Flying Phantom first Race : Insane Speed footage

Upwind in medium breeze the FP is seen struggling against the F18s, that hold ground very well until the FP went ‘berserk’ on full foiling mode, the speed is too much!! Video above is a must see, check the foiling footage, just unbelievable speed. Literally Insane. If reproduction fails turn HD Off. Youtube version here.
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Report Sent by Nicolas Felix:
“Last week was the second edition of the Raid du Goëlo in Saint Quay Portrieux – France and the first act of the Brittany long distance race multihull championship. For the fist time the Flying Phantom One Design was racing with other multihulls including F18 catamarans, Nacra 17 and Viper (10 entries in total). Three races were launched during the weekend with distances from 25 nm to 40nm. For the Phantom Sailing Team: Gurvan Bontemps – Helmsman and Benjamin Amiot – Crew it was a unique opportunity to finally race the boat after weeks of testing, optimization and training.

Alex Udin
“We are very happy to be here in Saint Quay Portrieux for the “Raid du Goëlo” that is our first races of the season. It is very important for us, because this is the fist time we are competing in front of other boats especially F18 catamarans. Definitely stressful also due to the fact that the Flying Phantom was only sailed alone during the last months for testing sessions. We were really looking forward to see how the boat performs in fleet race.”

Raid #1: Saint Quay Portrieux – Bréhat Island

The fist race occurred on Saturday afternoon and started with light winds below 8 knts. The fleet was heading northwest along the coast for a very long upwind leg with very shifty position. The Phantom team was in the middle in the fleet up to 75% of the leg searching the best sailing mode i.e. archimedean or skimming in order to maximize the performances of the boat. At the end of the upwind leg in front of the the Brehat Island the wind force raised and the team took the lead and start the downwind leg with the gennaker full speed and in 100% foiling mode. Gurvan and Benjamin finished the race in 3 hours 16 minutes, 9 minutes and 43 seconds ahead of Frederic Duthil and Frederic Moreau on their F18 catamaran.

Raid #2 : Saint Quay Portrieux Islands
The second race of the weekend started on Sunday morning with a sunny weather and light winds. The team took the lead just after the dog leg that was positioned next to the starting line. A long downwind leg brought the boats behind the islands with the Flying Phantom 4 minutes ahead of the fleet at the first buoy. After rounding the islands a long upwind leg in the direction of Saint Quay Portrieux was the opportunity for Gurvan and Benjamin to find the right mode to sail the Flying Phantom upwind in non flying mode due to a TWS around 5-6 kts. The final to the finish line was a full flying reaching leg. The team closed the race in 1 hour 16 minutes, 10minutes and 26 seconds ahead Charles Hainneville and his brother Maxime racing their Nacra 17

Raid #3
The last race was heading to the to Saint Brieuc’s bay under very light conditions. Gurvan and Benjamin took the lead for a very long downwind leg, with an option on seaside whereas the fleet was following the coast they turned the leeward mark in the middle of the F18 fleet. They re-took the lead finally on the upwind leg and crossed the finish line in first position in 2 hours 24 minutes but unfortunately due to OCS they were not ranked in this last race of the week-end.

The final corrected time ranking gave Frédéric Duthil and Frédéric Moreau winner on their F18.
Gurvan Bontemps
“ The raid du Goëlo was our first race of the year. The challenge with the rating is that we need a 9 minutes gain per hour as compared to the F18, we almost succeed in the second race of the week-end even if we catch a fishing net that slowed us down. We are very happy with the boat and also to validate that in race mode the performances are here. We will continue to train for the next events and really looking forward to race against other Flying Phantoms.”