5.5 Metre French Open at Yacht Club de Cannes - Day 1
by Robert Deaves 23 Sep 15:52 PDT
23-27 September 2025
New Moon III (BAH 25, Holger KOEHNE, Christoph BURGER, Peter VLASOV) and Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian WILHELMSEN, Herve CUNNINGHAM, Lasse BERTHELSEN) are tied at the top after the first day of racing at the 5.5 Metre French Open in Cannes, held within the Regates Royales. Nine 5.5 Metres from six countries are taking part.
After about an hour's delay to wait for the building sea breeze, the first race was started in 8-10 knots with Otto making a flying start near the boat, but in the middle of the pack. She soon shot into the lead and got the first beat right to lead round the entire race. New Moon II chased hard in second but could not catch her. Enez C'las II (FRA 63, Nicolas ABIVEN, Yann DELABRIERE, Sylvie DELABRIERE) followed at some distance in third.
The fleet is sharing thew course area with the impressive 12 Metres and the Tofinau class and are the second of the three starts. With the wind now up to 15-18 knots, Otto tried the same start tactic for the second race but didn't quite pull it off. New Moon, further down the line was soon extending and led all the way. Otto closed the gap ion the first downwind but split tacks to the left and when they came together New Moon had a commanding lead to win the race from Otto. Enez C'las II again took second after a close battle with Ali Baba (GER 125, Wolf-Eberhard RICHTER, Beata KALKOWSKI, Bernd SELIG), which had some minor gear failure in the first race.
Racing is scheduled to start at the earlier time of 11.00 on Wednesday with strong winds forecast by mid-afternoon. Three races are scheduled.
Racing continues until Friday.
Results after Day 1: (top six, 2 races)
1 New Moon III (BAH 25, Holger KOEHNE, Christoph BURGER, Peter VLASOV) 3pts
2 Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian WILHELMSEN, Herve CUNNINGHAM, Lasse BERTHELSEN) 3pts
3 Enez C'las II (FRA 63, Nicolas ABIVEN, Yann DELABRIERE, Sylvie DELABRIERE) 6pts
4 Artemis XIV (FRA 65, Jean-Jacques LOHEAC, Jerome PICARD, Claude-Alain le GALL) 10pts
5 Ali Baba (GER 125, Wolf-Eberhard RICHTER, Beata KALKOWSKI, Bernd SELIG) 11pts
6 Unicorn (GER 39, Emelie HESSE, Jörg SON NTAG) 12pts
Full gallery available here.
Results available here.
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