MICHEL DESJOYEAUX AT THE END OF THE SUSPENSE

The 18^th Trophée Clairefontaine des Champions de Voile was raced at La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan), on 1^st and 2^nd September in fine summer weather. There wasn't even any wind on the Saturday morning for the Open Race out to the Island of Houat. The 2007 cru was full of suspense with an exciting battle between Michel Desjoyeaux, the Swiss, Luc Dubois from the Alinghi Team, Loïck Peyron and Franck Cammas, who ended their stay in La Trinité in that order, with only five points difference.

Seven French champions against a Swiss crew from the famous Alinghi Team, double winner of the America's Cup (2003 and 2007) could almost be considered a Breton ambush. The Trophée Clairefontaine is much subtler. Among the eight guest champions, there were eight real candidates to the final victory, who were on equal footing on the 25 feet (7.65 m) turbo catamarans, exclusively used for this star regatta.

Loïck Peyron arrived wanting to win an eighth title, Michel Desjoyeaux was hoping for a fourth and Franck Cammas - winner in 2006 - a third. Jérémie Beyou, second last year and Vincent Riou were out to win. Nicolas Troussel and Yann Eliès were discovering this type of race and had solid ambitions. Fred Le Peutrec, for a long time associated with the victories of Loïck Peyron, and Franck Citeau, who shared a few victories with Michel Desjoyeaux, sailed with Yann Eliès. However, more would have been needed to impress the Swiss crew from the Alinghi Team, as skilful on the highly powerful multihulls of the Léman as on the Class Americas of the America's Cup. The final victory was within their range.

Franck Cammas shone on the only Open Race in the Bay of Quiberon, between the Island of Houat and La Trinité. Out of the eight Runs raced before the general public in the Harbour of La Trinité, turned into as sailing stadium by Sagemor, Michel Desjoyeaux took three consecutive wins. Luc Dubois took the lead twice. Loïck Peyron, Yann Eliès and Vincent Riou each won a leg. It was only during the second-last tack of the ninth and last leg that the title of Champion of champions 2007 was played out. One important point made all the difference in favour of Michel Desjoyeaux, accompanied by the Olympic tornado sailors, Xavier Revil and Christophe Espagnon.

Five years at La Trinité-sur-Mer (1990-94), six at Cap d'Agde, where the Trophée Clairefontaine came into its own as an entertaining sailing race, and another six seasons in La Trinité-sur-Mer (2001-2006), to which was added a seventh, thanks to the Conseil Général du Morbihan (county council), the organizers would now like to give this sailing event a more international dimension, particularly because of the active support received from the Eurosport Group.

General ranking: 1- Michel Desjoyeaux , 50 pts (7,6,3,1,1,1,7,5,6); 2- Luc Dubois - Team Alinghi (Swiss), 49 pts (2,3,1,7,4,6,1,8,5); 3- Loïck Peyron, 47 pts (5,2,5,3,5,3,6,1,7); 4- Franck Cammas,  45 pts (1,7,6,4,3,5,8,3,2); 5- Yann Eliès, 43 pts (8,8,8,5,2,7,2,2,1); 6- Nicolas Troussel, 42 pts (3,5,4,2,8,2,5,4,8); 7- Vincent Riou, 38 pts (6,1,7,6,7,4,3,7,4); 8- Jérémie Beyou, 37 pts (4,4,2,8,6, 8,4,6,3).