Vendee Globe winner, Vincent Riou, and his crew of Sébastien Josse, Hugues Destremau, Eric Carret and Jean Marc Failler crossed the finish line off Calais yesterday evening to win the of the Calais Round Britain and Ireland Race for the second time.

Riou (winner of the 2003 event), and his team sailing the new Farr-designed Open 60 PRB (II) led for the majority of the race and sailed across the line at 21 hours 37 minutes 36 seconds yesterday. The team took 9 days 07 hours 7 minutes 36 sailing at an average speed of 8.13 kts.

Jérémie Beyou and team on Delta Dore crossed the finish line in the middle of the night to claim second place just ahead of Jean Le Cam on VM Materiaux in third.

Having spent the majority of the last nine days struggling with the predominantly light airs the leading yachts were treated a lively beat to the finish line with winds in excess of 25kts from the west which resulted in another first for Riou and team who’ve broken the Dover-Calais speed record with a time of 1hr 8 minutes and 57 seconds at an average speed of 7.35 kts. The previous record set in 2003 by Charles Heidrich finished with a time of 1 hour 18 minutes and 50 seconds.

At the 0750 progress report this morning Dominique Wavre and team on Temenos were just 40 miles off the finish with Generali (Yann Elies) in fifth. The best of the British contingent, Artemis Ocean Racing, who lost fifth place yesterday remain just four miles behind Generali, 110 miles from the Calais finish line.

Dee Caffari and team on Aviva still trail the fleet but are expected to finish later tonight.