505 Euro Cup Series Leg 1 at La Rochelle Nautique, France - Overall

505 Euro Cup Series Leg 1 at La Rochelle © Christophe Favreau / www.christophefavreau.com

The third and final day of the first 505 Euro Cup of 2026 concluded in La Rochelle on Sunday, hosted by La Rochelle Nautique, a lovely club on the West Coast of France. The 42 teams racing have enjoyed tight and interesting racing in varied conditions.

After a breezy, cold and damp first day, followed by a sunny and lighter day 2 we were expecting another sunny and light day for the finale. As it turned out we ended up with better conditions than expected, with sun shine and 7-10 knots of Westerly wind.

The first race of the day and the 8th in total was started by Swiss team of Cedric Bart and Rene Betschen. However, this race being the rabbit was not the winning ticket with the early starters coming out of the left leading around the first mark. A tight battle between overall leaders Jan Phillip Hoffman and Felix Brockerhoff of Germany and Mike Holt and Rob Woelfel from the USA with the Germans coming out on top, third were the fast improving French team of Maxime Paul and Ludovic Roblin.

Race nine followed a similar pattern with the left again coming out on top, Paul Brotherton and James Fawcett of the UK managed to secure their third win of the event but behind them were JP and Felix, a 2nd easily good enough to give them the win with a race to spare. In third were the French team of Herve De Kergariou and Valentin Dechauffour.

With JP and Felix locked in for first the fight in the last race was for the minor places. Having seen the left side of the course pay in the first to races, all of the protagonists opted to start early in the gate, opened by British team of Rob Gullans and Paul Childs. This time the right won, giving Rob and Paul a handy lead at the top mark that they had nl intention of relinquishing. With the leading contenders buried deep in the fleet the race was on to see if anyone could pull through. As it turned out they couldn't and all of them "played" their discard. Following Rob and Paul was Phillippe Boîte and Timothy Chiron from France and in third Timon Treichel and Morten Roos of Germany.

Overall then JP and Felix take round one, followed by Mike and Rob, Paul and James were in third, Howie Hamlin and Jeff Nelson in 4th and Ian Pinnell and Rich Mundell rounded out the top 5.

La Rochelle was a new venue for the 505 class for a Euro Cup and was very popular with competitors, great race management, fun ashore and top facilities. We will be back.

As usual with the 5o5 Class, 2 training days before the racing and daily debriefs and sharing of information on boat set-up, tactics and boat handling, was extremely popular and useful.

Overall Results: