Texel 2014: Flying Phantom Camp Report
Images Sander van der Borch – The FP hitting the sandbar can be called bad luck or a navigation error. Whichever the case, pity for us not being able to see a match between these two weapons (N20FCS & FP) on a complete race. Report by Vink later.Below FP Camp report sent by Nicolas Felix.
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“With over 280 entries, the Round Texel 2014 aka Ronde om Texel is the biggest event of sports catamaran of the year. Located in the north of Holland – Netherlands, the island of Texel is organizing this race for the 37th time. The racecourse remains very simple: the first that has finished a complete round of the island wins. The challenge was great for the Phantom Sailing Team: Gurvan Bontemps and Benjamin Amiot after the very positive results obtained during the Bol d’Or Mirabaud and the Eurocat long distance raid.
Unfortunately, it was finally a bad day for the Flying Phantom and his team who were leading the race when they hit a sand bank and then break the hook of the main sail forcing them to abandon the race.
Flashback on the race with Benjamin Amiot
“The briefing was held this morning at 07:00 am, for a start planned at 09:00am. This early start was due to forecasts that were indicating a wind drop for midday. The start was launched with around 15 knots of wind; very quickly we were ahead of the fleet sailing downwind and flying full speed without gennaker leading the two other flying catamarans sailed by Vink and Heemskerk. Heading North along the Island we kept the lead, with a slight shift as compared to the coast and the head of the fleet.
We hoist back the gennaker to finish this leg to the first gate at the North of the Texel
Island. We consolidated or lead during the reaching leg on the North part of the Island, it was super fast as the sea was very flat, I think top speeds were around 28 knots. Unfortunately, just before the North-East gate we hit a sand bank damaging the rake system on the port side. It took us some minutes to fix the issue and find a safe way back outside of shallow water. We loose quite some time, and maybe we came back on the racecourse around the 10th position. Unfortunately, just after the gate at the beginning of the upwind leg we broke the hook of the mainsail leading us to abandon the race.
We are a little bit disappointed, but sailing is a mechanical sport, and we know that it can happen. We demonstrated today that the Flying Phantom is one of the most efficient foiling catamaran and were very happy to see that in these conditions we were the fastest boat on water. We are now really looking forward to next year Round the Texel race where we will be able to comeback with a fleet of Flying Phantom”.
Gurvan Bontemps and Benjamin Amiot are now heading to Ireland for the F18 worlds. We wish them good luck for this new challenge.”
I think it is poor form to comment on leading a race / being the fastest when you don't complete the race. Who knows what advantage was had for wind by risking the sandbar line and getting stung, until boats are lined up in the same conditions we can't say which is faster. Let the results speak for themselves and enter the next event to show which boat has what it takes for the foiling crown. I know everyone wants to sell boats, but this press release is disappointing.
Sounds like a bad looser…
I think it is quite poor to anounce everywhere how many boats of this One-Design boat has already beeing sold on the one hand …. and one the other hand not being able to bring more than the prototype to Texel and not finish this important race. This speaks for itself.
Not only is team Phantom a bad loser they are also lying.
If you look careful at the pictures you can see the time on the bottom when this
picture where taken! The Nacra is clearly leading at the lighthouse by 1 minute. You can find this pictures on https://www.bootinbeeld.nl/galleries/2014/rot14_zat_vuurtoren/index.html
Hi
Now I do think some of the things FP have done maybe a little out of order however I do think that two pictures taken with only a minuted difference prove anything. These boats can't travel that far even when foiling in a minute and the angle, the amount of zoom used in the photo and how far away the boats are from the landmark (lighthouse in this case) can all effect the perspective of the photo. Also you don't know the wind direction here so if the FP was closer to the shore then they may well be in front. Also there are no seconds in the time so the FP photo could be just 10 seconds behind as it could be 9:29:55 this would still give the time gap given. And being 50 metres higher than the nacra 20 could easily give them the lead especially if they have to tack. Therefore In my opinion I feel the evidence you have provided doesn't give sufficient evidence to prove that FP where lying, which in itself is a big accusation, and one that can't be backed up by the evidence you have provided.
Oscar
There's a difference between "sold" and "built". 😉