Organized a few days after the end of the 53rd edition of the French Olympic Week in Hyères -TPM, the Virtual SOF was a real popular success among the inshore e-sailors community. No less than 4,912 players took up the challenge on the virtual water of Hyères, Toulon Provence Méditerranée. World Sailing and the French Sailing Federation had largely endowed this virtual event.
From Friday, May 6 for 72 hours, the Virtual Semaine Olympique Française will be contested on Virtual Regatta Inshore. For the second year running, players will compete virtually on the same body of water as the sailors did this week in the bay of Hyères, in the Toulon Provence Méditerranée area. The “Blue” competition starts on Friday, May 6 at 4pm
After a week of thrills and spills, fine foiling and some Champagne sailing, the best of the 751 competitors across the 10 Olympic Classes at the 53rd Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères - TPM (SOF) fought for the podium in their Medal Races. Both France and Poland finished with two gold medals.
Poland’s Agata Barwinska took the first gold of the 53rd Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères - TPM with a mastery of light winds, match racing and mathematics in the women’s ILCA 6. Dominik Buksak and Szymon Wierzbicki, who lead the 49er by 17 points should make it two golds for Poland tomorrow. The men in the ILCA 7 will have a very different time in what promises to be the tightest Medal Race on Saturday. It was another glorious day of unending blue skies in Hyères, but the shift right from 6-8-knot offshore northeasterlies to a bigger south-southwesterly breeze did not materialise and many struggled for consistency as they watched their podium places disappear. Everyone in the Medal Races tomorrow will be eyeing the weather nervously with strong westerlies forecast for the afternoon after very light conditions in the morning, will they arrive in time for the racing?
Beautiful conditions graced the first day of gold fleet in the 53rd Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères - TPM. A light and shifty morning gave way to an afternoon of fine if choppy conditions in 12-15 knot easterlies. It made for a full day of competitive sailing across the 10 classes.
After three days of racing in the 53rd Semaine Olympique Française de Hyères - TPM we have the first qualification cut - let the gold fleets begin. If the watchword has been consistency for the first half of the week, it will now blur with speed over the second half, as the best from the separated fleets now face off in each of the 10 Olympic classes containing 751 of the world’s best sailors from over 50 countries. The Olympic champions and favourites across the fleets have done their job and, by and large, kept their scores low - or low enough. Although there are some big names in unfamiliar positions who have not made the cut, among them Tom Burton, the Australian gold medallist in the 2016 Rio Olympics in the Laser. It was not entirely a surprise as it was his first major event in the 49er with his crew mate Simon Hoffman. Wednesday brought onshore easterlies and chop into the bay of Hyères rather the Mistral westerlies and flat lake foiling conditions of the first two days. But rather than building from 6 knots to 15-18 as forecast, conditions eased off, unsettling some plans.