Saskia Clark, the 2016 Olympic 470 champion, has opened her Monaco J/70 Winter Sportsboat Series campaign in style, steering Moonlight II to victory in Monte Carlo after a tiebreaker settled the opening act following seven tightly fought races.
Racing for the Yacht Club de Monaco, Clark and her crew of Adrien De Belloy, Mario Trindade and Mattis Naud posted two race wins and six top-four finishes for a net score of 16 points. It was consistency, not outright speed, that won the day.
They finished level on points with French team Euro Voiles, skippered by Denis Infante, who had themselves won the opening race of the series. Only the tiebreak separated the two boats at the top of the fleet.
Third went to G-Spot, the Monegasque entry helmed by Matteo Marenghi-Vaselli, on 20 points. His crew won races five and six back to back but ran out of time to chase down the leaders, with just four points covering the top three boats overall.
In the Corinthian division, Euro Voiles claimed a tidy double, winning the amateur category as well as finishing runner-up outright. Swiss teams Jerry, led by Thomas Studer, and Rhubarbe-3Nuits.com, under Max Haenssler, rounded out that podium.
Seven of the scheduled nine races were completed, with results swinging from race to race in the shifty winter breeze, a reminder of how hard it is to hold form over a long series.
Running since 2013, the Monaco series is organised by the Yacht Club de Monaco with North Sails, drawing J/70 crews from Monaco and further afield through the quieter winter months.
Three acts remain. The second runs from 10 to 13 December, the third from 11 to 14 February 2027, before the series concludes from 10 to 14 March 2027 with the 43rd Primo Cup, UBS Trophy, an event founded in 1985 at the initiative of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco.
