Update
The collision at the latest Voiles de St Tropez between two classic yachts of very different sizes fortunately ended without any lasting damage. The skipper was OK and unlike in previous similar episodes the smaller boat stayed afloat. But it escaped practically nobody who was racing in St Tropez that this year was the 20th anniversary of the first Voiles, a regatta that exists only because a similar but this time fatal accident at the 1995 Nioulargue brought about the end of the event from which Les Voiles de St Tropez later emerged
CLOSER AND CLOSER – Patrice Carpentier The opening leg of the Mini-Transat La Boulangère finished in great suspense overnight on 13 October in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. In very light airs the three main leaders fought for victory right to the wire and at the end it was Axel Tréhin (Marc Lombard design) who was first across the finish line after 8d 17h 58m 28s of racing. Taking second was the unfortunate François Jambou (David
Raison design), 6m 22s behind the winner, having stayed in front of the fleet for most of the leg, then Tanguy Bouroullec (Guillaume Verdier foiling design – issue 477) another 20 minutes later. Axel Tréhin: ‘I said to myself that François and Tanguy had
obviously reached the finish before the wind died, but then I heard some chatter on the VHF and understood that they were actually stuck next to each other. I was absolutely happy again! I positioned myself to the right of them and that’s exactly where the new breeze came from. At the last minute there was even a nice lift to the right!’ François Jambou was on the receiving end of Axel’s unexpected
recovery approaching Grand Canaria: ‘Axel was driving in at 8kt and I was making 0. I got going once he was beside me but I didn’t have the right sail. It’s hard to finish second when you’ve led for five days… but I guess that’s what makes offshore racing so interesting.’ Tanguy is sailing a very new and experimental foiler and was
really happy to have made the finish… and even secure a spot on the podium: ‘I lost some ground when I tore my medium spinnaker along the coast of Portugal so I finished the leg under-canvassed. ‘François and Axel ended up match racing two miles in front of
me approaching the line. Being underpowered in those conditions left me with a 26-minute deficit by the end but I’ll take that. It’s still all to play for in the second leg, which is much longer and with the trade winds that should suit my boat quite well. ‘The exit from the Bay of Biscay wasn’t easy. Two fronts rolled
over the top of us. After that the sea was really violent in the Portuguese trade winds. I had some breakages. It wasn’t easy. For
16 SEAHORSE
two and a half days it was pretty hard, in fact, and it was important to reduce sail so as not to break everything so early in a long race. ‘The rest of the leg was fairly quiet. We had to work hard to make
up the ground on François, but conditions were nice. A bit of breeze and sunshine, the perfect way to finish! To be honest I wasn’t able to put the foils to good use. I didn’t fly in the Portuguese trade winds; instead I was trying to slow down to avoid damage.’ The first Series class arrived only a few hours later. Ambrogio
Beccaria completed the course less than two hours behind the Proto winner after having led for much of the leg. Event favourite in the production boat category, the Italian skipper held his nerve to defend from a tightly bunched group who were closing him down at the end. Félix de Navacelle secured second place, 1h 43m behind Ambrogio, and Matthieu Vincent completed the podium. Three Pogo 3s on the podium of the Series division!
FAST OUT OF THE BOX – Rob Kothe After the 35th America’s Cup in Bermuda, sailed in foiling 50ft cata- marans, Russell Coutts launched a global fleet racing series with teams sailing under country flags – a major swerve back to previous Cups where historically much of the fans’ enthusiasm was driven by national identity. The six-boat fleet would each be an upgraded one-design version of the Artemis AC50 foiling cat badged the F50. The new series SailGP, funded by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison
(initially to the tune of at least US$60million), sailed its first regatta on Sydney Harbour in February. It then continued with events in San Francisco, New York and Cowes. At the end of the first series they gathered in Marseille for a three-day regatta where the two series leaders at the end of the event would go head to head in a match race for a winner-takes-all prize of $1million. Across the season the fleet had quickly separated on perfor-
mance. Coming into the Marseille round the series leader was Tom Slingsby’s Team Australia. All six members of the team had previous
INGRID ABERY
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