Solid start for maxi favourites at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez

While early autumn conditions off the Cote d Azur are usually varied, today Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez got underway for the 41-strong maxi fleet off the famous Plage de Pampelonne in sunshine and a moderate southwesterly, as forecast.

For these opening races of the final event of the International Maxi Association’s 2024 Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge, the race committee of the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez laid on a coastal course down to Cavalaire-sur-Mer and back for the smaller/slower Maxi C and D classes, while the larger yachts in Maxi A and B sailed two windward-leewards on the Bay of Pampelonne.

In the relatively stable but shifty conditions that ranged from 11-18 knots, the form book largely held true.

In Maxi A Peter Harrison’s 72ft Jolt scored two bullets, the first by 1 minute 48 seconds under IRC corrected time from Sir Peter Ogden’s 77ft Jethou followed by Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s 82ft Django HF in third. Remarkably these results were duplicated in the second race despite Jolt being called OCS causing her correcting winning margin to be reduced to 57 seconds. Peter Harrison’s crew were no doubt inspired today by having on board legendary road cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish.

 

While Jolt made few mistakes outside of her OCS, on Jethou, tactician Ian Walker reported that they started well but had had to firefight on a couple of occasions. “In the first race we blew a spinnaker up on the second run, so we had to take the bits down and put another one up. In the second we were dead level with Jolt but we had a problem with the string drop – we made a messy drop and then we scrambled a second place.” Despite starting well, in the second race they had become entangled with the bigger boats. The North Sails UK General Manager and Volvo Ocean Race winner continued of their otherwise exciting day: “We were never more than a boat length from another boat at any mark rounding all day, with everyone throwing their 70-90ft boats around - it was good fun.”

While Jolt is the defending champion here in Maxi A, so is Terry Hui’s matt black Wally 77 Lyra in Maxi B, last year finishing with a perfect scoreline. This was the case  today too when she won from Paul Berger's Swan 82 Kallima and Christian Oldendorff's Spirit 111 Geist in the opening race and Maurits van Orange's Wally 80 Sud and Geist in race two.

“We did well,” commented Hui, for whom Saint-Tropez is his second home outside of Vancouver. “We got a good shift on the second race. Nicolai [Sehested, tactician] did a great job. You need to know the boat. We feel smoother and faster this year.” Hui is also in Europe as his company Concord Green Energy is backing the Canadian teams in the Puig Women's America's Cup and the Unicredit Youth America's Cup in Barcelona.

Lyra’s main competition today was Peter Dubens and tactician Nick Rogers on board Spectre, especially when the Frers 60 was able to get on the plane downwind. Lyra’s tactician Nicolai Sehested said that they might be in trouble from Dubens’ team if they are able to stretch their legs on the longer downwinds in the coastal races this week.

Another defending champion here, IMA President Benoît de Froidmont's Wally 60 Wallyño, had a tight coastal race in Maxi C but was beaten to first place by Luigi Sala's Vismara 62 Yoru by 2 minutes 16 seconds under IRC corrected time with Jerome Bataillard's Shipman 63 Sao Bernardo third. For the coastal, the southwest wind was 9-15 knots.

“We were lucky to be in Pampelonne because there was more wind there than in the Golfe de Saint-Tropez. We were a bit late to the start but after we sailed quite well,” commented de Froidmont over his first glass of rosé in Saint-Tropez’s notorious hotspot Café de Paris. Wallyño had no electronics for the duration of the race.

“We had a good start which helped and we were conservative,” added Wallyño’s tactician Cedric Pouligny, “but the boat was doing fine and we sailed reasonably well to the first shift. Sometimes the pressure was more offshore and there was sometimes some left [shift], but most of the time you played the headlands and the small accelerations there.”

It was only in Maxi D that the favourite didn’t prevail, the win in today’s coastal race going to Anthony Ball’s 1979 vintage Six Jaguar, one of only four Swan 65 sloops built by Nautor. “We sailed closer to shore,” explained Ball of their race. “The wind angle was better there for us and we reached the layline before anyone else. We didn’t make any mistakes, there wasn’t any traffic and we didn’t try and push it. Coming in I knew we must have been at least third, so I am delighted to have won.” Their victory today followed two days of practice. Anything that was going to break on board, broke yesterday said a delighted Ball. “We broke everything on the dress rehearsal!”

Tomorrow conditions are expected to be similar to yesterday with more 10-15 knot southwesterlies, and a start time of 1200.

(Race report by James Boyd / International Maxi Association)

Event' website: www.lesvoilesdesaint-tropez.fr