The Centenarians look good
The 38th Régates Royales de Cannes -Trophée Panerai celebrated the anniversary of some of the oldest yachts on the international circuit: Nan of Fife and Eva at 120 and 110 years old, or the two New York 40s Chinook and Rowdy that just turned centenarian.
Day 3 was a beautiful, albeit pretty complicated day for the 150 boats taking part in the event. Thanks to south-easterly breeze in the bay of La Napoule and in the Juan gulf, the classics, the Dragons and the 5.5 Metres all had good, close racing.
The game is not over for the classics, though it possibly is for the Dragons that have raced eight races already and had three today in a good south-easterly that veered to the south and increased, enabling the Dragons to exploit their full potential. The leaderboard is taking a more defined shape and it looks like it will be a duel between the Germans on Smaug and the Russians on Annapurna, despite some other surprising crews like Estonia's Vitamin-One that won today's first match, despite a very bad start at the Régates Royales.
Russian veteran Anatoly Loginov won the second race with ease in front of the German crew of Powwow, scoring a break point before the last match of the day because both Smaug and Even Better had a bad race, whilst the UK's Storm bounced back and climbed on the third step of the provisional podium. The updated overall results will be available later tonight.
The Masters of the Metre class
The 5.5 Metre class benefitted from a great day on the water, with a good south-easterly that enabled them to complete three races. Taking advantage of the occasional sudden gust on the race course, Germany’s Prettynama (that also won last week's Régate en Mer de la Société Nautique de Genève) showed its predilection for the stronger breeze, as did compatriots Atari and Silver Fox that finished in 2nd and 7th respectively in the first match of the day. The second race went to Hannes Waimer, Markus Koy and Diego Negri on Atari, who climbed into first place on the overall leaderboard. Close racing was on the menu for the third race with four teams on top: Atari (GER-6 points), Société Nautique de Genève (SUI-7 points), Feng Shui (NED-8 points) and Prettynama (GER-8 points).
Sentimental waves
For once David beat Goliath... The weather forecast for today in the bay of La Napoule was for light wind, while to the crews' joy it blew stronger than expected, with twelve to fifteen knots. After a short postponement, the race committee fired the starting signal for the day's race on a one-lap triangular coastal course. Unfortunately, shortly after the start of the Classics, the UK's Outlaw and Spain's Giraldilla collided. Nobody was injured but the two boats were forced to go back into port to evaluate the damage.
In the 12 Metre class, France was once again beaten by her sparring partner Sovereign that managed to squeeze inside the downwind mark, just a few metres away from the finish line and cross in first place. With another win for the crew skippered by Claude Perdriel. their adversaries will not catch up so easily.