Foiling Phantoms Eurocat debut

Gurvan Bontemps and Benjamin Amiot come out on top in first Foiling Phantom race

Joining Eurocat - one of Europe’s biggest gatherings of racing catamarans - this year for the first time were the Flying Phantom catamarans, to open the Flying Phantom Series.

The weather conditions were tough over the three days of racing, but the race committee managed to hold six races for the Flying Phantoms. Out of the 15 or so Flying Phantoms initially planning to race, in the end seven boats registered.

Among the participants, Franck Cammas was sailing the Team Momentys Flying Phantom with Antoine Joubert. Cammas is no stranger to the Flying Phantom having originally spearheaded the boat's R&D phase as he was developing his winning C-Class catamaran Groupama C. Cammas was keen to take part in this first event despite of his very busy agenda that includes an Olympic Nacra 17 campaign, C-Class catamaran and AC45 racing in the America’s Cup World Series. Sébastien Rogues sailed with Benjamin Lamotte and was eager to increase his knowledge of multihulls and flying boats as this will be his main activity in 2015 alongside the Bullitt GC32 Racing Tour. And finally a couple of amateur sailors with crews completed by the Phantom Sailing team of Billy Besson – Matthieu Vandame and Gurvan Bontemps – Benjamin Amiot.

Day 1

On the first day, three races were completed. Under a cloudy sky, with 15 knots of wind but with gusts above 20 knots, the race committee decided to choose a standard upwind-downwind race course instead of the reaching start and finish format. The first race was an opportunity to gauge themselves and to adjust the strategies sailing mostly upwind where they had to choose between skimming versus flying mode. Franck Cammas and Team Momentys took victory in this first race after leading on every leg leg. Unfortunately for Billy Besson and Matthieu Vadame, they were not able to finish the second race and take the start of the third one following a mechanical problem. Race 2 and 3 were won by the duo Gurvan Bontemps and Benjamin Amiot after intensive battles with Team Momentys.

Day 2

The weather in the morning of day 2 was not very favorable with a southerly wind blowing at 19 to 25 knots with gusts up to 34 knots. Given these poor conditions, the race director decided not to run the long distance race.

Day 3

For the final day of racing, the weather was much milder than the previous day in Carnac. In the morning the wind was blowing at 20 knots, settling down to 17 knots. After a brief wait ashore, the competitors sailed to the race area for the last three races of the event. The showdown between the top three teams was really impressive with a lot of lead changes and tactical battles upwind and downwind. In this contest, Gurvan Bontemps and Benjamin Amiot were the most consistent in their results and with their experience of the Flying Phantom they managed to win two of the three races enabling them to achieve overall victory.

Foiling Phantom results here