RORC Caribbean 600 - Region Gaudeloupe take line honors

2:35 AM Thu 25 Feb 2010 GMT

'RORC Caribbean 600 - Region Gaudeloupe' Tim Wright

Claude Thelier and John Burnie's ORMA 60 trimaran, Region Guadeloupe, finish RORC Caribbean 600 on Wednesday 24th February 18:49 03 in the elapsed time of 2 Days 5 Hours 59 Min 03 Seconds.

John Burnie, skipper of Region Guadeloupe spoke dockside in Falmouth Harbour. 'This year's race was more difficult in many respects, especially tactically because of the wind coming from the South. In 2009 we rarely deviated from the rhumb line but in this race we were constantly having to alter course to avoid wind shadow from islands and areas devoid of wind. We got caught in the wind shadow of St.Kitts and Beau Geste caught us up, we were swapping gybes with them for some time before they too hit a quiet patch and we wriggled free'.

Probably the biggest example of how tactical this race has been was the fact Region Gaudeloupe actually went west of Montserrat on the way down to Guadeloupe, navigator Nick Lykiardopulo explains why.

'There were so many areas of no wind along the route to Guadeloupe that we decided to go far west, almost 90 miles west of the rhumb line. We had also decided that we were going to go wide of Guadeloupe and going far west gave us a better angle of aproach which really paid off for us.'

ORMA 60, Region Guadeloupe crew:
Claude Thelier, John Burnie , Nick Lykiardopulo, Olivier Moal, Julian Spier, Mark Stevens, Stephane Squarcioni, James Pascall