Back from the Grand Prix de Marseille, Erwan Le Roux could not pass up on the chance to get his own back after the results of the Spi Ouest France. A couple of telephone calls later and he had put together his crew to race the Gitana Pin’s. With Mathieu Tatibouët on tactics, Richard Loncle and Laurent Bourgues from the shore team and Ludovic Aglaor from the Trophée Jules Verne to complete the line-up, at 385 kg the crew was light compared to her fellow competitors and under the maximum authorised weight of 420 kg, not an advantage once wind speed exceeds ten knots. But as it turned out, light air prevailed the weekend of 2nd–3rd July where fourteen one designs – an almost identical line-up to that of the Spi Ouest France competed. A top level competition Jean-Pierre Dick was back from the Vendée Globe, Philippe Legros, current French match-racing champion, Nicolas Groleau class leader, Marc Guillemot…
Gitana Pin’s got down to business from the word go, winning a round in fickle and light air, with strong wind shifts which were difficult to handle. The five rounds raced on Saturday were hard from a technical point of view in a westerly wind of no more than 8 knots. At the end of the first day, Gitana Pin’s found herself in the lead of the provisional rankings after five rounds! Sunday morning was marked by the same variable conditions, and light air. Erwan Le Roux and his crew were always in the top three along with Jean-Pierre Dick and Philippe Legros who were attacking hard. When the breeze picked up in the afternoon, Gitana Pin’s was not quite so much at home (8th and 10th) before getting back into the running to finish the tenth round in fourth position. A scoreboard which kept Gitana Pin’s in second place overall. Not bad at all when you consider that Erwan Le Roux had put his team together at the last minute and had had little or no time to train. An encouraging result for the Gitana Team demonstrating that the crew appreciate other disciplines, along the same lines as Yann Guichard who finished fifth in June in the World Tornado Championship in La Rochelle.
Overall rankings of the National Open 7.50 (after ten rounds, worst two discarded)
1 VIRBAC-PAPREC Jean-Pierre Dick (2.00 1.00 2.00 (6.00) 3.00 2.00 2.00 (6.00) 4.00 1.00) 17.00 points
2 GITANA PIN’S Erwan Leroux (1.00 3.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 (8.00) (10.00) 4.00) 19.00 points
3 COINCIDENCES Philippe Legros (15.00) (7.00) 3.00 1.00 7.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 2.00) 21.00 points
4 VECTEUR PLUS Marc Guillemot (15.00) 4.00 (9.00) 7.00 1.00 6.00 6.00 2.00 5.00 6.00) 37.00 points
5 KERVILOR VANEK E. Nisin/C. Belbeoc’h (15.00) 2.00 8.00 8.00 4.00 5.00 5.00 (13.00) 1.00 8.00) 41.00 points
6 ADONNANTE.COM Nicolas Groleau (7.00 (12.00) 4.00 5.00 5.00 9.00 9.00 (10.00) 2.00 3.00) 44.00 points
7 IMMOBILIER MOCQUARD WHISKY CLUB Daniel Le Mené (3.00 6.00 6.00 (13.00) 10.00 8.00 8.00 1.00 9.00 (11.00) 51.00 points
8 OUEST.JOB.COM Christophe Letourneur (9.00 9.00 5.00 3.00 (13.00) 4.00 11.00 4.00 (12.00) 7.00) 52.00 points
9 AQUACULTURE JAOUEN E. Lebec/D. Le Vourch (6.00 10.00 (11.00) (11.00) 6.00 11.00 4.00 9.00 8.00 5.00) 59.00 points
10 COYOTE JUNIOR Mathieu Roynette (5.00 11.00 (13.00) 4.00 12.00 7.00 7.00 11.00 6.00 (15.00) 63.00 points
11 CHANTIER CAUDARD Alain Samson (10.00 5.00 10.00 9.00 8.00 (13.00) (13.00) 7.00 7.00 10.00) 66.00 points
12 ELECTRA Pascal Ponroy (4.00 8.00 (14.00) (14.00) 11.00 14.00 10.00 5.00 11.00 9.00) 72.00 points
13 OPEN YOUR EYES Daniel Poisson (8.00 (15.00) 7.00 12.00 9.00 10.00 12.00 12.00 (13.00) 12.00) 82.00 points
14 FERRUM Jean-Pierre Gérard (11.00 13.00 12.00 10.00 (14.00) 12.00 14.00 14.00 14.00 (15.00) 100.00 points