Les Voiles de Saint Tropez 2010 ~ 11e Edition ~ Editorial

STUNNING DAY ON THE BAY OF PAMPELONNE

October 1, 2010

After a day ‘off’ at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, on Friday it was back to fleet racing for the 289 boats here this year. Les Voiles is unique in the diversity of the fleet; for this 12th edition there are 101 boats in the Tradition division, 165 in the Modern division, 11 in the Wally division, and 12 in the Tofinu division.

The Tradition fleet is a motley collection of fore-and-aft schooners, Bermudian sloops, Marconi cutters, among others. The terms indicating the type of sail plan often seem difficult to understand, but in this maze of technical names for sailing yachts it relates to one, two, or three masts, carrying various types of sails. The schooner has two or more masts, with the forward mast shorter than the aft (main) mast. The reverse – in simple terms – is a ketch, when the shorter after (mizzen) mast is located in front of the rudder post; and if the mizzenmast is located aft of this axis, it is a yawl. A Marconi rig or sail plan features a mainsail that is triangular-shaped, with the narrow end (head) at the top of the mast. Very common with traditional yachts, is a fore-and-aft sail plan, also known as gaff-rigged. Finally, a cutter is a sailing yacht that has at least two headsails.

From the air over the Bay of Pampelonne today, the Les Voiles fleet seemingly filled the water to the horizon, unusual in that all of the divisions, Tradition, Modern, and Wally, were racing on the same body of water. The race committee opted to the fleet southward outside of the Golfe de Saint-Tropez, which was where the wind finally materialized. And while they all divisions had their own courses, there was indeed overlap, with some modern grand-prix boats crossing classic gaffers, but there was plenty of real estate for all competitors. Again today, there was a delay for the scheduled start times and then around 2pm, the wind line moved in from the southwest and all classes were off in a building breeze that ranged from 8 – 12 knots.