No big change to the provisional ranking on Day 4 after the last leg to be sailed from Erquy, Cap Fréhel, Fort La Latte and back, Benoît Champanhac and Hugo Dhallenne taking the lead from the beginning to the end, closely followed by youngsters Cédric and Delphine Fleury, and pretty experienced team Nicolas Touchot and Pierre-Yves Durand.
As those three teams were ranked within fifty seconds on Saturday evening, Sunnucks-Stoneham and Levionnois-Daval being just a few minutes behind, everything was likely to happen during the last and decisive leg of the Costarmoricaine for delivering the Second F18 Raid Worlds title.
Actually, the fight has been tense between the five leading boats all along the course, starting by a long tacking duel up to Cap Fréhel, where contenders were able to launch their kites to round Laplace mark, just in front of the magnificent Fort-la-Latte castle.
Champanhac-Dhallenne rounded Laplace wreckage mark first, just ahead Cédric and Delphine Fleury, Touchot-Durand being a cable’s length behind, when Sunnucks-Stoneham didn’t get the expected benefit of this most tidally tactical leg of the race.
Back to Cap Fréhel tacking in the current, then having a long and speedy run on the reach up to the finish in front of Erquy harbour, where the top three teams respectively finsihed in 2:41:03, 2:42:50 & 2:45:43, Benoît Champanhac and Hugo Dhallenne then securing the F18 Raid Worlds Title.
Both Champanhac-Dhallenne & Touchot-Durand teams actually made a spectacular recovery after being protested by the Race Committee for missing first mark in leg 3, and getting a penalty from the Jury for that, but being sufficiently strong, motivated and talented to come back at the front of the fleet.
As usual, the event finished by a warm and friendly prize giving ceremony, where all competitors have been provided with excellent oysters from Nicolas Nonnet, multiple award winning local producer.
Photos of day 5 of the F18 Raid Worlds 2018 by Jasper van Staveren can be found here.
Full results at https://cvberquy.org/costa/resultats/2018/