With the Mumm 30 Worlds in La Trinite in June, Spi Ouest regatta over the Easter weekend was always going to be an important event for testing local conditions and boat speed. With a very tough international fleet including European Champions Mean Machine, Key West winners Groovederci boasting Mumm 30 and Farr 40 world champion Hamish Pepper plus several top French teams the British team aboard Gul Asterix was aiming to use the event as chance to work on speed and boat handling.

After an extensive winter refit carried out by Liquid Logistix, the newly branded Gul Asterix Mumm 30 team were keen to test themselves against some of the top Mumms 30s in the world.

Friday started with a perfect 12-15kts and slight chop, after a poor start team Gul Asterix was more than happy to discover they were quick enough to sail through the fleet to finish second.

Afer a better start in race two Gul Asterix arrived at the first mark in the lead but a slight misjudgment of the layline and they were left spinning, dropping to 12th. With good tactics from Olympic medallist Chris Draper and more excellent speed they were again able to sail threw the fleet to record another second. With conditions remaining the same for the third race confidence within the team was growing, and another poor start saw another great recovery to finish fourth, ending the day only 1pt behind the very strong Groovederci team.

Saturday proved to be a bit of a wash out with no wind and thick fog. Sunday followed a similar and in a 3-6kt breeze Gul Asterix finsihed fourth to maintain second position.

Monday was a lot more promising with the breeze back to 12-16kts and flat water. After a good start Gul Asterix was enjoying a very good race with Mean Machine until the last leeward mark they managed to get tangled up with the middle of the First Class 8 fleet. With enough of a lead over third place Gul Asterix elected to do another 720 rather than take it to protest. With the Americans scoring a Z flag penalty on top of a fifth the British team were in a strong position with one race to go.

Another good start put Gul Asterix into another great race with Mean Machine and finishing less than 2ft apart after one and a half hours of racing. Unfortunately for Mean Machine their start was a little too good and they scored an OCS. With the Americans only managing a sixth Gul Asterix were able to win the class discarding a fourth.

Overall Results

1st Mumm 30 ‘Gul Asterix’ Louis Browne 11pts

2nd Mumm 30 ‘Groovederci’ D. Demourkas 15pts

3rd Mumm30 ‘Region Ile de France’ Jp. Nicole 21pts

4th Mumm30 ‘Bouyges Telecom’ Pl. Berthet 23pts

5th Mumm30 ‘Topas’ H.Burning 41pts

6th Mumm30 ‘Dieppe Seine Maritime’ A. Mesinil 43pts

7th Mumm30 ‘Mean Machine’ P. De Ridder 45pts