Extreme heat at the Class40 Worlds

Crosscall, World Class40 2022 Champion © P. Garenne / GPO

• Following a Prefectural Order due to a heat wave alert and a ban on events between the hours of 10 am and 8 pm, Friday and Saturday regatta days have been cancelled.
• Class40 2022 World Champion Aurélien Ducroz on Crosscall, Matthieu Perraut second on Inter Invest and Antoine Carpentier, third on Redman. 16 boats ranked.

A scorcher of a day, both literally and figuratively, for this Class40 World Championship... Even if the heat and the erratic winds settled over Charente-Maritime and the Bassin des Chalutiers, the Prefectural Order of the day as part of the 'extreme heatwave red alert in Charente-Maritime' and prohibiting 'the holding of any public event outdoors or in non-air-conditioned establishments open to the public' from 10 am to 8 pm today and tomorrow Saturday, put paid to the Class40 2022 World Championship being held today or tomorrow. In the end, three races will have been run on Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday with an offshore course and two constructed courses contested yesterday.

Review of the offshore course: Inter Invest leads!

The dice were rolled for the first showdown of this Class40 2022 World Championship. The course was ocean blue with a 144-mile race that took the fleet to the north of the area, La Vendée, returning to La Rochelle via the Rochebonne plateau. A so-called 24-hour course which, in the end, was gobbled up by the leaders in 17 hours at sea. Once again, Class40 has shown this incredible potential to swallow up miles, despite light and variable weather conditions.

In the end, it all went swimmingly... even if the problems were many and varied. Indeed, the first pitfall was the exit from Pertuis d'Antioche and skirting the Ile de Ré by the south face. Seems easy in theory, except a huge windless zone blocked the direct route, forcing some Class40s to round the Pointe de Chassiron in the North of the Île d'Oléron and to cross the body of water.

Once exiting the tricky Pertuis Charentais, it was then necessary to progress upwind towards the Petite Barge mark, off Les Sables d'Olonne. Here too, you had to be at the right tempo so as not to fall back and to stay in contact with the more powerful boats. The leaders rounded the mark at around 11 pm, in the knowledge that the priority was to then glide downwind to reach the Plateau of Rochebonne. Glide, glide and glide again... A clear, luminous night with mild temperatures, stabilised ballast - the perfect cocktail to swallow the miles on a single tack without straying too far from the direct route to minimise the number of miles to be covered.

Suddenly, and from the first Vendée mark, several monohulls broke away with Matthieu Perraut's Inter Invest in the lead, Aurélien Ducroz's Crosscall in its transom. It went hell for leather and sustained this pace right up to the finishing line. So much so that Crosscall and Redman were still battling it out less than a mile from the finishing line. Inter Invest did incredibly well on this first course, passing all the marks in the lead and finishing 32 minutes ahead of its two pursuers, Redman beating Crosscall by... 5 minutes. (Race coefficient 3)

2022 Class40 World Championship start - photo © P. Garenne / GPO

Review of the two rounds of constructed courses: Lamotte Module Création ans Crosscall, winners

It was a painful start to the day for the whole fleet with two rounds unfortunately cancelled due to a lack of wind on the waters of La Rochelle. They had to wait until mid-afternoon, shortly before 4 pm, for the wind to settle in the North-West, to launch a new round in the form of a constructed route.

Luke Berry's Lamotte Module Création easily won this first round of the day ahead of Nestenn - Entrepreneurs pour la planète (Entrepreneurs for the Planet) and Crosscall. Note the almost perfect day for Luke's new boat which was launched only two weeks ago. A second round will be launched in the wake of the first, taking advantage of that light north-westerly breeze on the water.

Crosscall, despite a difficult start, caught up with the fleet and won this second round ahead of Lamotte Module Création, which had a magnificent day, and Inter Invest made up for its 7th place in the previous event. Kéni Piperol's Captain Alternance finished 4th and Redman, 5th. (Race coefficient 1)

Aurélien Ducroz, Class40 2022 World Champion

In the overall classification, Aurélien Ducroz's Crosscall finished first with a 3rd place third in the Offshore Event and 3rd and 1st in the constructed route. Matthieu Perraut's Inter Invest finished second overall with his victory in the Offshore Event and 7th and 3rd places yesterday, Thursday. Third overall was Antoine Carpentier skippering Redman with 2nd place in the Offshore Event and 5th and 4th in the constructed routes. Luke Berry's Lamotte Module Création finished 4th overall ahead of Amélie Grassi's La Boulangère Bio. 16 boats ranked.

Aurélien Ducroz (Crosscall), Class40 2022 World Champion: 'We had three great rounds, so we're over the moon! We have a boat that works really well and an amazing crew. It didn't go too badly on manoeuvres; we were quite good at that. It's great fun because it's a great project that we've been working on since last year. We haven't had much luck so far, but our luck was in today and that felt good. We did a nice coastal run; we were in the lead in Sables d'Olonne and then we picked up a lobster pot.... We lost two or three miles there... We managed to come back, and in the end, we did quite well and then yesterday, we had two good rounds even if we didn't have the best of starts. But we managed to come back from behind and were placed well. It was fantastic even if we're naturally frustrated not to have done more, it's hard not to be happy now. Racing with a crew reminded me of the Tour de France à la Voile which I did in Diam three years in a row... Your 'muscle memory' comes back, even if it's a bit physical on these boats, but it's very enjoyable. I really like sailing with a crew and collaborating with Vincent (Riou) was just extraordinary. Sailing with someone who has so much experience is a real opportunity and a real pleasure. I would also like to thank him profusely, as well as all the others who were on board: David Sineau, Eric Levet, Benjamin Bireau, Thomas Audren, not forgetting my boat captain, Jonathan Chodkiewiez; it was truly great to have been able to share this moment with him.'

Overall Results:

1. Crosscall (166) - Aurélien Ducroz
2. Inter Invest (175) - Matthieu Perraut
3. Redman (161) - Antoine Carpentier
4. Lamotte Module Création (185) - Luke Berry
5. La Boulangère Bio (170) - Amélie Grassi
6. Captain Alternance (174) - Kéni Piperol
7. Nestenn - Entrepreneurs pour la planète (153) - Jules Bonnier
8. Cer Offshore - Banque du Leman (159) - Valentin Gautier
9. Sensation Class40 Extrem (140) - Marc Lepesqueux
10. A L'aveugle (115) - Remi RABBE
11. Dopamine Sailing Team (104) - Florian Gueguen
12. Chocolats Paries-Screb (123) - Jean-Baptiste Daramy
13. Naviguons Contre Le Diabete (124) - Anatole Facon
14. Yoda (65) - Franz Bouvet
15. Randstad-Ausy (155) - Clara Fortin and Martin Louchard
16. Bleu Blanc (149) - Thomas Hervé