The Race - with stops

Bruno Peyron has formally announced that he will be staging a new round the world race with stopovers for the 'G class' maxi multihulls. He also will be setting up a championship for the new 'giants' which will include The Race, the new round the world race, record attempts and passages to be agreed with the other skippers. Peyron was going to wait before annoucing this, but told madfor sailing he felt there was no reason to hold off any longer. "We took this decision because it is the answer the market was expecting," said the Orange skipper. The new event, which Peyron is at present calling The Race Tour, will start in 2006 and will run consecutively every two years between his non-stop around the world event, The Race. The next running of The Race will take place in 2004. "It will be specifially formatted so that it is not too long and there are not too many stops," said Peyron of the new event. "We have the speed to go where we want. Before The Race I was contacted by some companies in the Asian markets. I can answer them now." Peyron feels that there are likely to be around four legs but the exact course will depend upon both sponsors and competitors. He is also considering a way of making it interesting (and cheap) to tie in countries The Race Tour passes. "We are going to work on a new system of pitstops so that maybe you can have a buoy or a passage in all the strategic markets." He gives the example of the leg back to Europe where the boats could pass through such pitstops in France, UK, Belgium and Holland. "It costs too much money to make a long stopover. It is very possible to