Gavignet on Oman Air has to take the risk of the orthodromic(sp?) route: he cannot match the raw speed of Groupama/Sodebo/Idec due to his foils. I've heard that Oman Air's sistership Sodebo is up to 3 knots faster than Oman Air in 20 knots of wind just because he has better foils!

As for the weird tracks: Bertrand Quentin on Côte d'Or II look like he turned around and Loïc Fequet on Maître Jacques seems to be almost aiming for Spain!

The only cat I know off in the race is Hervé De Carlan's Délirium. Complete amateur. He build the well named boat himself, with his son Joris, and launched it for the previous edition of the Route Du Rhum, but decided not to do the start as the boat was not ready enough. In the last 4 years he did the Jacques Vabre and the Quebec-St Malo races. Incidentally his 22yo son competes as well, in the Rhum class, on Generik Exp'hair, a boat build by the dad between '73 and '78, renovated by the son for the occasion. Needless to say, neither of those two have any chance to win anything but my respect