Emmanuel Dodé leads Jean-Louis Le Coq on day 3 of the French Nationals

With the second day wiped out due to no wind, the third day saw some good tactical racing at Maubuisson.  Thibauld Laudren reports.

Day 3 at the French Nationals saw two races completed in the morning before the wind disappeared

Race 1 was run in a patchy and shifting 6 to 9 knots, with the classics fleet finding a bit of an edge over the foilers. Only 3 boats could properly foil downwind and particularly Emmanuel Dodé who created an immense gap over the second, a classic specialist Jean-Claude Roumaillac on a bimare Zero, closely followed by Jean-Louis Le Coq and Micky Todd. For the other foilers, trying to go airbone in such conditions most often resulted in massive losses, and always felt like a bit of a gumball, while the rest of the fleet was efficiently going full VMG mode downwind.

Similar wind conditions applied for the second race of the day, making the racing very tactical and requiring a good observation of the shifts. At this game, Emmanuel Dodé played it right to score a second win of the day. Behind, Jean-Louis Le Coq and Mathias Dietz made the most out of a good puff on the last downwind to take off and score a second and third. Albert Roturier and his 2006 XJ crossed the line 4th, followed by Micky Todd and Michel Warlop on his Marstrom, showing our efficient the classics can be in such conditions/

The general ranking after 4 races sees 3 foilers at the top, Emmanuel Dodé 1st, Jean-Louis Le Coq 2nd and Mathias Dietz 3rd, while Micky Todd and Albert Roturier have gained ground to place themselves 4th and 5th.

Tomorrow will be the final day of the regatta, and forecasts are for very light wind again, which may well see the classics coming in force in the top 10!

Photo Copyrights Philippe Dervieux