Puerto Portals, Mallorca, was the venue where 69F crowned the Persico 69F Cup 2022 champions, after a fierce battle on the water among the top three. The light wind with mostly marginal foiling conditions added suspense to the final event of the season, in which Fin1Racing and Groupe Atlantic were left alone to battle it out as SDS Swiss Dental Solutions had left the island after winning the GP 4.1 last weekend. Three bullets to the Finnish and four to the French, who have been more consistent on the water, assigned 17 points to Groupe Atlantic and 14 to Fin1Racing, who also had one event – and a discard – less. The final podium of the Persico 69F Cup sees Groupe Atlantic on the first step, followed by Fin1Racing, silver, and bronze to SDS Swiss Dental Solutions.
"It is amazing to have been able to win the whole year – says an excited Louis Chambet, Groupe Atlantic. "There's been a lot of pressure on us this week, we knew we would have the Finnish coming at us, and we are very proud of how we sailed especially on the very last day with great conditions: we are just incredibly happy. We would really like to thank all the 69F teams, starting from the shore team, Race Committee, the jury, everything was excellent, very well organized. We also appreciated all the Marinas we went to, great at hosting the events, the biggest thank you goes to Groupe Atlantic, without Xavier and our coach and manager Pierre, this would have never been possible. Congratulations to Fin1Racing, they pushed us over our limits, we thank them for that, as well as all the other teams and sailors we met in this season, we had some great racing and they made us improve a lot!".
While these two teams were highly engaged in the challenge for the season, the young athletes of DutchSail – Janssen de Jong – Mixed were fully focused on Persico 69F Cup Grand Prix 4.2 and they managed to be the best of the week and came out on top after 18 races over three days of event. Their worst score was a sixth and claimed four wins, a much different performance compared to the one they had only a week ago at GP 4.1. Groupe Atlantic closed the GP 4.2 in second place and Xela Racing (NOR) are third, only half a point ahead of Team Argentina Black Salmon.
"This season it's been all about building from the level we had last year, but at the same time developing more young foiling sailors in The Netherlands – commented Scipio Houtman, DutchSail. "We decided to join the YFGC Act 4 in Torbole, we had a girl-team in Act 2 in Slovenia, and for us, the Mixed team, the main goal is to win the title in the Grand Final which will be in Barcelona next week. We chose these two events in Puerto Portals to compete and train towards that event. Unfortunately, we don't have our own boat anymore, so we didn't have the opportunity to train as much this year, coming to Mallorca represented a great opportunity to train for the Grand Final".
As we close the curtains on the Persico 69F Cup, to reopen them next April in Valencia for the European circuit and in January in Miami for the US calendar, the spotlight can now shine on the Under 25 teams who earned the right to give their best at the Youth Foiling Gold Cup Grand Final in Barcelona, at Marina Vela from November 3rd to the 6th. Nine teams, the best two of every YFGC event plus a wild card given to Club Nautico Vilasar de Mar as hosting yacht club, will have the chance to win the year's award and the best three will receive a voucher for the 2023 69F YFGC season.