2024 5.5 Metre French Open at the Regates Royales in Cannes - Overall
by Robert Deaves 28 Sep 11:37 NZST
21-28 September 2024
Beta Crucis (AUS 63, Martin CROSS, Bob STODDARD, John CROSS) has won the 5.5 Metre French Open after an eventful final day in Cannes in some spectacular conditions. They won the only race completed on Friday to win another title for Australia this summer.
Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian WILHELMSEN, Herve CUNNINGHAM, Kyle GUNDERSEN) spent most of the race in third, and nearly took the win with all three top boats overlapped at the finish.
Skylla V (SUI 217, Andre BERNHEIM, Mark BUCHECKER, Urs WERNER) led the final race from a great port tack start to the last gate, but lost by less than a boatlength and ended up third overall.
The forecast was a big breeze, but it started to die soon after the start. Then a rogue mark left behind by the classic fleet caused confusion with the fleet heading in two directions, so shortly after was abandoned.
By the time it was restarted, the breeze was building and it was the closest race of the week with the top three boats together all the way round. Skylla V port tacked the fleet and held a good lead at some stages, but was ground down and passed by Beta Crucis on the final leg with Otto just second behind.
A second race was contemplated, but the wind was increasing and the forecast was for much more to come in, so the fleet was sent back to the harbour with just one more race completed.
So, Beta Crucis wins the French Open with straight first places. It has been a. challenging week with days lots due to strong winds and no wind, but also a great atmosphere in the fleet and most will return next year or soon after.
Kyle Gundersen, on Otto, was only sailing his second 5.5 Metre regatta after stepping in for Lasse Berthelsen at short notice for a few days the World Championship in Benodet.
Originally from New Zealand, and now living in Seattle, USA, Kyle worked his way though many classes, before focussing on race management in the last two America's Cups and Sail GP. "So, I stepped away from sailing a bit but have been sailing more performance boats such as cats where systems are more important, but the systems still have to work."
"I've known Lasse for many years and they needed some help getting the boat together and making some changes, and so I came in and helped out before the worlds, and came down to this one knowing I was also going to help out with some Etchells stuff, so it made sense to get into the team and feel how the boat sails. Every boat is a bit different.
"Benodet was my first time in a 5.5 and it was an eye-opening experience. A lot of complicated systems but also a lot of thought-out systems that have progressed over time. The boats are very tweaky, but good in the way you can manipulate them in multiple ways. It's very different to sail a boat that has so much righting moment that just being off the rail for a second is not major, so that's different from sailing a light displacement boat, and there is a lot going on.
"And it's a lot of fun, a good group of people and close racing. I was very impressed in Benodet how close the Classics were to the Evolutions and the Moderns and lot of credit to the guys sailing them. They've brought them a long way from where there used to be back in the day.
"There is a good group of people sailing the boat and they are quite forgiving in a way, but you can also be half a knot off the pace and not even realise it."
Some more 5.5 sailing in the future? "Depends on what happens. I'd like to do some more 5.5 sailing. We go from here to sail the Etchells in Miami, and a lot of the same systems utilised on the boats are also used on Etchells, so we'll set up the boat for the winter season and go from there."
Beta Crucis has become the second Australian team to win a major European event this summer after John Bacon won the world championship in Benodet, France, three weeks ago.
He said, "It has been an amazing event, with a few challenges with the weather but a beautiful regatta, as they always are in this part of the world. Obviously we are very pleased to have come all the way from Australia and win, and we had a bit of success this year with two boats winning races at the worlds and one boat winning the worlds, and we've done well here and that's encouraging and will hopefully encourage more people in Australia to come and sail in these wonderful craft."
Today "It was a funny race and we were obviously conscious of our position and we sailed quite conservatively, but the rest of them were going for it. Going down the last run we got overtaken and the other boat was just behind so everyone was lining up. Then we came to a gybe to go to the finish and we were lucky that we already had our rig back, so gybed with full rig ad spinnaker down and managed to gybe inside Andre (Skylla V) and managed to just to sneak across the line ahead of them. We were quite lucky. And I think we all finished within five seconds of each other
"This is my third time here and I've always enjoyed it. I like it because it has the nice flavour between the competitive side, with normally wonderful sailing every day, but still a fantastic place to sail. I came here for the first time in 1976, and always had a soft spot for Cannes, so will almost certainly be back."
Overall Results:
1 Beta Crucis (AUS 63, Martin CROSS, Bob STODDARD, John CROSS) 3pts
2 Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian WILHELMSEN, Herve CUNNINGHAM, Kyle GUNDERSEN) 7pts
3 Skylla V (SUI 217, Andre BERNHEIM, Mark BUCHECKER, Urs WERNER) 8pts
4 Ali Baba (GER 125, Wolf-Eberhard RICHTER, Beata KALLKOWSKI, Bernd SELIG) 13pts
5 Ali Baba in black (GER 84, Andreas HAUBOLD, Martina KLEMMT, Daniel BRAMBEER) 16pts
6 Singora (GER 37, Hans KOSTER, Mine KOSTER, Thore KIESBYE) 16pts
Full results available here.
All photos available here.