First time wins for Yoru and Six Jaguar maxis as Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez concludes

Inadequate winds meant no racing on Friday for the maxis competing at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. However, today there was more success for the concluding races laid on by the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez and representing the last in the International Maxi Association’s Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge for 2024. After a short wait on Pampelonne Bay, the SNST’s race team was able to send the Maxi A and B off on a second coastal race, following on from Thursday’s while the slower and smaller classes, Maxi C and D were able to sail a single windward-leeward.

“The week has gone exceptionally well,” commented IMA Secretary General Andrew McIrvine. “I’d like to thank the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez, their race officials and volunteers and congratulate the worthy winners.”

One of the closest competitions this week was in the smaller classes, where two new faces rose topped the podium. Maxi C saw a three way podium fight between defending champion IMA President Benoît de Froidmont's Wally 60 Wallyño, Luigi Sala’s Vismara 62 Yoru and Jean-Pierre Dreau’s Mylius 60FD Lady First III.

Wallyño won today’s final race by 1 minute 7 seconds from Yoru. “It was a nice finish - conditions were perfect with 10-12 knots and a flat sea,” commented de Froidmont. “Windward-leewards are extremely good fun for this type of boat. The level of our fleet is very high and the crew on these three boats is extremely skilled, which makes the racing very challenging.”

 

However Wallyño’s two bullets were not enough to beat Yoru’s three this week, enabling Sala and his Italian crew to win Maxi C by a mere point, with Lady First III third. “We are very happy because this was the first time we have won such a major event,” said Sala. “It comes after 18 months of improvement to the boat and working with the whole team. And it has happened in such a nice place like this. We will celebrate tonight!” Yoru was originally designed to cruise doublehanded and has taken a while to be turned into a dual-function cruiser-racer. This week they benefitted from new tactician Lorenzo Bodini.

Over the last two races Luca Scoppa's Dehler 60 Blue Oyster scored back-to-back bullets in Maxi D, however Anthony Ball's venerable Swan 65 sloop Six Jaguar had won the first three races, coming second to Blue Oyster in the final two, ending the regatta three points ahead with the CNB 60 Expression of London third.

“It was very good - we saw about 14 knots. The forecast came in early again,” commented Six Jaguar’s helmsman George Ball, son of owner Anthony. “We were second today even though windward-leewards aren’t our forte as modern boats can point better. It was just about making sure our manoeuvres are great. We’ve greatly enjoyed it - it is our first time here and we’ll definitely be back.” The Balls previously won the Swan Cup in 2020.

In the bigger classes, no one was going to topple Peter Harrison’s Maxi 72 Jolt in Maxi A nor Terry Hui’s Wally 77 Lyra in Maxi B, both serial winners here, Jolt having won the last three editions and Lyra, incredibly, the last six.

On Thursday Jolt hit a rock causing some bumps and bruises among her crew, gouging her keel and popped the top off a water ballast tank. Impressively she continued to finish sixth and raced on today still in less than optimum state, coming second nonetheless.

“We had a great week,” commented Peter Harrison. “The first two days we had four bullets - windward-leewards have always been our strong suit. Overall the boat is going really well. The improvements we’ve made in windier conditions are enormous for us. We had one bad day when we had a ‘coming together’ with the mainland, which was sad and the boat wasn’t really the same after that. But today was great – we maintained our place and are very happy with the result.”

His strategist Michele Ivaldi added: “We are learning more and more about how to use the boat, but it’s going really well. The crew and Hamish [Pepper, tactician] and Peter did a perfect job. We managed to recover from an OCS pretty well. The only hiccup was hitting the rock - from what we could see we thought we were clear, but the rock was uncharted. The boat was slower today.”

Jolt’s second was enough for her to continue her winning streak here, three points ahead of Sir Peter Ogden’s 77ft Jethou with Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s 82ft Django HF third.

After an impressively consistent five second places, Sir Peter Ogden’s team won the final race: “We had a very good race with a great start – we held our lane and Jolt could never get back at us – it was quite good. We come here every year and every other year we do well!” said Ogden.

While Lyra was unbeaten here in 2023, this year there was a blemish on their scorecard too on Thursday when they got stuck in a transition zone handing the win to Paul Berger’s Swan 82 Kallima. “We had a big lead but then we parked up for an hour and couldn’t get back our time,” explained tactician Nicolai Sehested, more regularly skipper of the Rockwool Denmark SailGP team. Owner Terry Hui added: “It has been good. Kallima has been very competitive – when there is no wind or wind holes can scramble it, you could be 20ft away from someone who is gone while you can be left waiting. We were lucky to get out, but Nicolai found wind.”

While some of the classic boats leave Saint-Tropez harbour to the tunes of a piper, Lyra left today with Danish crewman and pro-sailor Peter Wibroe playing boogie piano from a portable keyboard set up on Lyra’s aft-deck.

IMA maxi racing continues on 19 October with the Rolex Middle Sea Race, the opening event of the IMA’s 2024-25 Mediterranean Maxi Offshore Challenge. 

Race report: James Boyd / International Maxi Association

Event' website: www.lesvoilesdesaint-tropez.fr