Heads held high

The new Farr IMOCA 60 PRB of 2004/5 Vendée Globe winner Vincent Riou did not get off to a particularly auspicious start, dropping its rig in the opening days of the 2006 Route du Rhum. However, this early setback fooled no one and Riou will start the next Vendée among the favourites. His project manager, Grégoire Metz, looks at some of the key decisions taken by the team for their latest boat

Twenty-four hours after Roland JourdainÕs victorious arrival in Guadeloupe, leading home his IMOCA 60 rivals, I could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the whole of our PRB team, both on and off the water, who put so much effort into our new boat in the frantic months leading up to the start of the Rhum. While we kept it to ourselves, we had felt very comfortable about our boatÕs preparation and most of our professional rivals appeared to acknowledge our sense of achievement at a job well done.

And it felt as if things started well for us, Vincent leading the IMOCA fleet around the first turning mark...

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