(La Trinite Sur Mer, France)- An increasingly popular regatta on the French J/80 circuit is the J/80 Trinite Challenge Regatta held each spring. This year, a record twenty-one boats are participating that include some of the best J/80 teams in France, some famous ones, too!
On Saturday, one might call it a "muscle-training day" as the fleet was met by a southerly 20-25 knot breeze. Both sailing coaches, Aymeric Belloir and Arnaud Walter proposed a series of sailing exercises on the theme of many practice starts, then throwing in a half dozen short races of 1 or 2 laps. Finally, at the end of the day, a multitude of jibes downwind in the channel for a beautiful finish under spinnaker at the harbor entrance! It was an enjoyable, if not exhausting, day for the fleet. A lot was learned and many learned how to plane faster as well as gybe more efficiently.
Sunday's sailing out on the waters off Societe Nautique Trinite were beautiful. Sunny day with very shifty 4-6 knot westerly winds. It was a challenging day for the tacticians. Nevertheless, while some teams managed to stay out of trouble and play the shifts and puffs well, others faltered badly. Keeping their record clean was Yves Tabarly on DAITEM-ALARME with a 1-1 record (yes, same famous Tabarly family keeping up the tradition of success on the sea). Second is Ponroy sailing JINGLE with a 2-3, third Mack on GIGO with an 8-2, fourth is Bruno Trouble on COYOTE with a 6-8 taking some fun time-out from his Louis Vuitton America's Cup 34 duties and fifth is Waiter on ARNO SKIPPER sailing to a 12-4. One more weekend left of racing and training for this tough group of competitors getting ready for the J/80 Worlds in Denmark coming up very soon. For more J/80 France sailing information.