#routedesprinces – The 70ft MOD70 multihulls departed Lisbon today at 1400 enroute to Dun Laoghaire after two days of inshore racing. Irish offshore sailor Damian Foxall onboard Oman-Air Musandam won the first offshore leg from Valencia to Lisbon earlier this week so hopefully luck will be on his side as he approaches homesoil. Damian is one of the world's leading offshore sailors and has sailed around the world a remarkable 9 times and has won both the Barcelona World Race and the Volvo Ocean Race.
However it was Yann Guichard and the crew of Spindrift who led the Route des Princes MOD70 fleet out of Lisbon's Tagus river, taking the bonus points at the C1 mark by Cascais, setting a fast, intense pace in the early stages of Leg 2.
'It will be uncomfortable', said Damian Foxall who left Lisbon knowing the next time he stepped off Oman Air-Musandam at the end of the 990nm leg it would be in his homeland.
'It will be very uncomfortable – it looks like there will be a lot of wind around Cape Finisterre off the north-west corner of Spain," said Foxall just before the fleet left Lisbon. Hopefully we will avoid the worst of it but it will be rough and bouncy. For 48 hours the living conditions will be tough, but we are confident in our ability to sail the boat fast and to go in the right direction. We have trained in these conditions so know what it is all about but we also know the other boats are very comfortable in these conditions too. It will be rough and fast but we'll get there in one piece.'
The smaller 50ft multihulls (Multi 50s) left Lisbon yesterday and it is expected the fleet will arrive in Dun Laoghaire around the same time as the MOD70s. These fleets are led by an extreme multihull Prince de Bretagne which is the ambassador of the Race and promotes the fresh produce company Prince de Bretagne who is the main sponsor of the Route.
On Monday 24 June all 9 multihulls on the Route will attempt to break the 20 year old Round Ireland speed record of 44 hours and 42 minutes which is held by the crew of Lakota co-skippers David Scully and the late Steve Fossett, British yachtsman Brian Thompson and Con Murphy and Cathy McAleavey, parents of Irish Olympic sailor Annalise Murphy.
The three day festival in Dun Laoghaire will start on Friday 21 June with live music, food and Funderland. The festivities will continue until Sunday 23 June with free concerts from the Bandstand by Crash, Dirty Epics, The Shoos, Jupe and Robert Delaney.
On Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 June, the multihulls will race in the bay from 2pm to 5pm and there will be live commentary from Irish Olympic sailor Ger Owens.
