They were all smiling after this 11th and last race of the Toshiba – 2007 J80 world championship. Who? The Spanish teams for sure! The victory of Jose Maria Torcida Seghers, also 49er’s specialist, is the result of a rigorous and collective work the Santander fleet started only 6 months ago. Indeed the Spanish Class is a brand new one but it succeeded in gathering 25 to 30 J80 every week end for long training sessions. “The sailing conditions we have in Cantabrie are quite similar to the ones here” confesses the new world champion. “Our success is the one of all our training partners who were really willing to train and progress together in view to achieve an international level”. All the sailors here can only agree with that as Sylvain Pélissier (voilerie All Purpose), very pleased by his come back at the 5th place: « Spanish teams did work a lot. Everybody can notice that. They are very good when jibbing or tacking and also they can speed up very easily. It is astonishing! » Sylvain Pélissier is the first French team appearing in the results. None of the French favourites (Brézellec, Lanier, Nadal, Bot…) who were expected as potential winners of the title are in the Top Ten except Pelissier and Arnaud (Salsa APCC Voile). A bit disappointing for the dynamic and competitive French J80 Class chaired by Ludovic Gilet.

A real international competition

3 Spanish boats can be found in the Top Ten. But some other foreign competitors did not travel for nothing: the German Muenker finished 3rd, the American favourite Glenn Darden is 6th, British are also there with Kevin Sproul 7th and Nick Cherry 9th, and even an Italian team appears at the 8th place with the shy but cosntant Mauricio Santa Cruz. Once again the Italian J80 Class has just been created and the result of this boat is rather promising. All the sailors here agree to congratulate the quality of the Race Committee chaired by Christophe Gaumont and the know-how of the Société Nautique of la Trinité, to deal with registrations and results of big fleets. Everyone did appreciate this championship as a « Great » one, with 11 races. It was a real success for the J80, as a proof of its fast international development and as a great competition between professionals and non professionals coming from 9 different countries.

They said:

José Maria Torcida Seghers (ECC Viviendas- Esp.) World champion:
“Only a huge pleasure. I’m very proud of my team and very happy for all the Spanish fleet. We did not expect such a result and came here very cautiously knowing that French, American and British J80 experts will be here. We were a bit nervous this morning, scaring the big mistake that would have cost us the title. My friend Ignacio Camino (Nextel Engineering) tried to stay close to us since the beginning but just after the starting signal we succeeded to escape towards the lay-line and we lost him in the middle of the fleet. We will go back to Spain straight tonight to celebrate with our families.”

Ulrich Muenker (Needles and Pins-All.) 3rd place:
“This is the first J80 world championship we finished among the first 3 and we are then very pleased. Today we played match-race with our direct Spanish competitor and we are very happy to finally succeed being 4 boats ahead of him. This week was like a dream: beautiful windy conditions at the beginning of the week, perfect race management by the Race Committee and very pleasant atmosphere back at the pontoons.”

Sylvain Pélissier (Voilerie All Purpose-fra.) 5th place:
“Our result is above all our expectations as the level was very high. You need to be very constant among the good places and that’s what we succeeded to do as we finished 14 for our worst race. The last race was a real pleasure as we ranked 3rd.”

Didier Le Moal, 24th place, J Europe General Manager:
“as a competitor, I took a real pleasure to race during this world championship. 11 races of the highest level were run in very different weather conditions. The Race Committee made a great job dealing with two fleets of 62 boats each. As the J80 builder, I noticed that some of the best boats are already 4 to 5 years old proving the good quality of these one-design boats. It is a real success for the organisation team of the French J80 Class Association and of la Société Nautique of La Trinité-sur-Mer: they have managed the biggest one-design boats competition ever organised in Europe.”

Jean-Pierre Blavec, Société Nautique of la Trinité-sur-Mer manager:
“This is the most beautiful world championship we have organised according to the level of the skippers, the number of boats and the various conditions of racing. Back to the pontoons, it was also a great party every evening at the prize giving of the day and at the closing dinner party where more than 650 sailors showed up. Undoubtedly this world championship will stay in all memories.”

International success story

The French shipyard J.Europe, located at Olonne-sur-Mer, builds the J80 boats. For the last two years, the success of the boat kept on being bigger and bigger. J.Europe decided to start a second production line to face the important European demand. Currently 14 boats are built every month. The J80 is a brilliant small sporty one-design boat designed by the Johnstone family (USA). It has an asymmetric spinnaker, a bowsprit and an interesting sails surface (34.50 m2 at upwind, plus a spinnaker of 65m2). Length: 8m. In competition, the J80 is run by 4 or 5 sailors who can not exceed a total weight of 338.6 kg.