(La Trinite sur Mer, France)- As hosts of the 2013 J/80 Worlds in Marseilles, France, it's pretty clear the French J/80 Class is determined to put on a good showing not just as hosts, but as competitors to dethrone the Spanish from winning yet another J/80 Worlds since 2007! While a formidable challenge, many French teams are capable of winning a world's at this level and at the last two Worlds in Dartmouth, England and Copenhagen, Denmark some of the French teams were on the cusp of taking the podium.Looking forward to the Marseille Worlds, several fleets in France have already embarked on training programs to improve their overall performance. In La Trinite, they held the fifth edition of the "Casino Partouche" to focus on training all the teams in the fine-art of sailing a J/80 fast across a broad range of weather conditions. With eighteen teams participating, the crews enjoyed ENE winds from 8-12 kts on Saturday and more ENE winds ranging from 5-20 kts on Sunday with a bit of chill in the air.
After training and boat-handling, boat-speed drills on Saturday, all the crews sailed four races on Sunday. In the end the top five teams included, AXELLE J (Damien Zucconi), GREEN SAILS (Julien Bourgeois), CHARLY (Pierre Metais), IMAJINATION (Erwan Gourdon) and JIBI (Yannick Tabarly).
There are two more stops on the training/ racing tour named after their primary sponsors, including:
- March 16-17- "Armor-Lux"
- March 23-24- "The ZING Cafe"
For more information, please contact Arnaud Walter / Arno Skipper on ph# +33-0669-582121 or email- arnoskipper@yahoo.fr For more J/80 French Class training/ racing programs
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