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View of Bénodet taken from the bridge over the river Odet. The boats were stationned in the harbour of the Anse de Penfoul which you can partly see on the left hand side of the picture.
Bénodet is located in Britany near Quimper, between Brest and Lorient.
The first event was the "French open" raced from the 21st to the 24th of August. Then the World's took place on the following week.
Both event were conducted by the excellent Yacht Club de l'Odet (YCO) with a very large team directed by Bernard Billien.
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Due to the tides, going out or coming in the harbour was sometimes tedious sailing or pure pleasure depending how the current would drive you. Seing all those 5.5 on the river Odet made the tourist and bystanders "gasp" with pleasure.
My Shout AUS-82 from Gordon Ingate is passing the lighthouse marking the entrance of the river.
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| Starting line of the French Open. Both event encountered light winds. The locals said this was quite unsual for this time of the year but that nasty heat wave explained everything...
The French open was easily won by Marie-Françoise 15 SUI-204 steered by Juerg Menzi. He ended the serie with an impressing 1 / 1 / 2/ 1, would he do the same during the worlds ? Chaje 3 from Matti Muoniovaara came first of the Classics and the Evolution fleet was led by No Stress SUI-167.
Results: overall / by class
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| Can Artémis chartered by Kristian Nergaard control Addam Cube helmed by Jussi Gullichsen ? In this case the crew solely would do the difference as they both boat are from the same mould and have more or less the same set of sails.
For Jussi leading by one point during the whole championship, this would be the race of his life, his dream... but can he stand the pressure ? Artémis alias NOR-57 is watching for the first mistake to take advantage over FIN-47 and both Swiss Menzi or Schenker are still there able to win !
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Thursday, bloody Thursday...high swell, little to no wind and one endless regatta with puffs here and there.
The show must go on, so keep your course, give those sails as much power as you can so your hull can make it's way through the sea even if you get wet...
Engel Marieke on board Caeskop NED-9 is about to get wet, but she doesn't mind she wants here boat to come round the buoy as fast as possible and hoist the spinnaker as smoothly as possible.
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| The nice thing about the swell with no wind is for the photographer only, he has time to adjust the framing, make the picture clear and click !
For the crews it is another story...as the inner temperature rises suddenly you have to be at your best to keep that damn chute flying as long and as high as you can.
Tosh(Patrick Huguenin) crew member on board Fortuna SUI-195 is doing exactly that, his helmsman is Christian Wahl twice world champion in 91 Sydney and 92 in Nassau with Chlika-Chlika SUI-169, the boat that changed the 5.5.
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| Monday was election day ! Hans Nadorp from the Netherlands accepted to take over the presidency of the International 5.5 Class from Tomi Sprecher. Good luck Hans and thank you Tomi for your work, now you are a honorary President of the 5.5 class !
Hans is a very active sailor, sailing his Maitresse NED-26 at every championship.
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| NED-33 ONVERMIJDELIJK from Jan Gelderen and Whisper SUI-143 from the Evolution Class are both sailing past the latest 5.5 built, the NED-34 34ever, She was designed by Van de Stadt and built in the Netherlands by Yacht Dimension. Her crew retired early from the world championship as they had to get back to work...
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SUI-115 Sunrise from the Swiss fleet is one very successful boat, she was swiss champion many time under name Mayflower. She is a typical design from Britton Chance and she was beautifully built by Herman Egger in St-Aubin. She won the Evolution Class after a hard fight against Whisper SUI-143. Helmsman is Fréderic de Rutté from Morges
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| Until the last race, the outcome of the Worldchampionship was undecided, Nergaard or Gullichsen ? After a nerve breaking race for both crews, Kristian was able to keep the fins under control and gain the world tittle for the third time (93/Hanko & 96/Muiden). On the picture you can see Mark Covell (left), Kristian Nergaard (center) and Peter Hauff (right).
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| 11 th overall and first boat in the Evolution division, Sunrise proved to be very fast against the modern design.
Left: Fréderic de Rutté, center: Fréderic Saudan (Saudannet), right:MC GILLYCUDDY Mathieu
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| The team of Cibèle II ITA-72 was very proud of this tittle as they won about everything in the Classics except the Gold Cup. They are first of their local championship on lake Maggiore, they won the Swiss Championship and now this tittle ! Luca made some major investments on his boat and it paid off...
Team composition: LOCAM Marco, GHIRINGHELLI Gian Luca, CHIRIELEISON Luca
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Overall standings after seven races
Results for the Modern Division
Results for the Evolution Division
Results for the Classic Division
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Out of 39 boats registred 36 have been checked and found in agreement with
the 5.5m rules. Three boats decide not to participate (not for measurement
reason!).
10 yachts have been weighted and found inline with their specific weight in
their certificate.
8 yachts have had their mid-ship freeboard checked, none of them has been
found as lighter as on the certificate (Local water density has been
assessed as 1.016 kg/dm3 versus 1.025 as defined in the rule, what
corresponds to boats floating 2 mm deeper) .
3 masts (carbon) have been checked, one of them have to add 0.2 kg of lead
at the top.
On each boat, the length of the spinnaker boom installed has been chequed,
two boats had to get a shorter spi boom.
On each boat the position of the mark on the boom has been checked, four
boats had to mark it or adjust it.
On several boat (when the measurer has a doubt!) additional measures such as
boom height, or J have been checked, no errors have been observed.
Six unmeasured sails have been measured.
In additional to the physical measures, all certificates have been checked
for calculation error, correct boat ownership and validity.
Several errors have been spotted and corrected
Certificates needing renewal have been re-validated, a copy will be mailed
to each specific owner.
