The new Jeanneau Sunfast 3300 launched in Ireland last Spring will be among the marques competing in this weekend's RORC Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote.

As regular readers will know, its Irish debut at the Royal Irish Yacht Club by Irish distributors MGM Boats included a run-through of the boat's performance by its French design team at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The design has been shortlisted for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Regatta as the proposed new mixed two-handed keelboat class.

Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl

The new 33-footer, named Cinnamon Girl, then went on to have a great high-speed first season on the south coast from her homeport of Kinsale under skipper Cian McCarthy, including runner-up in the inaugural Fastnet 450 Race. 

Cian McCarthy's Kinsale-based 'Cinnamon Girl' at the start of August's Fastnet 450 Race

Sunfast 3300 Moshimoshi

Now, a French amateur team, Sebastien Saulnier and Christophe Affolter,  have sailed a Sun Fast 3300 from St Malo, Brittany to the Canary Islands in order to race across the Atlantic. RORC race reporter Louay Habib spoke on Skype to Sebastien Saulnier who was on board his boat Moshimoshi in Calero Marinas Puerto Calero in Lanzarote ahead of Saturday's start.

“The dream started about three years ago,” explained Saulnier. “It was wonderful to sail across the Atlantic with friends and family, but I wanted to do it in a race. Two years ago, I met Christophe who has done a lot of RORC racing. We felt good together from the first moment and this is the first race that we can do and it was not easy to get to Lanzarote.

Due to government restrictions, we could only sail from L’Orient on the 12th December and we saw 48 knots of wind in the Golfe de Gascogne.

We did make it past La Coruna, but the weather was so bad we had to turn back. We waited six days for the storm to pass and then it was a better sail to Lanzarote.” 

Hear more in Louay's interview below