French Cup at Royal Varuna Yacht Club
by Morten Jakobsen 17 Jan 2024 06:23 PST
All participants thank the French organizers for an excellent and very enjoyable social and sailing event © Bamb Rattana
Royal Varuna Yacht Club is a driving force for racing in Thailand and Asia. The members results in the last 2 years include no less than 3 world championships and qualification in two classes to the 2024 Olympics.
However - The adult sailors, spouses and family members also enjoy the buoyant social side in the club where many nationalities enjoy hanging out together.
The best example is the French Cup hosted every year by the large and active french and french speaking community in the club. The format is simple and oh...so French!
Saturday afternoon a French feast is put on with fresh ingredients flown in from Paris, which goes down smoothly with pastis sponsored by Ricard.
After the enjoyable food, the two most prestigious parts of the event began - pétanque tournament and blind wine tasting, and each counts as a race in the regatta. Forty teams battled to be the best petanque players. Final showdown was played under stars along with applause and cheer from fans.
Eight selected French wines and One mystery wine were tasted by all legal aged members. The wanna be wine connoisseurs tried hard to match number on wine bottles with names provided in the form. The most challenging part of it all was to stop drinking.
In this years running, there were a long distance handicap race on Saturday, followed by 3 round the can races on Sunday. The conditions on Sundays were memorable with high sun, 28 degree water temperature, medium to strong wind and great waves to surf on the downwind legs.
And the results (which are not really that serious in the greater scheme of things) were:
Monohull: (29 participants)
- 1st Ton Rattana (ILCA6)
- 2nd Claudia Nazarov (ILCA6)......Fresh from her Kings cup win
- 3rd Wasawat and Pittpoom (420).....showing how good teamwork makes a huge difference
Also worth mentioning is possibly the fastest female sailing secretary in Asia, Apple Asawawatanaporn, who helmed a heavy club boat into 6th place.
Optimist: (15 participants)
- 1st Alexander B. Ross
- 2nd: Jusy Wang
- 3rd: Chatcharee Kraikaeo
Multihull (no Spi) (8 participants)
- 1st Gini and Pieri
- 2nd Levi and Fish
Multihull (spi) (5 participants)
- 1st YC Commodore Florent Herson & Roch Giacinti
- 2nd Xu and Jerome Collin
And the winners of the wine tasting and paraque "races" were:
Petanque "race": 1st: Skye Hsu
Winetasting: Dirk Janousky & Sylvie Villenevy and Pittpom & Wasawat