In This Issue
• Early lead for Cannonball and Wallyno at Rolex Giraglia
• 11th Hour Racing Team and WindWhisper Racing earn crucial wins
• 84th Bol d'Or Mirabaud
• Inoui Crowned Winner At Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta
• Wetsuit Outlet and Zhik International Moth UK Open Championship
• What Is Known About The Kevin Escoffier Case
• Alla Grande Pirelli Wins Normandy Channel Race
• Cup Spy: Italians return, Brits cop a seaway surprise
• Switzerland SailGP Team Ready For Season 4 Take Off
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Southern Wind 78 Elise Whisper
• • Bavaria C46
• • Neo 570c
• The Last Word: Richard Feynman

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Early lead for Cannonball and Wallyno at Rolex Giraglia
Benoit de Froidmont steers Wallyno across the Saint-Tropez finish line to take first place in Maxi 2 today. Photo: ROLEX / Studio Borlenghi. Click on image to enlarge.

The rain held off and the wind filled in just enough for a 19 mile race to be held on the opening day of inshore racing out of Saint-Tropez at Rolex Giraglia, organised by the Yacht Club Italiano in collaboration with the Yacht Club Sanremo and Societe Nautique de Saint-Tropez.

The race committee, including Ariane Mainemare, the International Maxi Association's race officer for this regatta, deliberately set a short course due to the light forecast. With the wind at start time in the east-northeast, a start-finish line was set immediately off the Port de Saint-Tropez with a windward start before the 184-strong fleet, including 21 maxi yachts of 60-100ft LOA, exited the Golfe de Saint-Tropez on an six leg course including two reaching legs. During the race competitors saw only marginally more than eight knots but had to deal with a massive shift in the wind between 060 and 120 degrees.

At the start the boldest move was taken by Dario Ferrari's Cannonball, which, despite the pin being favoured by 20 degrees, started by the race committee boat and was first to tack on to port.

The great start enabled the white 75 footer to win under IRC by a sizable 11 minutes 27 seconds from Peter Dubens' 72ft IMA Maxi European Championship winner, North Star, with the Wallycento Galateia, being campaigned here by her new co-owner Chris Flowers, third and first among the 100 footers.

On the run the highest rated yacht here under IRC, Peter Harburg's 100ft Black Jack, was getting back into it after a start line incident had resulted in her having to make a penalty turn. As her Australian tactician Adam Beashel put it: "We were mid-line so trying to do a turn was a big manoeuvre in a 100 footer - that left us on the back foot. We went into recovery mode after that." n. "It was a great result for Chris Flowers on his first outing."

In the Maxi 2 class, Benoit de Froidmont's Wallyno and Dario Castiglia's Baltic 65 RE/MAX One2 were the stand-out maxis today with the International Maxi Association President's Wally 60 winning the class by 5:37 under IRC from RE/MAX One2 with Adriano Calvini's double Rolex Giraglia offshore race winning Felci 61 Itacentodue third, behind second by more than 10 minutes. -- James Boyd / International Maxi Association

rolexgiraglia.com

internationalmaxiassociation.com

11th Hour Racing Team and WindWhisper Racing earn crucial wins
The result was in doubt until the final moments of leg 6, with 11th Hour Racing Team along with Team Holcim-PRB and Team Malizia racing within shouting distance of each other during most of Sunday morning.

The final approach to The Hague required one short upwind section where the boats were criss-crossing within metres with each tack, but skipper Charlie Enright's 11th Hour Racing Team held their nerve and made the final turn south with a small lead they would manage to hold through the finishing line.

Just 12 minutes behind, Team Holcim-PRB crossed the finishing line after fending off a late charge from Team Malizia who crossed just over a minute later. The top three boats in the fleet were within 15 minutes.

Not far behind the leading trio, Paul Meilhat's Biotherm secured a fourth place finish over Benjamin Dutreux and his team on GUYOT evironnement-Team Europe, who returned to for the race to The Hague following a dismasting on leg 4.

In the VO65s, WindWhisper Racing Team stretched their lead at the top of the table as the fleet returned for the second stage of the VO65 Sprint.

It's two wins in a row for the team, after a victory in stage one from Alicante to Cabo Verde in January.

IMOCA Scoreboard after Leg 6 :
1. 11th Hour Racing Team -- 33 points
2. Team Holcim-PRB -- 31 points
3. Team Malizia -- 27 points
4. Biotherm -- 19 points
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe -- 2 points

VO65 Scoreboard after Stage 2:
1. WindWhisper Racing Team -- 12 points
2. Team JAJO -- 9 points
3. Austrian Ocean Racing powered by Team Genova -- 7 points
4. Mirpuri/Trifork Racing Team -- 5 points
5. Viva Mexico -- 4 points
6. Ambersail 2 -- 3 points

theoceanrace.com

84th Bol d'Or Mirabaud
Swiss sailing's flagship regatta took place this weekend from the Societe Nautique de Genève. It was won by Christian Wahl and his crew, including the Sailing Squad, aboard Double You Team.

Winner of the Bol d'Or Mirabaud, Christian Wahl has definitively conquered the Bol d'Or Challenge, awarded to the skipper who wins three editions of the race in five years. Wahl is the fourth owner to win this prestigious Challenge over the history of the race. He joins the prestigious lineage made up of:

1963: Horace Julliard, aboard the 8m JI Marie-Jose II, now known as Le Tigre, helmed at the time by Henri Copponex.
1984: Altair XI, owned by Philippe Stern, helmed by Phil Durr.
2001: Alinghi 'Black', owned by Ernesto Bertarelli and co-skippered by Pierre-Yves Jorand.

SMN, skippered by Victor Casas, won the Bol d'Or Mirabaud in its class, a week after its victory in Geneva-Rolle-Geneva. The experience of helmsman Didier Pfister, combined with the talent of young sailors from the Centre d'Entrainement a la Regate (CER), enabled the team to challenge - and beat - all TF 35s aboard his smaller catamaran designed 19 years ago. Patrimonium, helmed by Loic Preitner, finished less than a minute behind, second in the M2 class and third overall.

Already the winner in 2019, 2021 and 2022, the Libera Raffica, designed by the legendary Bruce Farr in the 1980s, remains unbeatable. It has won its eleventh Bol de Vermeil since 1996. With a length of 12.70 meters, a weight of 1.5 tonne and 400 sqm sail size, she is as impressive as ever with her fifteen crew members, including ten on the trapeze.

Second in the monohull ranking, the Psaros 40 Cellmen Ardentis is also an 'old' boat, designed in 2002. She shone throughout the weekend and led most of the race before giving in. Cellmen finished ahead of Jean Psarofaghis, who made extensive modifications to his Psaros 40 over the winter in order to be in a position to challenge Raffica, alas without success. Finally, Thomas Jundt finished a very fine fourth on his QFX.

boldormirabaud.ch

Inoui Crowned Winner At Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta
Photo by Ingrid Abery, www.ingridabery.com. Click on image for photo gallery.

Porto Cervo, Italy: On the fourth and final day of the Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta, the forecast breeze failed to arrive on the race course. As the expected westerly wind did not materialise in the late morning, the Race Committee postponed the start for both the Superyacht and Southern Wind divisions several times, right up until 1.30 p.m., when the Committee Boat was forced to signal that there would be no further racing.

The classification remained, therefore, unchanged compared to yesterday, with Inoui, a 108-footer owned by Switzerland's Marco Vogele, claiming the Silver Jubilee Cup, reserved for the winner in the Superyacht Cruising Class. In second place, just two points behind, was the Baltic 108 Win Win, and in third place - four points behind the victor - was the 33-metre Pattoo. Marco Vogele also took home the YCCS Trophy for the top-scoring member of the Club in the event.

With the WallyCento V and Inoui sitting on equal points in the Combined Performance & Cruising Class, the tie was broken on countback. With two races won, V therefore triumphed over Inoui, with Win Win in third place, two points behind.

yccs.com

Wetsuit Outlet and Zhik International Moth UK Open Championship
While we all hoped that the wind on Friday was going to be a solid 15 knots, and all the forecasts suggested as much, Easterly winds on the south coast of the UK are notoriously unreliable.

After Thursday's jam-packed schedule of eight races, only three were possible on the final day of the Wetsuit Outlet and Zhik International Moth UK Open Championship which, due to the racing being held in flights, meant that the final race for Yellow Fleet in the morning had to be scrubbed from the results to make sure everyone had done the same number of races.

Jacob Pye, the young Kiwi from Manly Sailing Club, managed to hold off the charge from Tom Burton and seal the event win by a single point, thanks to a second placed finish in Yellow Fleet race 5. While Burton won Blue Fleet's only race of the day, and won three races in total, it wasn't quite enough to overhaul Pye.

Final top ten
1. Jacob Pye, NZL, 12
2. Tom Burton, AUS, 13
3. Joan Cardona, ESP, 22
4. Jean‑Baptiste Berna, FRA, 26
5. Eddie Bridle, GBR, 28
6. Henry Haslett, NZL, 31
7. David Hivey, GBR, 38
8. Jack Ferguson, AUS, 39
9. Kyle Stoneham, GBR, 41
10. Simone Salva, ITA, 47

Full results

What Is Known About The Kevin Escoffier Case
Last weekend out of the blue Kevin Escoffier announced that he was stepping down as skipper of Holcim-PRB for the final weeks of The Ocean Race following an "alleged incident" with a woman from his team in Newport before the start of the fifth stage. Since then the French Sailing Federation has taken up the case, Tip & Shaft took stock of this sensitive matter.

The story starts on the evening of Monday May 15 in Newport, when the Holcim-PRB team is about to complete the logistical challenge of starting the fifth leg of The Ocean Race after dismasting off Brazil some three weeks earlier. Several members of the teams meet at a local bar, The Fastnet Pub. Then an "incident" involving Kevin Escoffier and a young woman from the team then occurs.

Nothing filters out from the moment, and the crew meets the next day in the early morning for the daily sports session. But more and more insistent rumors, which Tip & Shaft heard then, were circulating about this incident whilst Holcim-PRB were at sea during the fifth leg which started from Newport on May 21. The leg was won on May 29 in Aahrus by 11th Hour Racing Team ahead of Kevin Escoffier's crew. In Denmark, the case continues to have people talking; it is mentioned collectively within the team as the skipper will recognize later in an interview given on June 6 to L'equipe and Ouest-France.

It grows to the point that last Saturday Escoffier decides, on the eve of the in-port of Aarhus, to stand down and give up his participation in The Ocean Race, talking on his Instagram account of "an alleged incident". A press release from the team at the same time reveals the composition of the crew for the sixth stage. It does not mention Escoffier.

Read more in Tip & Shaft

Alla Grande Pirelli Wins Normandy Channel Race
After an impassioned struggle around Le Raz Blanchard and a final sprint across the Baie de Seine, ultimately victory went to the Class40 Alla Grande Pirelli (181) in this 14th edition of the CIC Normandy Channel Race. Skippers Ambrogio Beccaria and Kevin Bloch crossed the finish at 04 hours 18 minutes and 01 UTC. They finished just 33 minutes and 50 seconds ahead of Credit Mutuel. Ian Lipinski and Antoine Carpentier secure silver in this race of uncompromising intensity from beginning to end.

Despite the fleet remaining very compact as the skippers constantly jockeyed for position throughout the course from France's north coast, across the English Channel and down the south coast of England and then Ireland, via Tuskar Rock and the Fastnet and back to north-east France, the Italo-French duo has constantly been at the front of the pack.

Only once the Scilly Isles was behind them on the sprint for home that the face of the race changed. Already shattered by a full-on descent of the Celtic Sea and an intense struggle, the sailors were scooped up by a sustained and vigorous NE'ly wind, which punched into them with all its force and tried to catch them out with up to 36-knot gusts, amidst a backdrop of hard to manage heavy seas. In a final affront, they had to contend with a strenuous climb up the English Channel to Ouistreham, which saw them having to snake around the Channel Islands and along Le Raz Blanchard. Today's winner negotiated these two tricky sections with incredible finesse and courage right to the last.

A much deserved second place went to Ian Lipinski and Corentin Douguet, who posted a splendid start and were also at the front of the pack throughout the race.

The Class40 Legallais (190) skippered by Fabien Delahaye and Corentin Douguet, completes the podium. -- Sirius Events

normandy-race.com/en/

Cup Spy: Italians return, Brits cop a seaway surprise, Kiwis enjoy a late summer's day.
The British, Italian and New Zealand teams sailed today - all in their LEQ12's with the Kiwis being the only ones to indulge in some two boat testing. The Brits struck some Barcelona type sea-states. The Italians returned after a 10 day absence.

What happened in the Cup - June 7 & 8 (NZ), 2023:

INEOS Britannia sailed their test boat T6 off Palma, taking on a building breeze and seaway, looking for some Barcelona like conditions - and found them - with the dry tack/gybe success percentage dropping below previous flat water sessions.

Luna Rossa sailed out of Cagliari for the first time in 10 days. Team boss Max Sirena was aboard. Some changes have been made to the wing foil and cockpits of their LEQ12 test boat.

Emirates Team New Zealand resumed two boat testing and match racing off Takapuna Beach. Nathan Outteridge outlined the team's program and transition into Barcelona - covering the next month. The first group leaves Saturday.

American Magic, last sailed on March 10, from Pensacola Fl, and is expected to be sailing from Barcelona around June 22.

Alinghi Red Bull Racing did not sail

No further news from the Orient Express Team (formerly K-Challenge).

Richard Gladwell's full report in Sail-World.com

Switzerland SailGP Team Ready For Season 4 Take Off
Friday 9 June Switzerland SailGP Team were back on board its cutting-edge F50 'Eiger' and back on the racetrack next week, at the opening event of SailGP Season 4; Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix in Chicago at Navy Pier, 16-17 June. Season 4 will start on the iconic Lake Michigan and culminate once again in San Francisco Bay for the Season Grand Final, July 13-14, 2024.

For Season 4 the Swiss, led on the water by Geneva's Sebastien Schneiter, will no longer be the newest team racing in the league. Germany SailGP Team launched earlier this month with F1 World Champion, Sebastian Vettel as co-investor.

After Chicago the fleet will head to the west coast to race at the inaugural Los Angeles Sail Grand Prix (July 22-23). The league then heads closer to home with the European leg and events in France (9-10 September), Italy (23-24 September) followed by a return to Cadiz, in Andalucia, Spain (14-15 October).

It will be the third time Saint-Tropez hosts the SailGP racing and last year the teams broke speed records on the Azur racetrack, hitting close to 100 km/h. Click for the full Season 4 calendar.

The Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix | Navy Pier Chicago takes place on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 June. Racing is from 4 - 5.30pm local time (CDT), 11pm - 12:30am CEST.

Switzerland Sailgp Team Chicago Line Up //
Sebastien Schneiter (SUI) - driver
Glenn Ashby (AUS) - sailing advisor and reserve wing trimmer
Will Ryan (AUS) - wing trimmer
Jason Saunders (NZL) - flight controller
Laurane Mettraux (SUI) - strategist
Julien Rolaz (SUI) - grinder
Jeremy Bachelin (SUI) - grinder
Guy Endean (NZL) - grinder

SailGP Season 4 Schedule //

2023 June 16-17 // Rolex United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago at Navy Pier
July 22-23 // United States Sail Grand Prix | Los Angeles
September 9-10 // France Sail Grand Prix | Saint-Tropez
September 23-24 // Italy Sail Grand Prix | Taranto
October 14-15 // Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucia-Cadiz

2024 January 13-14 // UAE Sail Grand Prix | Venue to be announced
February 24-25 // KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney
March 23-24 // ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Auckland
May 4-5 // Bermuda Sail Grand Prix
June 1-2 // Canada Sail Grand Prix | Venue to be announced
June 22-23 // United States Sail Grand Prix | New York
July 13-14 // SailGP Season 4 Grand Final | San Francisco

sailgp.com

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The Last Word
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