Franck Cammas continues his dominance at C-Class Champs

Falmouth, UK (September 26, 2013) – In light airs and gradually increasing Cornish fog at the 2013 International C-Class Catamaran Championship, three Petit Fleet races were held today in Falmouth Bay followed by two intense match races between Groupama and Hydros 1.  The fog became so thick that racing was ended for the day.

In the Petit Fleet races there was a clean sweep for the North Americans, Canaan and Cogito swapped first and second in race two and three, and Fill Your Hands was victorious in race one.

Franck Cammas continued his dominance of the event, now in match racing against Hydro, his boat foiling to victory in the two races today.

Racing will start tomorrow at 11.00 subject to conditions, with 30 knot winds predicted.

Report by Ken Docherty

This report comes from the Groupama Sailing Team…

After the two sessions of match racing contested this Thursday in Falmouth in the battle for the World C Class Champion title, Franck Cammas and Louis Viat aboard Groupama C weren’t giving the Swiss team on Hydros any chances. Better in the pre-start phase, faster over the course, the French crew secured two bullets with panache.

It now remains to be seen whether or not the strong breeze expected on Friday and Saturday will enable the organisers to launch further races…

In the meantime, let’s not deny ourselves a good thing and give Groupama sailing team the credit it deserves: the ability to design, build, fine tune and then race one of the most fantastic machines to fly across the water: the C Class, a kind of AC72 scaled down to a third.

Indeed, that’s the appeal of this class with its highly restrictive measurement: to give free rein to the talent and imagination of naval architects, engineers and sailors to design the fastest catamarans in the world. The upshot of this is that in just 7 knots of breeze, Groupama C reached the speed of 21 knots, which is three times as fast…

Equipped with foils and a canting wing mast, Franck Cammas’ catamaran hasn’t given its rivals any opportunities. And the Swiss on Hydros can’t say the contrary despite a long night of work yesterday in a bid to adopt some of the ingenious devices seen on Groupama C, such as the canting mast.

It remains to be seen how the wind Gods will behave on Friday and Saturday before we learn if Groupama C will have to compete further or instead wait quietly in port for the latest World C Class Champion title, alias the Little America’s Cup. Indeed, in excess of 20 knots of breeze, the Race Committee won’t be launching any starts, thus respecting the class’ rules, which are not dissimilar to those that prevailed in San Francisco over recent days…

If this is the case, then the results from the three days of fleet racing will prevail.

Quotes from the boats:

Franck Cammas: “It was a great day. Despite our influence upwind, I was also keen to win the start phases. We did just that in both races, which is a good thing. It’s a shame the fog moved in so soon as I’d have really liked to have continued racing“.

Louis Viat: “We won both races by a sizeable margin. We were surprised almost. Franck certainly did a good job before the start. It’s always easier to win when you’re in the lead at the start“.

Match Race Results after 2 races:
1 – Cammas/Viat, Groupama C, 2 points
2 – Besson/Lagarrigue, Hydros 1, 4 points

Petit Fleet Race Results after 3 races:
1 – Guck/Kramers, Cogito, 5 points
2 – Goodreham/Pavey, Canaan, 10 points
3 – Heemskerk/Tentij, Hydros 2, 11 points
4 – Eaton/Clark, Fill Your Hands, 13 points
5 – Bontemps/Gahinet, Patient Lady VI, 14 points
6 – Clarke/Moore, Aethon, 16 points
7 – Phipps/Bader, Invictus, 18 points
8 – Patience/Aviles, Alpha 25 points
9 – Coyola/Baleto, Wild Horse, 29 points

Full Results Here