First Race, First Win!

With their respective track records, the two men were clearly among the favourites for victory. But getting to grips with a new boat is never straightforward. It seems the two months Alexis spent sailing and fine-tuning his new Lift V3 since its launch have paid off. His goal for this first showdown was simply to be “in the game”. He certainly achieved that — and then some… He absolutely nailed it! “I’m not going to say we expected this much, but we’ll take it, for sure! It’s a great reward for all the work we’ve put into the boat over the past few months. And it shows that we’re here and ready to compete. With less than two months to go before the Route du Rhum, that’s certainly a good sign, even though it will obviously be a very different challenge.”

_{A Pointy-Bow Boat Takes the Lead}

At the start, given late Thursday morning, Loïc Féquet and Benoît Champanhac aboard their pointy-bow 156 Funae got the better of the fleet in the very light airs of Saint-Malo Bay, an area the two local sailors know like the back of their hands.

In conditions particularly well suited to their Mach 40.3, the Saint-Malo duo managed to hold off the scows all the way to the first mark.

This kind of southerly weather obviously suited Mikael Mergui and Romain Robini (183 Hirsch Centrakor) down to the ground, and they hung on to the wake of the 156.

But already closing in behind them, Loison and Le Touzé were showing the bow of their new boat. Joined at the very beginning of the night by Quentin Le Nabour and Thierry Chabagny aboard 205 Bleu Blanc Planète Location, who moved into the leading pack, the battle at the front was on…

_{Four Boats in the Fight for the Podium}

The podium began to take shape between these four crews as the wind gradually strengthened. But the chasing pack was closing in. Jules Bonnier and Josselin Didou aboard 190 Plastic Odyssey, for example, were making their way back through the fleet and beginning to threaten the four leading boats.

The race ultimately turned at the penultimate mark. The return to a reaching leg allowed the scows to really open up and make the difference. The boats were then sailing within sight of one another, locked in a battle that would give them no respite all the way to the finish.

Alexis Loison and Pierrick Le Touzé will undoubtedly have drawn on all their Figaro experience to make the difference right on the line. After a fiercely contested final leg, the 216 Groupe Reel duo took the win ahead of Quentin le Nabour and Thierry Chabagny. “It reminded me of my Figaro days, when I used to battle it out against him. He never gave an inch, and neither did I! This time, we found ourselves in a real final sprint. Quentin (de Nabour) and Thierry came back really strongly. Pierrick and I never lost focus; we managed to find the right trim and keep them behind us, but they really put us under pressure.”

Mikael Mergui and Romain Robini aboard 183 Hirsch Centrakor completed the podium, while Loïc Féquet and Benoît Champanhac secured an excellent fourth place, first of the pointy-bow boats across the finish line — a result the two Saint-Malo locals would certainly have been more than happy to sign up for before the start!

For Alexis Loison, the learning curve on his new Class40 has therefore been remarkably short. First race, first win: it’s hard to imagine a better start to the story.