J/111 J-LANCE 7 & J/80 INTERFACE CONCEPT Winners(La Trinite sur Mer, France)- The weather was challenging- ranging from sunny and windy to grey, cool, light and shifty. Nevertheless, the host club, the Société Nautique de la Trinité-sur-Mer, masterfully orchestrated a fabulous, gracious and excellent competition across the board for the enormous 438 boat fleet and the giant J/Classes. In short, one of the most famous spring regattas in the world lived up to its billing as one of the premiere sailing events on the international sailing calendar.
In
one short burst of spontaneous combustion and energy, the quaint,
lovely little seaside town called La Trinite sur Mer on Quiberon Bay
became a bustling metropolis for some of the world's best sailors in
both offshore sailing as well as one-design classes. All the boats that
participated were in for a challenging four days of sailing: great
20-25 kt sunny breezes the first day, two days of cloudy, grey shifty
sailing, concluding with another partly cloudy windy day for the
finale. For many of the classes, the regatta outcome was not determined
until the last day. The huge J contingent of 141 boats (32% of the
fleet with J/Boats being the largest brand in the regatta!) from across
Europe and the U.K. had a wonderful time. Nine J/111s sailed their
first European One-Design event and the 119 J/80s were treated to a
tour'de'force by a renown French sailing team.
For
the J/111 class, the racing could not have been any closer. Literally,
the outcome came down to the last leg of the last race to determine who
would win! And, even crazier was the fact that the winner was
determined on a tie-breaker! Prophetically, it became a titanic battle
between one of the top offshore French sailing teams led by Didier
LeMoal on J-LANCE 7 and the #1 British J/109 offshore team that has now
hopped into the J/111 class- the team of David & Kirsty Apthorp on
the famously-named J-DREAM. The regatta went down to the wire for the
top three boats. After six races, J-DREAM was a leading with a
2-1-2-3-1-1 record for only 10 pts, J-LANCE 7 was in second with a
1-3-3-2-2-2 for 13 pts and third was John Van der Starre's XCENTRIC
RIPPER with a 3-4-1-1-3-5 for 17 pts. But, the last four races changed
everything for this group. Didier's team on J-LANCE 7 managed to finish
off with a 1-1-3-1 to J-DREAM's 8-2-2-2 and XCENTRIC RIPPER's 2-5-1-3.
As a result, J-LANCE 7 won the tie-break on most 1sts to win the class
with J-DREAM second and XCENTRIC RIPPER third. Rounding out the top
five were two other French teams, Stephen Blanchard's LE JOUET in fourth
and G. Thomas' ALPHALINK EXTREME YACHTING in fifth.The J/111s enjoyed excellent media coverage of their event, thanks to BLUR.SE founder Peter Gustafsson (he was sailing his brand new J/111 BLUR!). For a preview of what it's like to sail the J/111 in tight-quarters one-design racing, see these videos edited by Peter's friend Stefan Blom on VIMEO and also read John Van de Starre's report from X-CENTRIC RIPPER below in the J/Community section.
VIMEO - Day One/ Day Two/ Day Three/ Day Four
Without
question, the dominant one-design class in SPI Ouest France were the
119 J/80s-- by far the largest one-design class the SPI OUEST Regatta
has ever experienced for several years in a row. Why? Because they're
having fun and it's a simple sportboat to sail in France! Considering
the strength and the depth of experience seen at this year's world-class
event, it was remarkable to see one team simply dominate the racing
over a wide variety of sailing conditions. The top Frenchman at last
year's J/80 Worlds in Copenhagen, Denmark simply demonstrated speed,
smart tactics and great boat-handling-- congratulations to Eric
Brezellec and crew on INTERFACE CONCEPT for a fantastic sailing series--
hard to beat a record of 1-2-7-1-2-1-7-4-1 tossing a 7th for an
aggregate of 19 pts! Nevertheless, while Eric's was a dominating
performance, two other top French teams were giving him a
"run-for-the-money". Coincidentally, like their big brother J/111
teams, they also had to settle for "who-beat-who" on a tie-breaker!
Second was Vincent Vandekerhove sailing DUNKERQUE PLAISANCE to an
equally strong 6-1-1-7-bfd-1-1-5-2 record for 24 pts. Were it not for a
BFD in race 5, Vincent and the very fast, smart-sailing DP crew might
have won the regatta outright. Third was Nicolas Lunven sailing
GENERALI to an incredibly consistent 2-16-2-2-3-3-2-6-4 also for 24 pts.
Congratulations
must go out to the top women sailing team that was led by the French
team of Maxime Rousseaux on CN ST CAST- GRAND OUEST ETIQUETTES,
finishing 4th overall out of 119 boats! She ended up defeating a number
of Olympic Medallists, World and European Champions along her route to
to the top five. Fifth behind here was French J/80 Champion Luc Nadal
on GANJA. Top British team was Royal Southern YC's Kevin Sproul sailing
ULTIMATE SAILS to sixth and top Spanish team was Inigo Jauregui on GOLD
SAILING in eighth.The J/122s and J/133 had a tough road to drive in a very competitive 32 boat IRC 1 Class. In the end, the top J/122 was MADE IN LOVE (J. Patier) finishing 7th, followed by another J/122 JOLLY JOKER (R. Marchais) in 12th. Ending up 13th was Yves Grosjean's J/133 JIVARO and just behind them was the J/122 NUTMEG IV (F. Lognone) in 16th.
Finally, in the largest IRC fleet, IRC 4 class with 64 boats, the J/97 MISPICKEL V sailed by B. Fagart managed to finish 6th despite a "slow start" in Races 1 & 2 and a bad race 8. Otherwise, the MISPICKEL V team were on track to be a regatta leader with a 4-2-8-1-4 for one of the best records in the fleet! "Next time" promised the crew! For more Spi Ouest France sailing information
