Cammas leads - Gold fleet decided at F18 Worlds

by Media on 11 Jul 2008 Groupama skippers Franck Cammas and Jeremy LaGarrigue have taken the lead after six races at the F18 Class World Championships in Nigrán. In second are Coen de Koning and Jeroen van Leeuwen of the Netherlands. And a fantastic result for Australians Andrew Landenberger and Felix Egner who have moved into third place overall at 21 points.

Much better results for Britain's Hugh Styles and Adam Piggott, a second and third move them up into eighth place overall. Leo Farrow and Robby jon Garcka are 19th.

It was a slow, hot and very light start to Wednesday, day 3 of the F18 Class World Championships in Nigrán. A beautiful sunny day but alas the most important component was missing! As the hours passed and temperatures began to rise, a slight twitching was noticeable amongst the crews ashore eager to be out contending for the extremely valuable places in the gold group.

Finally at near to 2.30pm the postponement flag came down and yesterday’s ‘yellow’ group departed for race 5; a north-westerly of 6-8 knots across a clearly fluky race course saw the majority of the fleet heading off towards Baiona with clearly more pressure on the left.

A fine start for French team Vaireaux and Petit who led Dutch duo Reindert-Jan van der Meulenand Carina Knol all the way until the second upwind mark when NED 76 showed beautiful dexterity slipping in front of FRA 56510 just before rounding and skimmed down the run to victory.

An absolutely beautiful display for the crowds, as a fine streak of multi-coloured spinnakers painted a clear line up to the Parador at Monte Boi in Baiona.

Great racing also for Leo Farrow of Great Britain in third, and Andrew Machpherson of Australia in fourth.

New yellow and blue groups were assigned for the final race of this classifying round of the championship. Conditions remain light for Race 6 at 8-9 knots, a true test for some of the ‘favourites’ admittedly more comfortable racing in bigger breezes.

Hobie Cat young guns Mischa Heemskirk and Bastian Tentij have a disappointing last race; called over the line by the Race Committee at the start, drop from first to seventh place in the rankings (according to provisional results)

Race 6 proved to be contentious for the yellow group with a number of boats lodging protests with the jury and a complete reshuffle of the championship top ten.

Groupama skippers Franck Cammas and Jeremy LaGarrigue once again head the blue group for race 6, making a beautiful start at the Committee boat end along with Dutch team Coen de Koning and Jeroen van Leeuwen who skim across the fleet to place themselves centrally off the line.

However it is the French multi-hull expert who grabs a third victory and catapults into first place overall, just a point ahead of NED 3, after they finish seventh.

The ‘golden’ 66 boats are qualified after six races (provisional results to be finalised) with some noticeable changes at the top, and all is still to be played out in the remaining two days of the competition.

A fantastic result for Australians Andrew Landenberger and Felix Egner who have moved into third place overall at 21 points, and three teams equal in fourth with 22 points each: Frenchmen Jean Christophe Mourniac and Franck Citeau, fellow countrymen Vaireaux and Petit and ‘flying Dutchmen’ Gunnar Larsen and Stefan Dubbeldam.

F18 - Leading ‘golden’ 66 boats are qualified after six races

1 FRA 1 Cammas Franck, France, Lagarrigue Jeremy -11 1 4 1 3 1 10
2 NED 3 Coen de Koning, Netherlands, Jeroen van Leeuwen 1 3 1 5 1 -7 11
3 AUS 308 Andrew Landenberger, Australia, Felix Egner 4 -15 7 4 4 2 21
4 FRA 11 Jean-Christophe Mourniac, France, Franck Citeau 3 11 1 2 5 -13 22
5 FRA 56510 Vaireaux, France, Petit 8 2 2 8 2 -9 22
6 NED 955 Gunnar Larsen, Netherlands, Stefan Dubbeldam 2 4 3 -17 9 4 22
7 NED 7 Mischa Heemskerk, Netherlands, Bastiaan Tentij 1 1 15 1 6 (bfd) 24
8 GBR 957 Hugh Styles, Great Britain, Adam Piggott -15 6 6 9 2 3 26
9 AUS 959 Andrew Macpherson, Australia, Herwin Van der Kamp -8 8 7 6 4 6 31
10 SWE 11 Johan Gnosspelius, Sweden, Roger Boden 3 10 8 3 12 -23 36
11 FRA 919 Francois Morvan, France, Matthieu Vandame 5 11 6 -16 11 3 36
12 NED 952 Willem Geijssen, Netherlands, Rico van Capelle -22 7 3 4 16 8 38
13 FRA 5 Sellier Thomas, France, Moreau Frederic 15 3 2 13 -22 11 44
14 NED 76 Reindert-Jan van der Meulen, Netherlands, Carina Knol 20 13 8 3 1 -22 45
15 FRA 17 Motteau Romainm, France, Alexandre Guyader 2 19 -39 12 9 4 46
16 NED 1 Mitch Booth, Netherlands, Pim Nieuwenhuis 17 16 5 2 6 (bfd) 46
17 AUS 2 Taylor Booth, Australia, Jacques Bernier 24 5 4 9 -33 5 47
18 NED 930 Sascha Larsen, Netherlands, Christa van Helden 7 6 14 10 12 -41 49
19 GBR 24 Leo Farrow, Great Britain, Robby jon Garcka 9 25 -31 11 3 8 56
20 AUS 136 Greg Goodall, Australia, Brett Goodall 4 5 19 23 -26 9 60
21 CAN 101 Louis-Philippe Éthier, Canada, Maxime Loiselle 18 4 -25 17 10 11 60
22 GER 163 Justus Wolf, Germany, Rea Nies 5 8 20 7 20 -23 60
23 FRA 44 Bontemps Gurvan, France, Marfaing Matthieu 13 2 10 11 27 -37 63
24 BEL 50 Thierry Bosser, Belgium, Alain Gramme 19 -32 18 8 5 20 70
25 FRA 4 Champanhac Benoit, France, Valer Pierre-Jean 21 17 12 14 7 -26 71
26 SWE 102 Pontus Johansson, Sweden, Daniel Winberg 6 14 -20 13 20 19 72
27 FRA 929 Le Clainche, France, Joubert 17 18 11 -21 15 16 77
28 GER 164 Helge Sch, Germany, Christian Sach 27 -31 12 7 21 12 79
29 ITA 400 Ugo Ferrari, Italy, Maurizio Stella (dnf) 9 19 23 8 20 79
30 NED 2 Oscar Zeekant, Netherlands, Wybe Schuitema 11 9 24 6 31 -38 81
31 FRA 969 Villion, France, Viat 19 7 35 -38 16 7 84
32 BEL 30 Lefevre Joel, Belgium, Lemaire Jacques 7 (bfd) 10 25 17 33 92
33 FRA 901 Boulogne, France, Kervyn 14 20 30 14 (dnf) 15 93
34 SWE 4 Patrik Forsgren, Sweden, Niklas Nordblom ocs 21 24 -29 27 1 93,4
35 AUS 619 Chris Caldecoat, Australia, Malcolm Richardson 6 27 32 16 -48 14 95
36 AUS 700 Warren Guinea, Australia, Mark Phillips 28 28 16 21 -34 5 98
37 GBR 888 Rob Garcka, Great Britain, Joff Garcka 14 22 33 22 7 -37 98
38 FRA 125 Pulve, France, Sangiardi 16 15 9 (dsq) 40 18 98
39 GBR 120 Tim Neal, Great Britain, Bob Fry 23 13 21 28 14 -49 99
40 NED 1004 Peter Vink, Netherlands, Marja van Helden -28 12 15 20 25 28 100
41 BEL 44 Yannick Levévbre, Belgium, Matthieu Janssens 13 16 17 18 -40 36 100
42 ESP 7 Bernardo Benitez Cabrera, Spain, Miguel Perez Quintana 9 32 5 -43 41 16 103
43 GBR 876 Grant Piggott, Great Britain, Andy Prince 41 -45 14 12 13 24 104
44 FRA 819 Courbon, France, Morin 23 -33 27 26 23 6 105
45 NED 50 Kathelijn de Bruyne, Netherland, Bart van Rijs 12 12 23 35 23 -38 105
46 NED 201 Jacques Visser, Netherlands, Thisjs Visser 12 44 -46 19 11 21 107
47 FRA 177 Vivient, France, Le Bayon -39 26 26 15 33 10 110
48 ITA 46 Luca Bertani, Italy, Mattia Marcassoli 27 20 21 -32 18 25 111
49 FRA 1308 Normand, France, Lemaitre 22 17 -37 33 22 19 113
50 FRA 22 Le Chapelier Emmanuel, France, Viart Jocelyn 35 29 13 -36 25 12 114
51 AUS 104 Chris Boag, Australia, Doug Fimmell 25 -42 22 19 37 13 116
52 NED 110 John Casey, Netherlands, Roland van Joolen 30 24 33 -36 28 2 117
53 FRA 840 Baeckler, France, Martin 18 10 25 33 -38 31 117
54 ITA 2520 Mark Laruffa, Italy, Daniel Sims 26 -34 13 30 21 27 117
55 NED 59 Thomas Groen, Netherlands, Elwin Gastelaars 34 26 18 24 -46 15 117
56 BEL 1 Demesmaeker Patrick, Belgium, Koopman Alexander 24 42 -44 10 26 21 123
57 GBR 47 Jon Worthington, Great Britain, Oli Egan -33 33 23 18 32 17 123
58 ESP 854 Fernando Lamadrid, Spain, Kiki Patron 10 38 9 42 -45 25 124
59 GBR 4 David Bartlett, Great Britain, Mark Robinson -45 35 11 41 30 10 127
60 GBR 2062 Toby Orpin, Great Britain, Lewis Crawford 16 22 (ocs) 5 19 bfd 129
61 NED 917 Gerard Loos, Netherlands, Pieter van Ruitenburg 36 14 -45 22 18 39 129
62 ITA 1031 Poggetti Pietro, Italy, Meoli Alessandro 42 37 16 25 10 -48 130
63 AUS 622 Michael Guinea, Australia, Adam Beattie 43 18 -45 28 13