RUS 27 Wins “Coupe d’Hiver” in Cannes.

Fantastic racing in the west bay of Cannes 3rd-5th Dec.

Yacht Club de Cannes hosted the Coupe d’Hiver at the weekend and despite a few last minute cancellations 12 teams enjoyed a beautiful 5 race regatta in a variety of conditions. The popular innovation of GPS marks are transforming racing around the world, especially in deep water venues. Mark laying is physically demanding at the best of times, so when you have depths that exceed 150+ metres it’s no wonder they occasionally have difficulty setting courses and time consuming adjustments in the past. However, as a participant in Cannes I was extremely impressed by the reliability and pin point positioning of the GPS marks, especially in testing sailing conditions with strong gusts & challenging waves. So many congratulations to President du Comite’ Charles Terrin and his team for an excellent job.

I will just add that the GPS marks are of course not cheap and hire costs must be budgeted into the overall expenses for an event organiser…

The GPS marks in Cannes, owned by MYC, will be used for the IDA Grade 1 in March 2022.

It was good to see a young Irish team amongst the travelling sailors racing Mick Cotter’s classic wooden dragon IRL 460 “Tarasque” helmed by Brian Goggin, crewed by Daniel Murphy & Nelson Moore. Also back in the class after an 8yr break was Dave Atkinson new owner of FRA 420 “Outlaw” (previously owned by Stephane Baseden) sailing with John Outhwaite, Sandy Ranson & John Allen. Another new owner was Marco Andrea Gerbaudo helming his ITA 50 with David Bortoletto & Luca Zuklic. So good to see new sailors joining the class and older ones coming back 🙂

The Coupe d’Hiver fleet react quickly after a new breeze arrived in Race 1.

Leading from the front in all 5 races was the experienced and exceptional well drilled team of RUS 27 “Anapurna” helmed by Anatoly Loginov, crewed by Vadim Statsenko & Alexander Shalagin. Anatoly enjoy’s the atmosphere in Cannes and has always supported Yacht Club de Cannes, who’s President and now also our IDA Chairman Gerard Blanc working hard behind the scenes to make it all happen. With 5 race wins out of 5 there was no stopping “Anapurna”, so many congratulations to Anatoly, Vadim & Alexander.

5 wins from 5 races, RUS 27 were unbeatable in Cannes.

In 2nd place overall was GBR 585 “Full Speed” helmed by myself, crewed by Chris Brittain & Gillian Hamilton. At this stage I not only want to thank Chris & Gilly for getting us around the course but also apologise for not only the electric/battery pump, but also the manual pump failing.. This meant Chris spent a while on each downwind leg bailing out with a bucket.. but we survived and 30 year old “Full Speed” showed it still has what it takes, even if I don’t 🙂

Team “Full Speed” (left) Vadim & Alexander (centre) Ron, Richard & Nigel (right).

3rd was GBR 633 Ron James helming his beautiful cold moulded Borresen “Fei’lins Flirtation”, crewed by Nigel Young & Richard Pernici. Ron continues to support many events and deservedly finds himself on yet another podium, very well done Ron. We all hope to see your wife Julia sailing again in 2022 and hope her recovery from a nasty fall continues to go well.

GBR 633 “Fei’lins Flirtation” 3rd Overall in Cannes.

In closing I would to thank Karine Grene and all the helpers at YCC plus Jehan Lerin for these excellent photographs, check out his website   jehanphoto.com  Lets hope more participants will join Gerard at YCC for their next winter series in January.

This coming weekend has a winter series in Vilamoura 10th – 12th, followed by winter series in Puerto Portals 17th – 19th (who celebrate their 10th anniversary of its Christmas Market). Also the 2nd winter series in San Remo 17-19 Dec….  So I hope International teams will be able to travel, have a great time sailing, then return home safely before Xmas…

Higher, Faster, Longer……   Stavros.