In 30 days’ time, the second edition of LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin will set sail with some 80 competing boats. The race village will open its doors from 19 July and nautical festivities will commence on Saturday 21 July with the DRHEAM-TROPHY prologue in La Trinité-sur-Mer, SW Brittany, which will be an opportunity within the context of the Rêves de Large operation to get youngsters from the Auray Quiberon Terre Atlantique region out on the water.
80 boats at the start!
Ultimately, there will be 80 boats (sailing in solo, double and crewed configuration), competing in the second edition of LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin, which equates to double that of the first, back in 2016. Keen to enable everyone to enjoy the party, the organisers opened up registration to any boats on the waiting list. In this way, there will be 30 boats in Class40, 12 in Imoca, 10 in the Rhum class (3 monohulls/7 multihulls), 4 in double-handed IRC, 12 in crewed IRC, 2 in the Multi 2000, 5 in the Multi50, 4 in the Large OPEN Monohulls and 1 classic yacht. With LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin serving as a qualifier for the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe, 55 of the 122 participants in the singlehanded transatlantic race will be in La Trinité-sur-Mer on 21 July! An exceptional line-up made possible by everyone rallying together. “I’d particularly like to thank the ports of La Trinité-sur-Mer and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin for the fantastic effort they’ve made to host the boats, at the height of the summer season, as well as the fishermen and women of Cherbourg for agreeing to free up places”, says a grateful Jacques Civilise, organiser of LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin.
IMOCA : The clash of the foils v classic daggerboards
This very substantial line-up of Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe candidates notably includes the Imoca class, since half the solo sailors who are due to set sail from Saint Malo on 4 November 2018 will be at the start of LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin. A very fine battle is shaping up for the 736-mile course between La Trinité-sur-Mer and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin between the foilers and the 60-footers with classic daggerboards: the former will boast 5 entries, 2 from the 2015 generation (Newrest-Art & Fenêtres/Fabrice Amedeo and Ucar-Saint-Michel/Yann Eliès), 1 equipped with foils for the last Vendée Globe (Initiatives Cœur/Sam Davies) and 2 from this season (La Mie Câline-Artipôle/Arnaud Boissières and La Fabrique/Alan Roura).
Suffice to say, that the clash between the really honed machines like SMA (Paul Meilhat), winner of the first two races of the season (Bermudes 1000 Race and Monaco Globe Series), and Monin (Isabelle Joschke), will be really worth seeing, whilst Romain Attanasio (Pure-Famille Mary), Stéphane Le Diraison (Boulogne-Billancourt), Erik Nigon (Vers un Monde sans Sida), Manuel Cousin (Groupe Setin) and Damien Seguin (Groupe Apicil) will also be keen to express themselves on a varied course, which should offer each boat type a chance to show off their true potential.
“It’s going to be a very interesting race with a course that is sufficiently long to really do battle with the others. It reminds me of a Solitaire de Figaro leg. I love this two-three-day format. There’s lots of sailing, as well as a series of traps relating to the shipping, the coastline and the other boats. We’ll really have a lot on”, says a delighted Sam Davies, who will clearly be one of the pretenders to victory along the Cotentin Peninsula.
A moment for sharing: the Rêves de Large operation
Successfully launched in the first edition, the Rêves de Large operation is being renewed for the second DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin. The principle? To treat children from the Auray Quiberon Terre Atlantique region to the opportunity to participate aboard the boats competing in the DRHEAM-TROPHY, the race prologue contested in the Baie de Quiberon on Saturday 21 July. “Our youngsters need dreams and adventures and I wanted a race favouring human relationships, sharing between generations, the land and the sea”, Jacques Civilise says of the initiative behind this operation.
This highlight of LA DRHEAM CUP-Destination Cotentin is particularly welcomed by Philippe Le Ray, President of the Communauté de Communes Auray Quiberon Terre Atlantique: “We congratulate ourselves on this operation, which we’re organising jointly. It enables youngsters from right across the Communauté de Communes to discover or rediscover the delights of sailing with professionals of the sea, on sailing boats ranging from the smallest cruiser-racers to the giants of the seas. Beyond its community nature, this event is perfectly in line with our desire to develop watersports classes for schoolchildren and facilitate access to the practice of watersports activities for the widest possible audience”.
This year, the operation is aimed at 9-11-year-olds studying in the region’s schools and, if they’re as lucky as those who participated in the 2016 edition of the Rêves de Large, they may get the chance to helm a Multi50, an IMOCA or a Class40, which, less than four months later, could win the Route du Rhum!