Give Me Five take SB20 World Championship title

Robin Follin, Emeric Michel, Gaulthier Germain and Laurie Candela’s Give Me Five were crowned SB20 World Champions on 25 October in Hyères, France.

The event gathered 65 boats from 14 countries and was one of the largest one-design sportsboat championships in Europe and brought together a large number of world class sailors.

On victory, Follin commented, “It’s a really good achievement, and it’s great to do it in Hyères because it’s our best place for sailing. We did all our SB20 training since 2014 here. And for me it is also special because I won my first Optimist competition here, so it brings back a lot of good memories. Also with our family and friends here, it was just great. The team did a great job, thanks to Gaulthier, Emeric and Laurie who were at the maximum.”

The week consisted of four sailing days with one day off due to heavy storm that hit Hyères on Tuesday. The Race Committee made a great move by shifting the racing early on Tuesday to complete one race. Some breakages happened across the fleet, but everyone was safe and the sailors got some action after a slow start on Day 1. With only two races done by the end of Wednesday the Principal Race Officer Natalie Peberel was under pressure to make this championship constitute for the series, for which minimum three races were required.

On Thursday, sailing started well after lunch with no wind in the morning after the storm, but a promise for some breeze in the afternoon. The fleet spent a few hours waiting ashore before they got four tricky races that finished with a beautiful sunset on Hyères bay.

Russia’s B-Team, comprising of Aleksey Lesnikov, Artem Basalkin, Iana Baskilna and Andrey Tukalov, took second place and The Imp, featuring Andrew Smith, Lewis Noye and David Champman, of Australia completed the podium.

Results.