Weekly round up

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It has been quite a week in yachting.

Events kicked off with George Andreadis's Atalanti domination of the proceedings at the first event in the Farr 40 European Circuit. But the main event all week was the Hyeres Olympic Classes regatta. madfor sailing new recruit Nigel Cherrie previewed this regatta while former RYA training guru Jim Saltonstall gave readers his invaluable tips about sailing in this venue.

In your feedback, we published your thoughts on the new GBR Challenger Wight Lightning, the big cats Orange and Maiden II and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston explained to readers why Around Alone's class 3 is not for 40 footers.

Orange had been taking the unusual route through the South Atlantic high and was back up to record breaking form lining up for the Equator and a Doldrums crossing. Meanwhile her sistership Maiden II, sailed by a mixed crew, was midway through an attempt on the Route of Discovery record from Cadiz in southern Spain to the Bahamian island of San Salvador. Charismatic Aussie crewman Paul Larsen sent us his report.

However on Monday Maiden II abandoned her record attempt. Faced with a 250 mile beat and no prospect of bettering Grant Dalton's time they did the wise thing and retired to Antigua.

The Figaro class' two-handed Transat AG2R reached the conclusion of its first leg into Madeira. The leg was won by former Vendee Globe entrant Herve Laurent and Rodolphe Jacq.

Early on at Hyeres and Shirley Robertson was going great guns in the Yngling, while Britain was leading the Laser and looking strong in the Finn. Nigel Cherrie filed his exclusive report while Peter Bentley sent back his top images of the racing.

Following the dismasting of Josh Hall's Open 60 Gartmore following a hurricane force Atlantic gale, crewman Ollie Dewer gave madfor sailing his rivetting first hand account of what happened. "It was a truly grand cru gale," etc - if you read nothing else this week, read this.

James Boyd previewed the Lorient 60ft trimaran Grand Prix and the three new boats taking part.

Day two at Hyeres saw Shirley Robertson top the Yngling class and Ben Ainslie in a fight with a coaches' boat. madforsailing had another exclusive report and published Peter Bentley's photo gallery from day 2.

Meanwhile we compiled our round up of this weekend's UK open meetings including the RS600s and 700s racing at Hayling Island, the Int14s at Queen Mary, the Firefly M25 travellers, the Typhoon Fireball Super Series, the Volvo RYA Welsh Open Youth Championships and many, many more...

On Wednesday we published Andy Rice's interview with Prada's match racer extraordinaire, Gavin Brady. The former Kiwi, turned Italian was in the news later in the week when he signed up to take part in the next leg of the Volvo Ocean Race with SEB.

Bruno Peyron announced that Orange had been experiencing problems with the titanium ball on which her giant wingmast rotates. The ball had split and they might have to pull out of their round the world record attempt. The drama seemed to be over when the boat's designer/builder Gilles Ollier came up a solution that would at least prevent the mast popping out of the boat.




In Hyeres there was much jumping about in the Team GBR camp when Paul Goodison overtook the great Brazilian Laser-meister Robert Scheidt.

Over in Ireland, the Royal Cork YC announced they will be offering a number of new trophies at Ford Cork Week this year. In San Francisco, there is a new circuit for old IACC boats.

On Thursday madfor sailing spoke to the big brain/cheese of GBR Challenge's design team, Derek Clark about how to go about creating a winning America's Cup winner from scratch - no mean feat if you aren't allowed to buy in previous knowledge.

Down in Hyeres it was a good day for the Pauls, with Goodison retaining his lead over Robert Scheidt and Brotherton moving up to second in the 49ers. On madforsailing we announced a deal with have come up with with Laser deal whereby 10 Laser Picos are available to subscribers for a discount rate.




With leg seven of the Volvo Ocean Race due to kick off at the weekend James Boyd interviewed Jez Fanstone. Fanstone was the UK's reserve Finn sailor at Barcelona and sailed on Silk Cut four years ago - now he's skipper of the leg winning Volvo Ocean 60 News Corp. Meanwhile we previewed leg seven from Annapolis to La Rochelle.

In Hyeres it was looking good for Paul Goodison who had extended his lead over Robert Scheidt. With one day to go Britain also held bronze in the Yngling and 49er. With the racing called off on Friday it was the best possible result for Goodison who had won the Laser class, while the bronze position was also a reassuring and unexpected result for Paul Brotherton in the 49er, his traumatic split with Simon Hiscocks now behind him.

Approaching the Doldrums Orange had eased off the gas in order to spare the rig. They will be returning to Brest 'the pretty way' reported James Boyd.

The first day of the 60ft trimaran racing in Lorient saw Loick Peyron's Fujifilm pipped at the post by Groupama and Franck Cammas. Meanwhile Peyron's elder brother Bruno was still tackling the Doldrums aboard Orange.

With the rain pouring down in London James Boyd grumbled about all the lucky buggers who've been swanning off to Antigua Sailing Week and looked at what they have in store for them. Snow hopefully.

As a wise, attractive madforsailing subscriber you can rest assured - all this news and original content came to you for the princely sum of £0.48 for the week.
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