New pairing sail to victory at Eurocat 2009 in Carnac
by Hugh Styles 4 May 2009 08:54 BST
1-3 May 2009
Styles and Van West win
Hugh Styles and Ferdinand Van West clinched the 2009 Carnac Yacht Club Eurocat regatta with a race to spare after a great event over the last 3 days. The event was sailed in a variety of conditions; 0-15 knots and plenty of wind changes. The new pairing had only started sailing together 4 days before the event and showed excellent speed in the range of conditions with only first and second places to count the pair won by a good margin.
The Friday saw a building breeze and the 120 Formula 18 catamarans racing in 2 fleets. With the North Westerly wind blowing at around 8 knots the race officer got 4 good races away after a couple of general recalls each time.
Styles and Van West started their bid for the event with an emphatic win in their first race, as did double Olympic Silver medallist Darren Bundock and Glen Ashby. Second in either fleet was JC Mourniac with Alexandre Guyader and Rob Wilson with Marcus Lynch.
The second race was a tightly contested affair, with Styles, Bundock, Mitch
Booth and Billy Besson all racing in the same fleet. The first beat was
close with Bundock and Booth round slightly ahead of Styles, but they did
not remain ahead for long as Styles and Van West reeled them in to lead at
the bottom mark, never to be headed again. In the other fleet JC Mourniac
was first with Emannuel Bologne second.
Race three and more wind, the NACRA INFUSION of Styles and Van West was
proving to be very fast, but Mischa Heemskerk and Bastian Tentij were equal
to the challenge and both teams had a tough fight all the way through the
race. Styles Passed Heemskerk down the last downwind, but a bad gybe dropped
ground and Heemskerk came through to claim the win at the finish. Fleet 2
saw another win for Bundock, from JC Mourniac in Second, and the overall
positions were very tight for the lead.
The fourth race was tough as some of the top teams had a bad race, but not
for Styles and Van West, who lead from the start with Mitch Booth in Second
and JC Mourniac in 6th, the first chink in their armour. In the other fleet
Andrew Macpherson and Herbert Derksen won the race from Mischa Heemskerk
whilst Bundock had a bad race with a 6th and his discard over night.
Saturday saw the raid of Carnac, long distance race which took in racing
round the island of Houat, a 4.5 hour race in the bay of Quiberon. It was a
light winds affair and after waiting for the wind racing started at 2pm. 400
boats all on a gate start was very hectic, but by the first mark the M20 of
Will sunnucks was in the lead and then a pack of 6 F18 chasing hard, with JC
Mourniac in the front and Bundock just behind. This continued until the
upwind back from the island when the Gurvan Bontemps turned on the speed and
pulled out a massive lead from the Mourniac and Bundock, but Styles and Van
West were closing in and passed into second place at the last gate.
Sunday was a windless affair to start with and a 2 hour postponement meant
only 2 races for the F18 fleet. Styles and Van West turned on the speed
again and after a cracking start they lead the fleet by a comfortable margin
at mark one and then when the wind shut off in the second upwind they
maintained their advantage all the way to the line to take the race and the
overall F18 title for Eurocat 2009. Bundock could only manage a 9th and this
relegated him to 3rd overall with JC Mourniac in the other fleet finishing
strongly with a win. This left the overall standings with Styles and Van
West on their Nacra Infusion with a win with the race to spare, but they
raced and finished 2nd their discard for the regatta. It was then down to
the last race for the other placing¹s and it was JC Mourniac who clinched
2nd overall from Bundock 3rd with Billy Besson 4th and Mitch Booth in 5th.
A regatta which had great variety of good sailing conditions and the long distance race Raid as something different and a good testing affair. Everyone should be looking forward to coming back to do the event next year. Next is onto Extreme 40 racing on the iShares X40 for the first event in
Venice in 10 days time of the 6 iShares Cup events in 2009.
Many thanks to all of Team Styles and Van West sponsors and supporters, without it we would not have been able to have won so convincingly this event. Many thanks to Boskalis and Nacra Europe for the boat and helping get the team prepared. To Fat Face for their great clothing and gear supply for
Hugh Styles. Many thanks to Towergate Mardon for their assistance with insurance services, Gill for the sailing clothing and Holt, Marlow and Tacktick for their help with hardware.