Long Distance Carnac 2016: Normand & Joubert 1st (Flying Phantom)

All Images & video  Yacht Club Carnac – Full gallery & videos  at yccarnac.com – At Carnac 2016 long Distance , and almost as a rule of Life & Design itself ,  Less is More. Thomas Normand & Antoine Joubert are experienced F18 sailors and have been sailing and racing the FP for a year now. This weekend they scored a big win on one of the two most important Long Distance beachcat races in Europe, the other is Round Texel.

The Flying Phantom is smaller, lighter and has less sail power than the Nacra F20. It’s also way much simpler on its foil configuration than the M20 Vampire or the Whisper foiler.
With the test we’ve done here in BA before anyone else on the FP vs F20 FCS, we had mixed results in the end as reported, and we didn´t have a definitive answer. Still I think we don´t have one after this event or  the Match Race John Casey had with Tomko in Florida, or Vink’s debut & win at Texel where the FP did not even finished.

Either way at Carnac Normand & Joubert didn´t need any complex wands, monster pivotal foils, Moth style x 2 setup of the Whisper or even a larger powerful sail plan. Sailing good riding the Flying Phantom was enough for them to take the blue ribbon. Less is More.

I asked Antoine about the sailing conditions:   “We had between 13 and 17 knots , It was a bit choppy before to arriving to Houat and then very flat and shifty returning to Carnac.”

The time was 2;42mins. The record still holds for Bontemps & Amiot at the 2014 Edition I was lucky to witness Live, 2:05 Mins: catsailingnews.com/2014/05/eurocat-2014-long-distance-record-for.html
2015 was cancelled due to harsh weather, pity cause all the top FP & F20 teams were there.

I’m confident racing and recreational beachcats will end foiling in simpler solutions like the 3pt TNZ conf or even the  4pt A-Class setup,

The F20 vs FP discussion is not over yet, I hope the FP & Nacra teams can get together in further races, more than a brand warfare fest, the most interesting thing to analyze since day 1, is to know if for a foiler, being lighter and with a smaller efficient sail plan wins over the raw power of the Nacra F10 FCS. The Moth Paradigma is still to be transposed to beachcat racing, maybe the A-Class and plans for shorter masts and the already lower volume platforms might confirm the Moth benchmark, but for double handed foilers, we  are still looking for the answer.

At Carnac 2016 Edition, it was a win Thomas Nornamd & Antoine Joubert riding a Flying Phantom.
Lets see if they or other FP sailors can participate on the 2016 Round Texel against the local Nacra Teams. William Sunnucks has done a grat job on the Vampire M20 with plenty or radical and new ideas, but I still go for the FP/F20 FCS as the weapon of choice for grabbing Long Distance line honours.

F18 Course racing & Long Distance  complete results: yccarnac.com/eurocat_r%C3%A9sultats.html