Italians Declare Their Intent for 2008 at November A Heres

From the French Class Association - The 2007 Novembre a Hyeres event got underway on France's Cote D'Azure yesterday and in the first race of the four day series Italy showed its intentions for worldwide domination in 2008. As well as being the perfect close to the European season and a great chance to being warming up for next year Novembre a Hyeres is also the final event in the IMCA European Ranking so there's a lot hanging on the results.

Of the top seven places in yesterday's first race five were filled by Italian crews, second place went to the Swiss team of Franco Rossini, helmed by Italian America's Cup star Flavio Favini, and the only crew able to challenge this Italian stranglehold was that of Sweden's Ingemar Sundstedt who finished third.

An always flawless and nice organization by COYCH and its volunteers, assisted by a group of Laser Champions helping control things on the water, combined with the usual lovely late autumn Mediterranean sun and a light westerly wind made this a very technical first race for the 28 strong fleet.

Francesco Bruni, helming UKA UKA for Lorenzo Bressani was the victor with Favini second, Sundsted third and 2006 Melges 24 World Champion Nicola Celon fourth. World

This is a truly international fleet and although the host French team is the strongest with 8 boats, closely followed by the Italians with 6 boats, there is also strong represenatation from Switzerland, 5 boats, and Great Britain, 4 boats. Marcus Brennecke and Christal Wieland are flying the flag for Germany, Norway's Peder Nergaard is using the event as the kick off point for their 2008 campaign and Melges 24 legend Carlo Vroon and his extremely popular Tape That team are representing the Netherlands and leading the apres sailing partying as always!

Hyeres is one of the great European sailing venues and in recognition of this the C.O.Y.C.Hyères has been awarded the 2008 the Melges French Championship, which will take place during next year's Novembre a Hyères regatta, and also the 2009 Melges 24 European Championship, which will take place in late August.

After a year in the doldrum the French Class is really starting to see signs of rejuvination and this regatta is the start of what is hoped will be a significant increase in activity and membership as the class builds up towards the 2009 European Championship. To find out more about sailing with the French Melges 24 class please keep an eye on WWW.MELGES24.FR which will soon be updated.

Provisional Results Race 1

1 ITA715, UKA UKA, Lorenzo Bressani
2 SUI521, BLU MOON, Flavio Favini
3 SWE532, ROCAD RACING, Ingemar Sundstedt
4 ITA643, MARCHINGENIO, Nicola Celon
5 ITA727, THE HURRICANE, Alberto Bolzan
6 ITA438, ALTEA, Andrea Racchelli
7 ITA609, PBR INGNEASE, Tomasso Chieffi
8 SUI599, POIZON ROUGE, Jean Marc Monnard
9 FRA639, EURO VOILES, Denis Infante
10 GBR691, TEAM BARBARIANS, Stuart Simpson
11 GBR690, EXCELLENT, John Pollard
12 ITA673, GULLISARA, Alessandro Durante
13 NED177, TAPE THAT, Carlo Vroon
14 GBR654, MOJO NATURAL, Miles Quinton
15 FRA329, FLOR DIRECT, Alain Roig
16 FRA44, VOILE MONOTYPE FINISTRERE, Vincent Vilboux
17 NOR600, BLOW, Peder Nergaard
18 FRA193, COTES D'ARMOR, Yannick Le Clech
19 SUI382, ZEROTWO, Michael Good
20 GER594, ALTHEA, Marcus Brennecke
21 FRA370, SNUGASABUG, Sebastien Mathieu
22 FRA471, MU, Emmanuel Nebout
23 SUIT697, STORM, Morten Astrup
24 FRA451, GIVE ME 5, Adrein Follin
25 GER320, UNSPONSORED, Christal Wieland
26 FRA225, OXYGENE, Jean Marc Richardt
DSQ GBR431, AQUA RACING, John-Christia Eriksson
DSQ SUI267, MAD COW, Thierry Verhulst