Svea strike first with light winds victory in Saint-Tropez

Svea won their first ever race at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez in light winds today, the Swedish flagged team emerging victorious from a spirited, close J Class windward-leeward race which saw Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s Italian debutante Hanuman seize the lead momentarily at the leeward gate before finally losing second place to Rainbow on the final run.

Even if the winds were only gentle there was a distinct air of anticipation and excitement when the fleet docked out from the Vieux Port this morning in beautiful, warm early Autumn sunshine. With dozens of spectators and visitors gathering to see the J Class trio cast off, the prevailing question was how the most recent newcomers to the class, Hanuman, would do in their first ever J Class race.

After a long delay waiting for enough breeze, the wind settled in from the SSE pulsing up to a maximum of eight knots and fading back to five at times. All three lined up evenly spread along the line, Svea starting to the right, Rainbow in the middle with owner Peter Harrison driving, and Hanuman to the left.

Straight away it was evident Hanuman would be in the match, only just winning a close first cross with Svea before the Swedish flagged boat’s upwind speed told and they led around top mark with Hanuman second and Rainbow third.

The fleet compressed on the run and by the leeward turn Hanuman actually made the right turn narrowly ahead of Svea. But, again, Svea was quicker and more polished to windward and led by 41 seconds second time round the top turn.

With Ed Baird calling tactics Rainbow made the most noticeable gain down the final run, recovering nearly one minute to squeeze through Hanuman to finish second, only about a couple of boat lengths ahead of Hanuman.

Hanuman’s effervescent Italian tactician Vasco Vascotto was, of course, disappointed not to have won on their debut - and felt they had it within their grasp - but he smiled nonetheless, “The nice thing is that we are competitive and we feel that in the future, maybe not this event, but in the near future, I think that we can be very competitive. And we really enjoyed it. We enjoyed it all as a team.”

If it was the first ever race at Saint-Tropez for Svea, that is under the Swedish co-owners or indeed the original American owner, it proved to be a little bit of ‘business as usual’ for the boat which won The Superyacht Cup Palma Richard Mille in the summer and 2024’s pinnacle event, the Barcelona J Class Regatta at the 37th America’s Cup.

Tony Rey, tactician on Svea summed up, “It was one of those races where it never felt comfortable until the end. You know, we had two lead changes that none of us were expecting. We kind of have a theme on board that we've got a great crew and the guys have sailed this boat a long time. We trust the targets, we trust the work we've done, we sail the boat the way we think is correct for the conditions and just see how it works out. I've never been in a situation where I've had two helmsmen on a boat and both are just marvelous as each other and they're wonderful guys and they're very, very talented helmsmen. And they want to train longer than I do. That's never happened before!”

“We were able to start to the right which we wanted and it worked out well. There was a little more wind on that first beat, second beat a little more wind on the left, we were to the left so that's what kind of got us out of jail relative to Hanuman. But there are going to be great battles with them and downwind you know we had to be aggressive to stay ahead.”

Only one race could be sailed. The forecast for Tuesday promises winds of 12-15kts and two races are planned.

Results

Race 1 1. J S1 Svea 2 J H2  Rainbow +1m46 3 J K6 Hanuman +3mins