486 sailing yachts were registered, and the Tour de Belle-Ile became the first sailing event in France in number of boats. The participants came notably from all the Atlantic coast, Belgium, England and Czech Republic.

They converged from three different ports of the bay of Quiberon (La Trinité-sur-mer, Port Haliguen and Le Crouesty) in order to be present on the same starting line the 7th May at 11.30 am.

A lot of famous sailors participated in the Tour de Belle-Ile 2011: Franck Cammas, Jean-Pierre Dick, Sébastien Josse, Vincent Riou, Lionel Lemonchois, Yves le Blevec, Alain Gautier, Franck-Yves Escoffier, Jean Galfione, Anne Caseneuve and Arnaud Boissières for instance, on their own boat. Thomas Coville was also present, he was part of the crew of the monohull Groupama 70 helmed by Franck Cammas.

The “appel d’air” programme, a charity event aimed to enable hospitalized children to participate in the Tour de Belle-Ile sailing race, was renewed in 2011 and it enabled to invite 14 hospitalized children from three Parisian hospitals.
Welcomed during 3 days, the 14 children participated in the sailing race but they had to withdraw from the race before the finishing line because of the strong weather conditions which did not guarantee a sufficient security for the children.

The signal to start was given at 11.30 am for all the participants in a strong breeze of 20-25 knots.
Gitana 11, helmed by Sébastien Josse, beat the record of the Tour de Belle-Ile. Sébastien Josse and his crew took 2h42min00s to complete the race.
Less than 3 minutes after Gitana 11, it is Lionel Lemonchois on “Prince de Bretagne” who crossed the finishing line. Franck Yves Escoffier arrived in third position.
Groupama 70 helmed by Franck Cammas, won, with a racing time of 3h23’14’’, the trophy “Malinovsky” for the first monohull arrived.

The participants arrived during all the afternoon and the evening.
The day after the sailing race, on Sunday 8th of May, the prize-giving took place in the Espace Tour de Belle-Ile on the port of La Trinité sur Mer.
Each winner of the different category (Multi 50’, class 40, IRC…) received a prize. Some “special prizes” were also awarded (the “elegance prize” for instance which rewarded a beautiful yacht) and a draw enabled a crew to win a nice prize : a return to Fort-de France in the Martinique Island (French West indies).

The scale of the event enabled the organization to have a high TV media coverage.
A 2 minutes report of the Tour de Belle-Ile was broadcasted during the national bulletin news at 08.00 pm on TF1 (French TV channel) on Sunday 8th May, followed by 7 900 000 viewers…
Moreover, the day before, on Saturday 7th of May, a 2 minutes report of the Tour de Belle-Ile was also broadcasted during the national bulletin news at 07.00 pm on France3 (French TV channel).

The numerous sponsors of the event came with their clients or colleagues in order to either participate in the sailing race or just follow the start of this wonderful sport event from a spectator boat and they were delighted.

If you represent a company and if you are interested by the Tour de Belle-Ile in order to develop your external and/or internal communication, do not hesitate to contact us. We will suggest you a specific solution to answer your needs and expectations.