The 38th edition of the SPI Ouest-France- Destination Morbihan regatta is one of the most important sailing events in Europe and it is the first major regatta of the year after winter. Twelve nations were represented with 409 boats and more than 2,500 sailors. The Societe Nautique de La Trinite sur Mer did a fabulous job hosting the event. They had reasonably good winds and weather over the four-day weekend regatta. The fleet was treated to westerlies on Friday of 10-15 knots; then on Saturday it was a somewhat grey day with breezes of 10-15 knots from the NNW and quite shifty; Easter Sunday saw a rather light NNW shifty wind with big holes; and, finally, on Monday the regatta was blessed with more NNW winds in the 10-15 knots range. The J/70s had their largest fleet so far at this year’s SPI Ouest with 21 boats on the line. Winning the fleet was Luc Sambron’s HEMON-CAMUS team. They sailed a very consistent series, winning just two races but placing in the top six in every race to win by a one-point margin. Just one point back was top UK J/70 team SOAK RACING, skippered by Ian Williams. Although they won four races, they could not match the consistency of Sambron’s team. Third was Oscar Lundqvist’s Swedish crew on TBA with 50 points net, winning two of the last three races to race up the leaderboard. Fourth was Herve Leduc’s French crew on JIBE SET with 54 points net, demonstrating their fast learning curve by winning the first race and never finishing out of the top eight. Finally, fifth place G Alfredo’s LANZAROTE EUROPEAN SPORTS DESTINAT crew from the Canary Islands (taking second in the first race and winning two races). For more SPI OUEST-France information, visit http://www.ouest-france.fr/spi.