Extremely stressful week here at the Corinthian J/70 World Championship. Plenty of downs, but one very big up on the final day.
Marseille did what Marseille usually does in July: being unbearably hot. That hadn’t changed since the last time I raced here back in 2015 in Optis. What I also remembered from back then was the Mistral. To this day, I have never raced in as much wind as I did during that regatta, so naturally I arrived expecting strong winds again this year.
But the wind didn’t quite deliver.
What did deliver was the fleet size. We had 90 boats on a single start line, which made for some incredible racing and a level of competition that is hard to describe.
We started the championship with an 11th place in the opening race. The feeling on board was good and it felt like we had the potential for even more.
Day two started even better. In a very light-air race, we rounded the first downwind gate inside the top ten. Then everything fell apart.
Suddenly our boatspeed disappeared. We were being overtaken left and right. Looking back, it was probably a combination of seaweed and poor trim, but at the time we had no idea how to fix it. We lost around 35 positions and eventually finished 45th. For me personally, it was one of the most frustrating races I have ever sailed.
After that setback, we slowly fought our way back up the leaderboard.
As one of the leading teams in the Corinthian Young Crew category, we were selected for a measurement inspection. The boat was completely compliant, but our class declaration certificate was still registered under the previous owner’s name. A purely administrative issue, but one that nevertheless resulted in a DPI penalty.
That set up a very tense final day.
Going into the last race, we were sitting second in the Young Crew standings, eight points behind the leaders. We nailed the start, sailed one of our best races of the week, and crossed the line in 4th place.
One moment from that race will stay with me for a long time: looking back from 4th place on the downwind and seeing 84 boats chasing you. That’s a pretty crazy feeling.
That result was enough to secure our first world title and crown us
Corinthian J/70 Young Crew World Champions.
A pretty special way to finish our first World Championship.
In the end, we finished 20th overall. Considering we carried both a DSQ and a DPI through the regatta, we can’t help but feel there was even more in the tank.
But for now, we’ll happily take a world title;)
SIMONSAILS 