After six days since the Xacobeo 6mR Worlds started last Monday, Sanxenxo crowned the new world champions of the class this Saturday. In the Classics division, the Frenchman Dix Aôut de Louis Heckly sealed a great partial victory in the last round of the championship that allowed him to proclaim himself the winner of the intercontinental event. In the Open, for its part, Dieter Schoen's Swiss team, the Momo, sentenced this Saturday to a brand new definitive victory after leading from the first day of regatta.
After a week of competition in which the wind did not make things easy, today, Saturday, the Pontevedra estuary received the fleet with a southwesterly wind of about nine knots of intensity that allowed the 40 participating teams to put the finishing touch to the World Cup with the dispute of the last tests.
El Dix Aôut, champion of the Xacobeo 6mR Worlds
Heart attack final day for the Clásico fleet. With five teams pending the entry into play of the discard to define the podium of the Xacobeo 6mR Worlds, after 1:15 p.m. the race committee honked the start for a race that ended up being canceled in the first section. Finally, it was around 2:45 p.m. when a very tight sleeve started that served the Frenchman Dix Aôut de Louis Heckly to proclaim himself world champion after scoring a close partial victory ahead of Aida de Francisco Botas, with whom he had a hard hand by hand until the moment of crossing the finish line.
Heckly's team went from less to more throughout the week and the truth is that they reached the final day in second position tied on points with the leader, the Finnish Astrée III of Ossi Paija, who ended up fourth in the general classification. In total, Dix Aôut accumulated a fourth place, two thirds, a second, an eighth that he discarded and a partial victory, results that allowed him to become the winner of the intercontinental event.
"The feeling is absolutely fantastic," begins an emotional Heckly after returning to the pontoons. “We have been running for this title for years with my late father, who passed away, and we only managed to give him two world runner-up titles. Now we've done it, so it's a fantastic feeling and we're very happy."
“Coming to Sanxenxo twice for the European last year and the World Cup this year was absolutely exciting. Great food, great organization and great kindness from everyone around us. Everyone wanted to make things easy for us, and that was really appreciated by all the crews”, concluded the French skipper.
Behind, second place overall went to the defending champion, the Bribon 500 owned by owner José Cusí, who finished the Xacobeo 6mR Worlds with a fifth in the last race two points behind the Frenchman and three ahead on the third classified, Francisco Botas's Aida, who had Javier de la Gándara at the helm.
Final victory for Momo in Open
The Open division, for its part, completed the last two tests this Saturday at the regatta course located in front of the town of Salnés. The results of the first round of the day were enough for the Swiss Momo de Dieter Schoen to sentence the final victory after leading from the first day of the World Championship.
Thus, after an incontestable victory in the first test of the day and ruling out the last part of the championship, Schoen's men became the winners of the Xacobeo 6mR Worlds with a twelve point advantage over the second classified. For the Swiss team, moreover, this has been its first major competition since its debut in the 6 Meter class at the beginning of this year.
Once on land, Schoen explained that “we have had a great week and we have done very well. Even when we've had bad starts, like today, we've always ended up getting to the first mark in a good position, so I think we've had a perfect week as a team."
“The club has been a very good host and the race committee in general did a good job. The two days in which we couldn't sail they didn't get nervous, and they took risks, so I think everything went very well”, concluded the skipper of Momo.
Behind, the second position on the final podium went to the hands of the also Swiss Junior de Durr Philippe, another of the teams that started as favorites having won the last six World Championships in the class and that said goodbye to the Sanxenxo appointment by scoring the victory of the last sleeve. The third drawer, meanwhile, was occupied by the Portuguese Seljm of Patrick Monteiro.
