F18 Raid Worlds 2023 @Costarmoricaine: Burvill & Puttman #1st

F18 Raid Worlds 2023 were held at CVB Erquy, home of the 2010 F18 Worlds. Beautiful coastline where the annual Costarmoricaine raid takes place.

Aussies Brett Burvill & Max Puttman after making podium at F18 Worlds past weeks headed to France from Travemunde to participate in this F18 special event.

They won sailing their Windsrush Edge / Nxt Gen Sails weapon over Victorien Erussard & Frederic Moreau by 5 mins after five stages and 15hs hours of racing.

Later we’ll try to get Brett’s report. UPDATE: Report below results table

Photos and results by CVB Erquy. Check complete results at the regatta web: https://cvberquy.org/costa/photos/2023/

Report sent bu Brett Burvill

Hi Martin, Back home to Perth now after the excitement of the F18 Raid Worlds 2023 at Costarmoricaine .

A great 5 day event , really well organized and with amazing scenery along the coastline to go with challenging conditions. The first 3 days were sailed with quite light winds and on several occasions a delayed start usually meaning a tow down the course to a point whr the wind had started to play the game.

The race committe could then set a start with a short upwind before the re joining the course to the finish . Day 1 saw an exteme close finish with 4 seconds covering the first 3 boats after Max and I had made a small mistake after loading the incorrect finishing position to the GPS which allowed our little lead we had built up over 3 or 4 hrs of around 1 minute to evaporate but somehow we managed to position ourselves for the last gybe to the line and take the stage by just 1 second .

Day 2 was dominated by the French teams with a wind of of five to eight knots allowed the winning duo, Emeric Dary, from Les Sables d’Olonne and David Fanouillère, from Saint-Malo on F18 (already 3rd in the first stage) to arrive at Trestraou shortly before 5 p.m. Second on the day was former winners Victorien ERUSSARD and Frederic MOREAU 2 minutes behind and the Burvill / Puttman team a futher minute back .

Day three saw another tow to the start position some way into the course once again andn then a huge fleet spread where the leading three tams were separated bu as much as 45 miutes at one point but with stormy weather coming from all directions anything was possible and the team on FRA 5 sailed right back to the lead after being in a position that would have seemed like it was game over just a few turns before on the leg . The fleet continues to spread and compress as the fronts came through and finally with in sight of the finish the young french team of Matteo CHEVRIER Gaspard COSSE , fresh from a great worlds performance manage to find a line of pressure and finish up wind double trapeze after the spinnaker wrapped around the forestay briefly in the transition .

They had been in the front all day and really deserved to win the leg and with the gust they had disappear it was a good lead on the time card if only around 200m on the water . Keep an eye on these guys, laid back and fast. The young ones are gunning for us “old foxes” as Olivier likes to call us . ( I will finish this off tonight with more words to follow – I need to go out for a bit now ). So after 3 legs the times were close across the first 4 teams .

Day 4 was a really cool leg, blast reaching in 12-15 kts of wind with gusts to18kts early before it dropped down to 10 knots or less at the last parts of the leg . The first parts of the course at 90 deg to the wind , 5 or more miles out and 5 miles back then another 5 miles along the coast, the lead 3 boats separated by mere boat lengths all sailing at 20 knots and more of boats speed for long periods each trying to break away from the others , a real thrill and pushing at the limit for an hour or so like this was real fun before a slight 10 deg heading change to a deeper course , still a death reach angle for a further 4 miles or so . After this the spinnakers went up and we sailed beyond Erquy with a 3 mile leg back upwind leg to finish the day in Erquy. so after 4 legs the margins are small, around 2 minutes lead first to second and a mere 1 second between second and third with 4th not far back so all to play for on the last day .

Day 5 and around 10 knots of breeze at the start was the final leg out from Erquy beyond cape Frehal and back . The SW winds and tides around the Cape a famously fickle and whist Max and I were happy to be leading after the downwind leg heading to the cape , we really had no idea how much room to leave for the wind shadow or a complete knowledge of when the tide was to turn.

We left a reasonable margin of probably 6-700m or more and some others cut the corner a little closer and made gains but we were still leading at the turning mark and headed back on the same track to the cape before a long upwind along the coast to the finish. The boats that cut the corner on the return leg and went inshore earlier on the way back made good gains and we were only just able to get back across to hold the lead gradually extending on the many many tacks upwind to end the leg with a nice little lead of a few minutes at the finish line and win the title of F18 Raid world championships .

The boats that finished second and third were dicing it out in a tacking dual for a more than an hour with 1 second between them at the start of the day who ever made the finish line first from these 2 boats was going to determine the final positions on the podium .

A great event well run by a well practiced team headed by Olivier Bovyn . Special mention and from all the competitors we wish a speedy recovery to the PRO , Pierre-Charles Barraud who was badly injured in a fall on the committee boat on day 2 . We hope you make a full and fast recovery .

Brett Burrvill AUS3