Italians winning game of inches in Hyères before the pressure rises

Bright bobbing sails stretching across the Bay of Hyères as far as the eye could see between the Giens peninsula and the Îles d’Or with the ESE wind of 8-12 knots gradually shifting right under the influence of the thermal currents as the land heated up faster than the sea.

And the Italians love this style of bubbly – they call it something else – and they do not do inches and preferred to win by metres. An already powerful Italian sailing team have enjoyed the first two days particularly. “Because it was in Italian conditions! (Laughing),” Giacomo Ferrari & Alessandra Dubbini (ITA), who lead the 470 after another fine day. “We will see in the next days because probably the weather will change – the French conditions will come.”

Wednesday will provide quite a different postcard from Hyères with the pressure rising in more ways than one, with easterly winds building past 20 knots and the event moving from the preliminary to the elimination phase (Wednesday to Friday) before two medal races on Saturday.

470 (mixed double-handed dinghy)

On a day of Mediterranean dominance, with the two Italian teams exchanging the overall lead and Spain’s Palma champions, Jordi Xammar Hernández & Marta Cardona Alcántara, rising to third, it was testament to the skill of the British team that they held their own and stayed second. New leaders, Italy’s Giacomo Ferrari & Alessandra Dubbini (7, 1, 3) have been the most consistent boat, but they know the elimination phase will be a re-start in more ways than one.

iQFOiL (men’s & women’s windsurfing)

Women

Two victories from their four races saw China’s Zheng Yan jump into the lead in the women’s iQFOiL, but she has two large discards already and is in much more need of them than three sailors behind her, including Israel’s Palma champion and SOF 2025 champion, Tamar Steinberg and Italy’s Olympic champion, Marta Maggetti.

Men

Italy’s Nicolo Renna jumped into the overall lead of the men’s iQFOiL, ahead of by far the most consistent sailor so far, China’s 2025 SOF champion, Kun Bi, who has not been out of the top 7 in the 7 races. Italy’s Federico Alan Pilloni has won four, including two of four today, but fell in his third, to finish last and drop him to sixth overall.

ILCA 6 and 7 – (women’s & men’s solo dinghy)

ILCA 6

A game of Ilca inches for the solo dinghies today saw Netherlands’ Maxime van de Werken-Jonker take the overall lead from Ireland’s Palma champion, Eve McMahon, who dropped to fourth behind Italy’s 2025 SOF champion, Chiara Benini Floriani in second.

ILCA 7

Britain lie first and second overall after Michael Beckett kept his lead after winning his third race in a row and Elliot Hanson moved into second. But there will be no relaxing for anyone with Australia’s double Olympic champion, Matt Wearn, in fourth.

Formula Kite (men’s and women’s kite)

Four kitefoil races for both men and women today as they launched from the beach in Salins, north of the Hyères sailing area.

Women

Lauriane Nolot, the Toulon-born local favourite, Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist, winner in Palma 2026, produced a vintage dominant display winning three of her four races and finishing second in the other to go top of the leaderboard by some margin. The Chinese and British behind her will have to do something special over the coming days.

Men

No change at the top and identical podium to the finish of SOF 2025 with Italy’s Riccardo Pianosi, the SOF 2025 champion, ahead of Singapore’s Max Maeder and Switzerland’s Gian Stragiotti.

Nacra 17 (mixed double-handed catamaran)

Despite heading back to the Base Nautique early and not contesting the third race of the day, Italy’s double Olympic champions, Ruggero Tita & Caterina Banti stayed top after winning the first race and finishing third. As the competition resets for the elimination phase their non appearance will not count. “We stopped but there was no problem,” a poker-faced Banti said.

Their compatriots, Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei, second at SOF 2025, took advantage to win the third race and move up to fifth. There are three Italian boats in the top eight.

49er (men’s and women’s double-handed skiff)

Women’s FX

China’s Yingqian Wang & Xiaoya Su won the third and final race of the day to take the lead from Italy’s Sofia Giunchiglia & Giulia Schio, who could only finish eleventh but stay second overall.

Men’s 49er

USA’s Andrew Mollerus & Trevor Bornarth kept their lead over Ireland’s Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove, fourth at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Two victories in the first two races in yellow fleet saw Italy’s Lorenzo Pezzilli & Circolo Velico Ravennate Tobia Torroni jump into contention in a compressed leaderboard.

Text and images courtesy of FFVoile.fr.