Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup
Day 4 of the 2017 Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup wasn’t your typical day in New Caledonia as the usual wall-to-wall sunshine and consistent trade winds were replaced with cloudy, stormy at times, skies and intermittent rain. This led to a largely frustrating day, which limited the action to just one foil race being completed in tricky conditions by the middle of the afternoon, but during the early evening the wind did improve. This resulted in two further foil races being completed in undoubtedly the best conditions we’ve seen foiling competed in so far with solid winds transforming it into a truly dynamic and exciting spectacle.
Foiling
Gonzalo Costa Hoevel (Starboard / Severne / Chopper Fins) won the first foil race of the event yesterday and the Argentine, who is heavily involved in the research and development of foiling for Starboard and Severne, shone again today as he produced a truly dominant performance to win both medium wind races, while finishes second in the opening race today. Costa Hoevel’s dominance has seen him open up a 7.9 point advantage over his closest challenger - Maciek Rutkowski (Tabou / GA Sails) - in second place.
The 37-year-old also did extremely well to avoid hitting Julien Quentel (Patrik / Avanti) in the final race of the day after Quentel went over the handlebars directly in front of him, which could’ve had dire consequences. After overcoming that obstacle, Costa Hoevel, quickly regained his composure to close down Nicolas Goyard (RRD / Point-7 / Mystic) and the Argentine’s excellent tactical awareness paid dividends again with Goyard tacking too early, while Costa Hoevel set the perfect lay line to build an unassailable lead to claim another clinical victory. After such a dominant display it’s hard to see anyone dislodging him from the top of the rankings.
With the completion of the 4th race the discard comes into play and Maciek Rutkowski is the sailor to have gained the most from the discard. The Pole didn’t make a bad start to the event - finishing 6th - but was then disqualified from the final of race two for a premature start - resulting in a 16th place. However, in the stronger winds Rutkowski recovered brilliantly with two second places, which catapults him up to 2nd place in the current rankings.
The Goyard brother’s - Nicolas Goyard and Thomas Goyard (Fanatic / NorthSails) - currently occupy 3rd and 4th place and trail Rutkowski by just 1 and 2 points respectively.
Antoine Questel (Starboard / S2Maui) started the season in excellent form - winning in Japan and finishing 2nd in Costa Brava - before a disappointing result in Sylt. However, the Frenchman has bounced back to form to a degree here and currently sits in 5th place, just ahead of fellow countrymen - Benjamin Tillier, William Huppert (Fanatic / NorthSails), Julien Quentel (Patrik / Avanti), Alexandre Cousin (Patrik / GA Sails / Chopper Fins) - who was unlucky to snap a UJ in the last race and drops to 9th - and Cedric Bordes (Tabou / GA Sails) - meaning that 8 of the current top 10 are completed by Frenchmen.
The forecast for tomorrow predicts lighter east-north-east, but importantly clearer skies are expected, which should hopefully result in more consistent winds even though the gradient wind is not from its normal southeasterly direction. The sailors will meet again tomorrow morning at 9:30am with the action commencing from 10am onwards (GMT+11).
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Current Ranking 2017 Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup - Women’s Slalom
*After 6 Eliminations
1st Delphine Cousin Questel (Starboard / S2Maui)
2nd Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard / NeilPryde / Maui Ultra Fins)
3rd Lena Erdil (Starboard / Point-7 / AL360)
4th Lilou Granier
5th Marion Mortefon (Fanatic / NorthSails)
Current Ranking 2017 Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup - Men’s Slalom
*After 5 Eliminations
1st Antoine Albeau (RRD / NeilPryde)
2nd Matteo Iachino (Starboard / Point-7 / Shamal Sunglasses)
3rd Pierre Mortefon (Fanatic / NorthSails / Chopper Fins)
4th Sebastian Koerdel (Starboard / GA Sails)
5th Marco Lang (Fanatic / NorthSails)
6th Pascal Toselli (99NoveNove / LoftSails / Chopper Fins)
7th Ross Williams (Tabou / GA Sails / Mystic / Shamal Sunglasses)
8th Cyril Moussilmani (99NoveNove / Severne)
9th Arnon Dagan (RRD / NeilPryde)
10th Antoine Questel (Starboard / S2Maui)
Current Ranking 2017 Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup - Men’s Foil Exhibition
*After 4 Eliminations
1st Gonzalo Costa Hoevel (Starboard / Severne / Chopper Fins)
2nd Maciek Rutkowski (Tabou / GA Sails)
3rd Nicolas Goyard (RRD / Point-7 / Mystic)
4th Thomas Goyard (Fanatic / NorthSails)
5th Antoine Questel (Starboard / S2Maui)
6th Benjamin Tillier
7th William Huppert (Fanatic / NorthSails) Cedric Bordes (Tabou / GA Sails)
8th Julien Quentel (Patrik / Avanti)
9th Alexandre Cousin (Patrik / GA Sails / Mystic)
10th Cedric Bordes (Tabou / GA Sails)