38th Régates Royales de Cannes - Day 4
by Les Regates Royales 21 Sep 2016 21:50 BST
18-25 September 2016
A low pressure made its appearance on the bay of Cannes today at the 38th Régates Royales, bringing in heavy, grey clouds and rain. Luckily a breeze from the North-East enabled the Classics to race on a shortened triangular coastal course, while the Dragons had a quite complicated day and the 5.5 Metre had the first two races of their series.
Stormy weather in Cannes today. Announced by loud thunder and punctually followed by dark grey clouds and heavy rain, the expected low pressure arrived over the bay in the early afternoon. It was an electric-charged atmosphere on the second day of the 38th Régates Royales de Cannes and quite a complicated situation for tacticians who had to try to adapt to shifts, sudden gusts and rainstorms and for the sailors trying to choose the best possible sail configurations...
Thunder and lighting
It looked like the gods of thunder, lighting and rain were all meeting in the Bay of Cannes today. Thor, Tanaris, Tlaloc and Zeus convened to make the sailors' life hard. Still, the race committees managed to launch at least one race for each division, with the classics racing on a shortened course. The 150 crews had to put all their energy and skills to manoeuvre, hoist and take down the sails, tacking and jibing in the Bay of La Napoule and in the gulf of Juan.
The 5.5 Metre class had two races that confirmed the Swiss sailors' supremacy: Alain Marchand and his crew on Société Nautique de Genève won the first race and were second in the following one while the Dutch Arend Jan Pasman, Ron Azier, Kim Chabani on Feng Shui scored a third and a victory, but, behind them on the top of the leaderboard three German teams are tied at points (9 points): Atari, Prettynama and Silver Fox.
The Dragons spit fire
It was not an easy day for the Dragons today, the weather conditions were hard on the 50 one-design boats. After several general recalls the race committee hoisted the black flag: five boats were over the line, disqualified and forced to go back into port. The ensuing race was certainly tricky and was dominated by the Swedish crew of Johan and Cathanina Larson, Chris Winter on Dancing Queen that led the fleet from start to finish, while some favourites like German-flagged Smaug fell back and finished only in 17th but still managed to keep her spot on top of the general leaderboard. The day smiled on France's Nénette (Gautier et Joseph Guillou, Gauthier Thomas) that finished in second place and the Spanish team on Gunter (Javier Scherk, Gustavo Lima, Paulo Manso) who got a third and climbed to fourth place overall after five races. Two more days to go and to bounce back for some of the crews, like the Russian crews of Annapurna and Even Better that keep their second and third place overall respectively.
Among the Twelves tactics were also the key, with Sovereign getting the best start and leading to the finsh line, keeping France and Chancegger behind.
In the Vintage Marconi >15 metres division Manitou succeeded in beating her sistership Enterprise. Among the < 15 metres the California 32 one-design Cholita with today's win climbed to first overall, as did a newcomer to Cannes, Patrizio Bertelli's New York 30 Linnet in the gaffers' division, keeping Fife's designed Eva in second.
The Classics too had a tough time today, trying to avoid the worst of rainstorms and getting the best out of shifty and patchy breezes under the dark grey skies. The gorgeous 23 Metre Cambria and the huge gaff schooner Elena showed the way to their little sisters but could not catch the leader Moonbeam IV in corrected time, that confirmed her domination in the class in front of Hallowe'en. Freya of Midgard scored her second win in the Spirit of Tradition, while Arcadia won today's race in the Classics division, with Ganbare keeping her first place in front of Outlaw.
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