The French Paprec team of Jean-Luc Petithugenin made the best possible start to their campaign with their new boat, the former Rán, which they took delivery off at the back end of of last season.
With no time to practice prior to the start of racing, they put the new Paprec Recyclage on the water and went out and won France’s prestigous Easter Spi Ouest regatta before shipping the boat to the Med for their assult on the 2015 SUPER SERIES.
Besides the few days of IRC racing at their home regatta from La Trinite sur Mer, tuning and practice time has been mimimal for the crew which is skippered by Stéphane Névé. But they have had three good days of training in Valencia and are in good shape for the season.
Their philosophy remains the same. A podium place is acheivable but mostly they are looking to sail well, to finish races having made as few mistakes as possible, to be competitive and to keep learning.
At heart the Paprec team are amateur enthusiasts. Almost all of them do not get paid to go sailing. Hugues Destremau, helmsman, works for North Sail France and Guillaume Lebrec, navigator this year, is a full time French pro. Otherwise the core team are made up of a full time career estate agent, doctor and schoolteacher.
Winning Spi Ouest was a bit of a surprise for us. We had two bad races but won the rest of the races. Now we are just looking forwards to getting racing in Valencia and see what we can do.
Stéphane Névé, Skipper, Paprec Recyclage
says Névé.
We are really happy with the boat. It is a new start and a step up. It is a big thing this season for us to have a container and a tender. And we have Guillaume Lebrec doing more, he has moved to become navigator and is doing a lot of work on the polars and all the data and analysis.
What would be nice for us would be to be able to stay in the middle of the fleet more of the time and not be at the back. We are quicker for sure with a newer boat. And Jean-Luc, the owner, expects a higher level from us.
Our crew spirit is great. I don’t think any of the other teams have what we have. Most of us have sailed together since 2003, so that is 12 years. We are realistic, though. Other teams have three mainsails in one season, we are lucky to get a new one. We have new spinnakers.
We are a strong team but don’t have 200 days on the water together.
Stéphane Névé, Skipper, Paprec Recyclage
