Doyle powered Leopard wins Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez!

Over the four days of maxi racing, which concluded today, competitors enjoyed the full range of conditions from 25 knots, right at a top of their range on Tuesday, followed by 40 knots on Wednesday, when racing was wisely cancelled early on, and then concluding with two of the lighter, more tricky days for which Saint-Tropez is famous.

Delighted with the week was the crew of the Farr 100 Leopard, chartered this week to Dutch internet entrepreneur Joost Schuijff. While not the longest yacht racing, Leopard was the fastest and continually led the IR1 class around the race track. The yacht, originally built for Mike Slade, scored bullets today and yesterday, but was second to Jacob Foale's Swan 80 Umiko in Tuesday’s opening race. However with the wind topping out at 33-34 knots on the long offshore course, that race was certainly the most fun for Leopard’s charterer and her experienced crew. “We had a cracking sail at 25-28 knots on the way home - that was a great race,” enthused Leopard’s racing skipper Chris Sherlock.

A 2-1-1 scoreline was enough to secure Leopard a well-deserved victory in IR1, only outstripped in this respect by Elena of London, the 41.6m modern classic schooner, which scored a perfect scoreline against the 38m long gaff schooner Puritan in the GTR class competing for the Trophée Bessarat de Bellefon.

Sherlock praised the charterer. They were due to race Leopard at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup and when that got cancelled, they instead went training. Sherlock attributes that valuable time, with the same crew as has been in Saint-Tropez, combined with a new sail wardrobe, to their success this week. “Hats off to him for sticking to his guns. Without that time there, we wouldn’t have won this week. We came here to win IRC and we did, so we are very pleased.”

The highly experienced Sherlock was also complimentary to the Société Nautique de Saint-Tropez’s race committee. “They did a great job. In the heavy air race they correctly sent us on a long 46 mile course down to the the Porquerolles (islands of Hyeres). Then there was a cancelled race – and they made that call right - we went sailing anyway and were seeing 38-40 knots on the way back! Then yesterday – they got us out of the bay and we did a two or three hour race, which they read well. And today we sailed a couple of laps of the bay, purely around marks. So we have had three very good days.”