St-Barth Cata Cup - Day goes to Pierre Le Clainche and Antoine Joubert

by Dominique Ladouceur on 20 Nov 2016 They are getting familiar with the top of the leaderboard of the St Barth Cata Cup and toady was no exception for the French duo Le Clainche and Joubert, with a first place finish in the morning and a second place in the afternoon.

Admittedly, the organization was expecting the Moh’s Places crew to show well since their successes in F18 precede them. Pierre Le Clainche and Antoine Joubert both sail on Diam 24 for the Fondation FDJ - Des Pieds et Des Mains Team, Pierre is also a member of Team Django of the D35 Trophy while Antoine races with Engie on GC32.

Swedish teams well positioned in the general rankings

Two teams from Sweden are competing in the St Barth Cata Cup this year, for both a first time sailing in the event. So far so good for the crews who are six and eleven in the general standings after five races. Rasmus Rosengren / Tomas Westergren only have good things to say about the organization, the race formats and the level of the fleet. Although they find that the level of the fleet is much better than what they are used to, they have been demonstrating great skills. The Swedish crew finished second in the morning race and they were delighted.

“We managed a really good first race. We were sixth at the first mark and then we did a good downwind and that is where we made the gains. We also took a very good decision to go inside the Island rather than to go towards the ocean. We were able to maintain our position until the end”, said Tomas Westergren, crew of the Budget boat who only had positive things to say about the sailing conditions in St-Barth.

The day’s race formats

The second day of the St Barth Assurances Allianz Grand Prize got off to a good start in the morning with 12-15 knots of wind. The first crew crossed the finish line after 61 minutes at sea. In the afternoon, crews had to sail the same race format but shortened in distance since the winds were easing. The first boat to arrive was that of American crew Jeremy Wilmot / Tripp Burd who took 62 minutes to complete the course. “We had a very fixed game plan for the second half of the race and at each one of those plans we caught two - three boats which allowed us to finish well, similar to what we did in the Round the Island race on Thursday”, said Jeremy Wilmot, helmsman of the Auberge de la Petite Anse boat.

A local race within the race

While the front of the fleet are battling out, there is another tight race happening between the locals. The crews are challenging each other since Day 1 of the regatta, such that there are now 11 crews from the Caribbeans between ranks 21 and 40 of the general standings after five races. “There is always a competition between Caribbean crews because there are many different levels in an international regatta and this is the only race where we are all here at the same time. Since we are many crews from Martinique, St-Martin, St-Barth and Guadeloupe and we are all friends, we can measure ourselves in an international setting”, said Pascal Marchais, from Guadeloupe helmsman of CIN.

Onyan and 3 Cylinders Concert

The St Barth Cata Cup is not only about the sailing, it’s also the animated evenings at the Nikki Beach where locals are also invited to join the celebrations. For this Saturday evening, the organization planned a concert from Antigua based group Onyan and 3 Cylinders. With hits ranging from Nice and Slow, Back to Burning Flames and Whine on Me, Onyan is undoubtedly a perpetual stamp on Caribbean Music.

The day’s results

1- FRA 13 (Moh’s Places.com) Pierre Le Claiche / Antoine Joubert
2- SWE 12 (Budget) Rasmus Rosengren / Tomas Westergren
3- GRE 7 (Christopher Hotel) Iordanis Paschalidis / Gustaf Dryssen
4- BEL 1 (Les Perles de St Barth) Patrick Demesmaeker / Olivier Gagliani
5- FRA 901 (Lotus Architectes) Emmanuel Boulogne / Jean Boulogne
6- FRA 151 (Eden Rock St Barth) Gurvan Bontemps / Benjamin Amiot
7- 1899 (Olivier Dain Perspectives 2) Charles Tomeo / Dalton Tebo
8- SBH 1 (Julbo) Romain Petit / Jérémie Lagarrigue
9- SWE 1914 (Architectonik) Frederik Karlsson / Niklas Nordblom
10- ARG 2304 (Guanahani) Christian Vilate / Lucas Smith Gonzales