trapeze) on the spectacular SailingOne one-design catamaran (7.65m - 25%u2019) exclusively designed and entrusted to each of the stars to be used for this once yearly event.

The programme for the eight teams is comprised of free training sessions this afternoon and tomorrow morning.  At 14:30, Friday, things will start to heat up a bit with the Rhodia Warm-up:  in all eight Runs in the sailing stadium lasting just two hours. There's no hanging about at the Trophée Clairefontaine!  These regattas do not count in the final result, but they are an opportunity for the champions to obtain a few prizes and, most of all, to show the level of their podium pretensions for Sunday.

Saturday, the start of the first of the nine legs will be given at 9:30 for a small open warm-up race. Then will follow the run to the island of Houat, where they will stop for a picnic on the large beach. These two large open races will allow the champions to show their worth in the strong tidal currents, since the tidal range coefficient will be 100. Navigation and strategy will be more important than pure speed. Sunday is given over to the sailing show, to background music, of the last five Runs.

The Trophée Clairefontaine welcomes eight champions from different international sailing disciplines, according to the season. This year seven offshore racers will face the representative of the Alinghi Team, winner of the last two America's Cup races. To be noted this year is the fact that the seven French champions have all taken part in the Solitaire Le Figaro single-handed race at some stage of their sailing career. Four of them have already won it. As for Michel Desjoyeaux (Xavier Revil & Christophe Espagnon), he has just won it for the third time, having participated only ten times. This is a record! Michel Desjoyeaux is therefore the most titled single-handed offshore sailor in the world with the following to his name: a Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, English Transat and three Figaro races. He also won three Trophée Clairefontaine in 2001, 2003 and 2004.

Also present, the winner of the 2006 Trophy: Franck Cammas (Stève Ravussin & Pierre Pennec); Luc Dubois - Team Alinghi (Pierre-Yves Jorand & Yves Detrey Detrey); Loïck Peyron (Jean-Baptiste Le Vaillant & Gilles André); Vincent Riou (Sébastien Josse & Laurent Voiron); Jérémie Beyou (Pascal Bidégorry & Ronan Lucas); Yann Eliès (Fred Le Peutrec & Franck Citeau); Nicolas Troussel (Armel Le Cléac'h & Bruno Staub).

Our weather partner, Météo Strategy (www.meteostrategy.com), has forecasted fine weather and good regatta sailing conditions this weekend. So let the fun begin...