International 14s at the Trophee Breizhskiff, Carnac

International 14s at the Trophee Breizhskiff, Carnac © Anna Bingham

International 14s at the Trophee Breizhskiff, Carnac © Anna Bingham

International 14s at the Trophee Breizhskiff, Carnac © Anna Bingham

The invite was too good to miss for the International 14 fleet: come and spend 3 days practicing and racing on the 2016 World Championship racecourse with a couple of parties in between. This sounded like a great plan for the beginning of October and it delivered in great style. Eight UK boats joined the three French entrants to give a superb exhibition of skiff sailing and dominate the 64 boat mixed skiff fleet.

On Friday YC Carnac had kindly organised a couple of practice races to allow the fleet to get a feel of the racecourse, a light and shifty day followed with many snakes and a few ladders to be found showed that this might be anything but a straightforward weekend. Some great hospitality by our French fleet on the evening brought things to a close with the Brits very much looking forward to having a week of this next year!

Saturday dawned with a light breeze blowing but with the forecast to build giving everyone hope for some great racing, and that's exactly what happened, by the end of the day it as rig's back and flat out downhills in 15+kts of wind in perfect flat water. With a horrific forecast for Sunday predicted the race officer decided on 4 races to test the teams and cover himself for the next day, great call. Glen Truswell & Sam Pascoe putting down an early marker in race one showing why they have been the ones to beat globally for the last two years, great speed and boat handling taking them clear of the fleet with Doug Pattison & Mark Tait in hot pursuit having a great tussle with Andy Peake and Graeme Oliver, having recovered from a less than perfect start and working their way back from well down the fleet. Truswell was later to be sent to the naughty step for not signing on and getting him a penalty which made his scorecard less than perfect for once!

Race two was a very close affair with Truswell and Peake duelling up the first beat culminating in Truswell slam-dunking at the windward mark, the two teams blasted round the rest of the race with Truswell just having the legs on his old Worlds winning boat and extending to take the win from Peake and a hard charging Andy Fitzgerald & Alex Knight following an impressive maintenance run back to the beach to change a broken tack line in race one, timing their start approach to perfection with a kite drop and committee boat start on the gun!

Race three saw the emergence of Katie Nurton and Nigel Ash into the front pack having a close fight with Pattison, Fitzgerald and Peake whose charge was later halted by a dodgy knot in the jib halyard forcing a quick swim for Oliver and allowing them to recover back to 5th after fending off Charlie Duchesne & Tom Bracewell and Emilien Taque & Boris Fritsch who were having a fantastic race just behind the leading pack. Truswell took the win from Pattison and Nurton.

After a decent size shift gave a very pin biased line which most of the fleet seemed to miss with one minute to go Nurton and Peake hit the pin end with speed, Nurton forcing Peake to tack earlier than ideal but still comfortably crossing the whole fleet apart from Truswell who had spotted the shift from mid line and tacked. Nurton pushed out left further and when the three came together Nurton lead from Truswell with Peake close behind and a big gap back to the rest of the fleet. Nurton did well to fend off the World Champs for another lap but in the end the speed of Truswell pulled him past to take the win with Nurton just holding off Peake with some great boat handling and downwind speed.

Saturday night involved a good few beers and YC Carnac putting the England rugby game on in the background of the dinner, much taunting and banter ensued between the English fans and the Australi-French, it's a good job the Brits are good at sailing...

Sunday dawned with an early 9:30am start time to allow for the weather forecast. Initially pitching up before sunrise the breeze didn't look too threatening but by the time the start came round the breeze was up to 18kts and with a decent size sea running it made for fabulous beats and spectacular runs.

With a heavy pin end bias both Truswell and Peake wend for port tack fliers, Truswell timing his to perfection and Peake having to take a couple of transoms while trying not to get thrown out of the back of the bus! Nurton started well also to chase Truswell up the beat with Pattison (later to be called OCS) and Peake in hot pursuit. Truswell sailed a faultless race and won from Nurton and Peake.

With many capsizes across the whole skiff fleet, time was ticking and although the race officer was trying to squeeze another race in, the breeze was rising fast and now peaking at 30 kts and rising, discretion was the right tactic and the fleet were sent ashore before the big stuff hit, and it did causing an entertaining entrance to the recovery area but the camaraderie meant that all teams returned to shore without any issues.

Overall Truswell & Pascoe took the win with an impressive Nurton & Ash finishing strongly in second ahead of a first podium for Peake & Oliver in the 14s. In the Breizhskiff regatta seven of the top ten boats were 14s, a great showing for the class. Carnac delivered a spectacular event and left everyone very excited about taking out our rugby teams' inadequacies on the visiting Aussie fleet when they visit the northern hemisphere next year!

Huge thanks to YC Carnac and our French fleet for the stunning hospitality.

Results can be found here: www.breizhskiff.com/trophee