(Cherbourg, France- Nov. 7-11)- A record turnout of forty eight J/80s showed up for this year's French J/80 National Championship in Cherbourg. The hometown hosts were fabulous and put on quite a show despite the somewhat difficult weather conditions they were presented with over the course of the four day regatta. Light shifty four knot winds and flat water to moderate rolling seas blowing upwards of twenty knots offered the fleet tremendous challenges. It was very difficult to stay out of the bottom of the fleet and maintain some kind of consistency.
However, Luc Nadal and his team aboard GANJA sailed magnificently, demonstrating remarkable consistency across the board to win by nearly thirty points over his next competitor. Their record of 2-1-9-1-7-1-1 for 22 points speaks for itself...four firsts was unequalled in the fleet. Second overall was Jean-Yves Jaffrezic racing ATLANTIS with a record of 5-8-21-12-1-3-1 for 51 points, beating JACUZZI on a tie-breaker. Ludovic Gilet raced the renowned JACUZZI into third place with a 1-6-13-3-5-19-4 also with 51 points but lost tie on most firsts. Fourth was the famous French woman sailor Christine Briand just three points back sailing J ILE DE RE and finishing behind her was Frederic Denis on ECOLE NAVALE CG29 with 63 points.
On a personal note, it was nice to see Pierre Follenfant- a former 470 and FD sailor whom Drake and Stu sailed against when they were kids in the 470 class in the mid-1970s sailing a respectable series to finish 11th in this highly competitive fleet! We're glad to see old warhorses like us can still hang in there with the top players in the class!
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