Yachting: Goss and Dinelli stand out among big boats

The stormy baptism for the Anglo-French pairing of Pete Goss and Raphael Dinelli, the man he rescued last Christmas, was looking good yesterday after the first 48 hours of the Jacques Vabre two-handed transatlantic race.

When Goss pushed his 50-footer BMW Performance into the teeth of an oncoming gale at the start in Le Havre on Saturday his main target was to be among the top monohulls at the end of the 4,500-mile run to Cartagena, Colombia, knowing that most of the opposition were 60-footers.

Yesterday he was disputing third place with Yves Parlier and Eric Tabarly in Aquitaine Innovations as these two took the more westerly option after a rough rounding of Ushant. Leading the monohulls are Jean Maurel in Saupiquet and Marc Thiercelin in Somewhere.

The multihull leader, by a long way, was Loick Peyron in Fujicolour, chased by Francis Joyon in Banque Populaire and Paul Vatine in Chauss d'Europe.