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30 October 2005, 07:51 pm

Ecover Takes Honours In Prologue

Transat Jacques Vabre 2005

Le Havre, France

Mike GOLDING (GBR) and Dominique WAVRE (SUI) on Ecover won the Open 60 Monohull Renault Prologue of the Transat Jacques Vabre in Le Havre, France yesterday after an very tight race with Virbac-Paprec.

Early yesterday morning, GOLDING and WAVRE were joined by a small team to compete in a prologue against the other Open 60 teams racing in the Transat Jacques Vabre. Also onboard Ecover were North Sails France manager Bruno DUBOIS and the boat preparatory team, Graham TOURELL and Ian MCCABE.

GOLDING commented, 'Today has been a great opportunity for Dominique and I to look at all the sails we will need for the Transat Jacques Vabre. This is great for Dominique who is still relatively new to the boat plus, we were joined by Bruno DUBOIS who has an intimate knowledge as the designer of the sail wardrobe on Ecover.'

With a great blue sky and 20+ knots of southwesterly winds, Virbac-Paprec led at the start of the five mile course before being overtaken from Ecover who then held the lead for the majority of the regatta, although Virbac-Paprec came close to snatching away victory in the last lap of the course.

'It was a very tough race for the crews on all the boats because the boats are not designed to do this kind of intensive manoeuvring,' explained a delighted GOLDING. 'On the last term, Virbac-Paprec were just ahead, then they had a twist in their code five which allowed us to catch and overtake them and to finish about 200 yards ahead of them! It has been a very close and tight race and it gives an idea of what to expect during the Transat Jacques Vabre!'

For all the news on the Transat Jacques Vabre CLICK HERE.