J/80 World Championship at Les Sables d'Olonne, France - Day 3
by Agence TB Press 12 Jul 2018 02:19 AEST
7-14 July 2018
J/80 World Championship - Day 3 © Pierrick Contin
After three days of competition and eight races, the 360 racers in the J/80 Worlds in Les Sables d'Olonne organised by the SNSablais and the French J/80 Class, have been ticking off the race starts since Monday in excellent racing conditions.
Today, in an E'ly breeze of 10 to five knots, Javier Chacartegui and his crew on the one-design "Ibo.es" lost pole position to "Garatu" helmed by fellow Spaniard Iker Almondoz. Now leading the fleet, the latter boasts a 12-point lead over Rayco Tabares on "Hotel Princesa Yaiza", the reigning champions, and a 15-point lead over "Puente Romano Marbella" skippered by Juan Luis Paez.
Simon Moriceau on "Armen Habitat", with multiple Tour de France à la Voile winner Pierre-Loïc Berthet calling tactics, is currently lying in fourth in the Vendée region's event, whilst the Russians on "New Territories", with a certain Hugo Rocha, bronze 470 medallist at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, are fifth. The battle royal is in full swing!
j80worlds2018.com/en|
Three reactions from the crews
Hervé Delaroux, "Numéro J": "We've been sailing in idyllic conditions since the start of the week. It's absolutely glorious weather. Unfortunately, we fluffed our first start and then didn't manage to snap up the favourable opportunities that came our way. Tomorrow's plan is to catch them up."
Arthur Léopold-Léger, "Navigatlantique": "We sailed a fantastic first day. Since then, we've been hanging on in there, but things aren't working out quite so well. My thoughts are that we haven't put in enough training. We're finding it hard to follow through and we lack the reflexes of some of the other competitors, who are just amazing in that regard."
Marc Reine, coach at the French Sailing Federation: "There are two coaches at these Worlds including myself and Benoit Charon. Our aim is to make sure a French crew wins the Worlds. We've been hunting down this title for some years now. The Spanish crews have several things in their favour, which makes them a little bit better than our 'top' crews. In my view, they have slightly more stabilised teams, namely they've been sailing together a long time and they're more opportunistic in certain sailing phases. Even though they've got the overall ranking well covered, we're going to do everything we can to goad them."