159 boats at the F18 World Championship

Backes/Jarlegan and Styles/Van West tied at the top after three races

Tuesday July 6th 2010, Author: James Boyd, Location: France

159 boats are taking part in the F18 World Championship which started yesterday in Erquy on the north coast of Brittany, France.

159 boats – is a huge number, a similar-sized fleet to that which attended the Laser Worlds last year, but a number not uncommon for the F18 World Championship whenever it is held in Europe.

“It is four groups, but racing in two fleets,” described Hugh Styles, who after three races is lying second with his crew Ferdinand van West aboard their Nacra Infusion on 10 points, equal to French leaders Olivier Backes (fourth in the Tornado in Athens) and Arnaud Jarlegan. “80 boats on the start line at a time. There aren’t many classes that do that now. The Lasers are racing 45-50 at a go. So 80 8ft 6in wide and 18ft long boats is quite a sight to see.”

Styles continues: “And there is a whole host of representation from all over the place. It is a pretty multi-cultiural event really. 17 or 18 nations represented and everyone here off their own back.”

As usual, pretty much all the stars of the catamaran world are in Erquy, from Tornado legends such as Darren Bundock and Mitch Booth, to the talented Dutch F18 sailors Mischa Heemskirk and Coen de Koning to Glenn Ashby, winner last week of his 7th A-Class catamaran World Championship title, sailing with BMW Oracle Racing skipper James Spithill.

Racing on day one of the Worlds started in 8 knots, the breeze building to 14 with three races held in the bay at Erquy. Styles describes the terrain: “it is a big rocky outcrops with flat sandy beaches in between and small unseen rocks around the edge of the race course but we are racing in a big bay. It’s the north Brittany course so it is little fickle sea breezes, building and dying so today it is little forecast and less breeze. We are looking forward to it because we are one of the teams who have a range in all conditions – fingers crossed it should all be good.”

According to Styles (the Nacra agent) there are fairly even numbers of Nacra Infusions and Hobie Wildcats among the front runners while Darren Bundock and Will Howden are racing a C2 (although they are down the pan having scored an OCS and then a DNF on day one).

So 159 F18s from all over the world - and yet the catamaran is out of the Olympic Games? 

Top 50 results:

Pos Sail no Helm Crew R1 R2 R3 Tot
1  FRA 36 BACKES Olivier  JARLEGAN Arnaud  5 2 1 8
2  GBR  7 STYLES Hugh  VAN WEST Ferdinand  2 3 3 8
3  ESP 242 BOOTH Mitch  NIEUWENHUIS Pim  2 7 1 10
4  FRA 111 MORVAN François  VANDAME Matthieu  1 5 4 10
5  NED 007 HEEMSKERK Mischa  TENTIJ Bastiaan  3 7 3 13
6  NED  3 DE KONING Coen  VISSER Thijs  4 10 2 16
7  FRA 11 BESSON Billy  LAGARRIGUE Jérémie  12 1 5 18
8  AUS 244 GOODALL Greg  GOODALL Brett  8 3 7 18
9  GRE 888 PASCHALIDIS Iordanis  TRIGONIS Konstantinos  7 11 5 23
10  GBR 1171 WILSON Rob  LYNCH Marcus  10 1 15 26
11  FRA 17 PROUST Éric  MOTTEAU Romain  18 5 4 27
12  NED 1451 LARSEN Gunnar  LEEUWEN VAN Jeroen  5 21 2 28
13  BEL 888 BROUWER Carolijn  SAMAMA Wouter  3 13 14 30
14  GER 210 SACH Helge  SACH Christian  7 6 17 30
15  NED  2 ZEEKANT Oscar  BEGEMANN Karel  6 16 10 32
16  AUS  3 ASHBY Glenn  SPITHILL James  22 4 7 33
17  FRA  9 VAIREAUX Moana  PETIT Romain  13 9 11 33
18  FRA 200 MOURNIAC Jean-Christophe  HERMANN Boris  20 8 6 34
19  FRA  5 SELLIER Thomas  MOREAU Frédéric  27 2 6 35
20  USA 247 THOMAS Greg  BERNIER Jacques  4 20 12 36
21  ARG 1110 CRUZ Gonzalez Smith  ALFREDO MARIO Segers  16 12 8 36
22  SWE 114 SHUWALOW Tim  NORDBLOM Niklas  25 6 9 40
23  AUS  4 BREWIN Steven  BENSON Jack  11 15 14 40
24  NED 666 WALSH Andrew  DE BOER Sander  17 15 11 43
25  BEL 27 PROOT Francis  PROOT Michel  12 12 19 43
26  FRA  2 LE CHAPELIER Emmanuel  FERRARI Francis  16 9 21 46
27  NED 146 VEENMAN Jorden  DE MUNCK Mischa  30 4 13 47
28  FRA 004 BONTEMPS Gurvan  SAVATIER Hubert  19 21 8 48
29  AUS 26 GUINEA Michael  RICHARDSON Mal  13 17 18 48
30  FRA 69 BOC-HO Frédéric  FANOUILLERE David  8 11 33 52
31  ITA 13 BISSARO Vittorio  CESARI Lamberto  9 34 9 52
32  FRA 226 FEQUET Loic  FILIPPI François  24 14 15 53
33  GBR 22 GUMMER Stuart  CRAWFORD Ryan  11 24 19 54
34  USA 151 DANIEL Robbie  WILLIAMS John  14 31 10 55
35  POL  4 SKOMSKI Adam  KOPYLOWICZ Jakub  29 8 21 58
36  FRA  3 LEFEVRE Joël  GRIZIAUX Erwan  9 36 16 61
37  USA  1 EASTON Michael  BURD Tripp  26 29 13 68
38  FRA 2573 LAURIOT PREVOST Antoine  MAHEO Matthieu  24 18 27 69
39  ARG 1238 FAUSTIN Juan  GONZALES SMITH Lucas  22 23 24 69
40  NED 11 LOOS Gerard  VAN RUITENBURG Pieter  21 14 35 70
41  FRA 33 HAINNEVILLE Charles  HAINNEVILLE Maxime  17 36 20 73
42  NED 1404 GEIJSSEN Willem  VAN HELDEN Marja  32 28 16 76
43  AUS 300 MAC PHERSON Andrew  WITTEVEEN Olivier  21 33 22 76
44  GER 184 KAPHENGST Eckart  KUHL Sönke  43 10 25 78
45  GER 212 WOLF Justus  NIES Rea  30 19 29 78
46  GER 219 GOSCHE Joerg  PEGEL Hannes  20 32 26 78
47  FRA 9026 LECOUBLET Brieg  FLOCHER Loic  38 13 28 79
48  AUS  9 BEATTIE Adam  LEITNER Jamie  18 41 20 79
49  NED 76 VAN DER MEULEN Reindert-Jan  KNOL Carina  15 34 32 81
50  ARG 1240 MIGUEL Saubidet  MARIANO Heuser  33 32 18 83

 

Latest Comments

Add a comment - Members log in

EmailPrintTwitterFacebookLinkedInStumbleDigg

Tags

Latest news!

Back to top
    Back to top