When a sailing star meets a team handball star... On Saturday, Kito de Pavant will welcome recent French league winner, Montpellier player Nikola Karabatic, on board his Groupe Bel yacht. The two men, who know each other quite well since they worked out together over the winter, will go for an offshore sailing session off Port Camargue (Gard).

Kito de Pavant is currently preparing for the Europa Warm'Up - Starting on May 19 - and of course for the Vendée Globe. He sailed to Minorca (Balearic Islands) and back these past two days, along with Gwen Gbick, his sports manager, and Hervé Giorsetti, his technical director. « We had a great south wind that we had to wait for yesterday (editor's note: Thursday) off Minorca but that eventually allowed us to sail fast and to go through all the scheduled tests during the night. », the Groupe Bel wrote on his website. 

Despite a gas shortage, the Southern yachtsman is happy with these two days of sailing that allowed him to run all the sails tests. « We will have difficult choices to make regarding what sails we'll have on board during the Vendée Globe because the ones we tried are all very good but we can only have ten in the sails hold! », de Pavant explains. The French skipper will definitely have a busy summer as he is planning on trying to beat the solo Mediterranean record, which he could not attempt this week because of a too strong south wind. 

As each of the other IMOCA competitors are back in their home ports to prepare for the Europa Warm'up race, Arnaud Boissières and Marc Guillemot have remained in Rosmeur, a south Finistère harbor. After respectively finishing 6th and 3rd of the first act of the Grand Prix Guyader in Douarnenez, the two monohulls will compete in the second act of the competition on Thursday, starting at 10.30AM. Two offshore races are scheduled on Thursday and Friday, followed by the weekend's « Nautical Challenge » - 3-nautical mile timed speed races - with a first leg on Saturday.

The second part of the Grand Prix will also feature Jérémie Beyou and his boat, Maître Coq, and will allow Arnaud Boissières to welcome players from Nantes Handball Club on board his 60-foot yacht. 

Arnaud Boissières’s first competition this season will take place in La Trinité sur Mer with the Belle-Île Tour. The AKENA Vérandas skipper and his crew will compete against more than 450 boats of all sizes and categories in a 44-nautical mile route around the island. That first event is part of Boissières’ preparation for the Vendée Globe and is also the first competition of the green and black monohull since the boat was equipped with a new mast.
 

It will also be a great opportunity for « Cali » to see how two of his main Vendée Globe opponents are doing, as Samantha Davis (Savéol) and Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty (Sensations) will also participate in the race. Even though the latter is still not sure he will be able to be at the start of the Vendée Globe, the Belle-Île Tour will be the stage for the first big battle between IMOCA yachts less than seven months before the Vendée Globe starts. The Gironde-based skipper’s goal is clear: He’s going for the victory. « The Belle-Île Tour is a very nice event with so many boats! The route is a physically tough one as it requires many sails changes and maneuvers. To us, it’s a pleasant way to get back to race conditions after a winter of hard work on the boat. That will allow us to be back at sea and check all the technical details. We’ll face tough opponents, with strong contenders in the monohull category. Samantha will have a better preparation than ours as she already had an offshore training session a few days ago. But we are already familiar with the boat, which may help. In the end, I think we’ll be on equal terms. »
 

The race starts on Saturday March 28th at 10AM.
 

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The six yachtsmen competing in  a practice race to Cape Finisterre in quasi-solo conditions have had a tough night with a 25-knot wind. Jérémie Beyou (Maître Coq), Samantha Davies (Savéol), Jean-Pierre Dick (Virbac-Paprec), François Gabart (Macif), Armel Le Cléac´h (Banque Populaire) and Vincent Riou (PRB) have been forced to navigate visually in a very humid atmosphere. Guillaume Le Brec, on board with Jean-Pierre Dick, shared his experience on the skipper's official website: « The first night on board is always about getting used to being at sea, you have to get familiar with everything and dress, sleep and eat like a skipper. It's been difficult, we haven't had warm food yet. These are trivial things that become really important when the environment is so humid and you have a hard sea and a 25° list!!! For now, we're headed to the Gascogne Gulf in a 16 to 23-knot downwind. We always have the same yachts around us but the options linked to sails choice are starting to make a difference! Everything is fine on board! » The six skippers of the Finistère Offshore Racing Team should be back in Port-la-Forêt by Friday afternoon.

Marc Guillemot has a lot on his plate before the start of the Vendée Globe. After the Europa Race was canceled (editor's note: replaced with the Tour of Europe, starting in Barcelona on May 17-20), the Safran skipper had to change his competition schedule and should focus on sailing solo nautical miles until the end of July. His intensive preparation started in the best possible way last week-end with an Open 750 title in the Spi Ouest-France Intermarché race. In the near future, the skipper, who finished third in the last Vendée Globe, will sail 500 nautical miles in « quasi-solo » conditions with on board electronics engineer Pierre Bourcier joining him on Safran to check the latest control and auto-pilot settings. Guillemot will then compete in Douarnenez's Grand Prix Guyader with a crew (April 28 - May 6) and in the ArMen Race on May 17. In the end of May, the Safran crew will be in stand-by as they will try to break their own British Islands circumnavigation record.

In June, Marc Guillemot will be back at sea for a solo 2,000-nautical mile offshore sailing along the La Trinité - Azores- Fastnet - La Trinité route, which should keep him sailing for 7 or 8 days. 

Another solo sailing of about a thousand nautical miles is scheduled in July and then the boat will have deserved some rest and good care before the start of the big race. 

Safran will have eventually sailed more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 kilometers), which is the equivalent of two transatlantic races ! « As soon as we found out the Europa race was canceled, we had to bounce back and come up with a smart new preparation schedule, one that I would be fine with, explains Marc Guillemot. 

I, for one, think the IMOCA schedule lacks a transatlantic race in the spring. 

And I need to sail a lot and feel comfortable when the Vendée Globe starts. 

That's why I came up with that schedule. I don't keep track of nautical miles but of days spent alone at sea instead. 

That's what I'm like and there's no miracle solution: You have to sail again and again if you want to be competitive. » Whatever happens for Marc Guillemot in the next Vendée Globe

, the French skipper will have at least made sure he does everything he has to do to succeed.