The Artemis Transat

By now multihulls no longer hit the headlines and the Europe 1 STAR had turned into a French battle, at least for overall victory. There were no new trimarans except for Banque Populaire. The 60ft monohulls shunned the event to concentrate on the Vendée Globe. Amateurs took advantage to come back in force in the smaller classes while observers already knew that the podium would be a contest between Peyron, Bourgnon, Vatine and Joyon. But it was the latter who created the surprise by choosing a route not used by anyone since Blondie Hasler in 1960, the Northern route. Joyon went far to the North passing over the top of the centres of the depressions that were slowing his adversaries on the direct route. He had more than a 300-mile lead by the time he had reached the Newfoundland Banks and nothing seemed capable of stopping him from breaking the record for the crossing. But it was without counting on the unstable breezes that knocked him down over just 400 miles from the finish. A similar fate befell Laurent Bourgnon.

Loïck Peyron was able to savour a second successive victory, with a time very close to Philippe Poupon's 1988 record in spite of significantly less favourable weather conditions. Paul Vatine came in just four hours behind the winner.

Difficult to make a forecast especially as weather conditions were not very favourable at the start with the fleet quickly becoming scattered across the Atlantic - Joyon headed north, Vatine south and Bourgnon and Peyron took the middle course. It took almost a week to sort out the lead. Bourgnon, in the lead, broke his mainsheet track, Arthaud capsized off Newfoundland and Poupon had long dropped out because of a broken daggerboard. There remained just one, Peyron, lying in wait for half the distance. He put his foot down near the finish and came in with more than a 24-hour lead over the second boat.