Troussel counts his advantage in hours…

The big looser on the day is Christian Bos (Région Midi Pyrenées) who finishes forty third on the second leg and is delegated to 32nd overall, effectively loosing a further 8 hours to the leader. The big time-lead Troussel has secured gives little room for the remaining 47 competitors to have a come back on the last leg. The fight for second and third spots on the podium however, will be fierce. The top and most experienced, up to sixteenth placed Pietro D’Alì (McLouis) are within four hours of each other and all eyeing the 2nd and 3rd spots on the podium. The usual suspects are all there, Frederic Duthil, Christopher Pratt, Jeanne Grégoire, Nicolas Bérenger… and so the list goes on. Interestingly this year, the leads are very extensive, each year a win comes down to a matter of minutes or seconds (Armel le Cleac’h famously beat Alain Gautier by just 13 seconds in 2003), however this year we can look at it in terms of hours.

It is a reverse situation for the rookie sailors. The competition in terms of time difference is much closer, both François Gabart (Espoir Région Bretagne) and Adrien Hardy (Agir Recouvrement) finished within 4 minutes of each other on the first leg and just 5 on the second. The race from Vigo to Cherbourg was tough on the fleet of rookies, Maiko Szekely (Région Basse Normandie) secured the top spot, but was 28th to port followed by Briton Andy Greenwood on Imtech. The current standings show François Gabart holding a 9 minute, 33 second lead over Adrien Hardy and a 2 hour 35 minute and 53 second lead over Andy Greenwood. The game is open in this class and the third decisive leg will produce the Bénéteau Rookie winner of this, the 39th edition of La Solitaire du Figaro.

The third and final leg will settle all accounts and produce the 39th Solitaire champion. Next up is the 825 miles from Cherbourg, Normandy to l’Aber Wrac’h, Brittany, with one major mark to round, the Isle of Man up in the Irish Sea. The start is on Friday 8th of August at 14:00 local French time.