St Barth Catacup 2017: Day 1

Fun race to follow on the Live Tracking. With our friends Pierre Le Clainche & Antoine Joubert showing the way almost the entire race, with Paschalidis-Trigonis, Cammas-Vandame playing to catch. The final top ten were immersed on the fight too. But with Pierre & Antoine leading and the speeding Greeks following behind. In the final leg Cammas-Vandame also were contending along, when Danny & Kostas put pedal to the metal literally for a great win on pure speed coming from behind. The Tornado crew is getting the needed F18 flight hours to get to known this new class for them. Much to go in this regatta, still a great start for these to good guys that are a real welcome  addition to our F18 class community.

 Check the video for the wind conditions and course of start and final leg. Either way today was a round the Island race, so the sailors needed to handle every aspect of F18 navigation and handling. 2016 St Barth Catacup champs, Pierre & Antoine demonstrating they can sail any F18 to the front of the fleet, last year with a C2 , this edition with the still fast and reliable Cirrus R1. Hope we can see them racing again together at a Worlds. They already have the Youth WC Title , now is time for the Open one.

DS: Good to see leading Decksweeper Mainsails (1D & Oxo) with a smaller foot as we envisioned as equally efficient planshape. Also 1D Mainsail has full reinforced monofilm panels for a better & clear visibility.
We wrote several times on these two aspects for DS in the F18 and the no need to go a 145cm foot lenght that might complicate handling for crews.  But many without much information or even experience sailing a DS assumed that a foot from beam to beam was the only option.
Now after the Australian F18 regattas with Brewin’s own smaller foot and today from St Barth you can now be at ease on the alternative planshapes you have at disposition for your own Deckssweeper F18 sail.

There is a good video from Manu Boulogne showing how you can tack below a 100-110cm foot wihout issues. Will ask for the original to publish next days.

Tracking replay for Race 1 here.


On equipment for the top 3 I have:
1 Paschalidis & Trigonis , Scorpion / 1D Mainsail Boomless
2 Le Clainche & Joubert , Cirrus R1 / Oxo DS Mainsail
3 Cammas & Vandame , Cirrus R2 / Oxo DS Mainsail

Top ten below, full results at stbarthcatacup.com/fr/pages/classements-Grand_Prix_designaffairs/

1 GRE 7 RELWEN Grece 1,00 PASCHALIDIS IORDANIS TRIGKONIS KONSTANTINOS
2 FRA 1 DESIGN AFFAIRS OO1 S R VANNES 2,00 LE CLAINCHE Pierre JOUBERT Antoine
3 FRA 201 ODP 1 YCPR Marseille – France 3,00 CAMMAS Franck VANDAME Matthieu S R VANNES
4 H 5 MAXWELL & CO Y C TOULON – France 4,00 BAECKLER James MARTIN Orion S N DE ST TROPEZ
5 1899 MARLA Etats Unis D’Amerique 5,00 TOMEO Charles TEBO DALTON
6 ARG 1901 EDEN ROCK VILLA RENTAL 6,00 GONZALES SMITH CRUZ HEUSER MARIANO
7 BEL 1 LES PERLES DE SAINT BARTH Belgique 7,00 DEMESMAEKER PATRICK GAGLIANI OLIVIER
8 USA 3936 OFF COURSE MANAGEMENT 8,00 FIGUEROA ENRIQUE FIGUEROA KEKI
9 FRA 56 EDEN ROCK ST BARTH S R VANNES – France 9,00 BONTEMPS Gurvan AMIOT Benjamin SURF SCH ST MALO
10 USA 7 TRADEWIND AVIATION Etats Unis D’Amerique 10,00 RICCARDI TODD LIBERTY IAN