Our editor, Jack Galloway, heads to his first international foil event: the Crozon Foil Festival, formerly known as the Downwind de France. With over 100 competitors from around the globe in downwind SUP, surf foil, and dock start, it did not disappoint!

So why sign up for an event like this? I certainly wasn’t going to be winning anything with the level of riders that were going, and I don’t have the time or money to be racing worldwide in the future… The main reason was that the opportunity, with downwind foiling in its infancy, to enter a competition against the best in the world is still possible. How could I not get excited about that, to be able to race with and learn from the best? I foresee future events with qualification criteria with a series of local or international races, making entry for a busy family man like me impossible.

So, when the entry criteria were released in the spring, I sent my application ASAP. Athletes had to provide evidence of a 10km downwind run on GPS, footage of them surf foiling, and either GPS or video of them dock starting. Amaury, the man behind the event, got back to me pretty quickly - I was in!

I posted a message on a Facebook group called ‘Downwind SUP Foiling UK’ (it’s great for sharing downwind stoke if you’re UK-based) and found that Matt Arderne from Bude had joined, too. I met Matt during a prone foil session in Bude a few years ago. I hadn’t seen him since, but I knew he was about as motivated as anyone when it came to downwind SUP. We decided to travel over together and get an AirBnb.

Day 1 - Downwind Race 1

October came around quickly. Before I knew it, I was checking the 10-day forecast. It wasn’t looking promising. Gutted! I had booked this event expecting autumn low-pressure systems bringing classic South-West winds and conditions. Still, things can change…

Due to busy work schedules, Matt and I could only arrive the day before the event, not a week before, like many competitors. So, as we boarded the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo, we got an email from Amaury—due to the wind forecast, they were going to start the race a day early! With a race briefing at midday on Thursday. 

We arrived in St Malo at 8 a.m. French time, leaving us little time to get to Crozon. We set off without delay and arrived in Crozon for the race briefing with just 10 minutes to spare! This was not ideal race prep, but we were happy to have made it.

It was super cool to arrive in the briefing room amongst some of the best foilers in the world. Amaury welcomed everyone to the event with some English, but mostly French, and a translator. When one of the Hawaiian boys asked what conditions to expect from the race, he said, ‘You are experts, check the forecast.’ It didn’t fill anyone with confidence!

The race was 15km downwind from Crozon to Plage de Lestrevet on the other side of the bay. The forecast was different on every app you looked at, but most showed around 10 - 12 knots, and a long swell was coming into the bay. Following some strong gusts in the car park, a deceiving video from the start line, and chatting to too many foilers rigging small, I rigged one of my medium foils, thinking I was ‘playing it safe’. How wrong I was!

The wind dropped entirely as 100+ downwind SUP foilers paddled the 2km to the start line. We sat on the start line in less than 4 knots of wind for nearly an hour; everyone expected them to send us back to the harbour. Eventually, when some small gusts of wind came in, probably in the region of 6 to 8 knots and still with only ripples rather than bumps, the start flag went down, and we were off!

The foil I was on required a maximum effort to get on foil. Once up, I’d pump for as long as I could and then come down again as I had no glide. I eventually got picked up by a safety boat about halfway as I was told I didn’t have time to finish… I was gutted and learned the lesson hard, and I should have rigged my biggest pump foil! About half the fleet had the same fate as me, unfortunately. The winner, Benoit Carpentier, was on a beast of a foil and annihilated the competition in just 58 minutes! As did the women’s winner, Olivia Piana.

Day 2 - Surf Foil Comp

On Friday morning, the competitors flocked on mass to a beach break called ‘La Palue’ - a stunning West-facing beach on the Atlantic coast. That long period swell had stuck around - 2 meters and 12 seconds. It felt as though summer had returned for the day; the sun was shining, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. The Crozon Foil Festival had been able to close a section of the beach for the competition - it was going to be a good day.

The heats were 15 minutes long, with four athletes in each heat. It was incredible to watch such high-level surf foiling up close and to have so many foilers in one spot taking over the beach. I won’t bore you with excuses for why I did so poorly in this event, but Matt smashed it and got some decent scores on the board, which was great to watch.

The format worked really well. Rather than the four competitors knocking each other out to go through, high scores were all put into a leaderboard, with the top 16 going through to day 2. Judges were looking for flow, execution, and position on the wave. Riders were only allowed to link one wave, with the highest possible score of 7 for one wave and 10 for two waves. 

Day 3 - Dock Start Comp

This was originally meant to be an evening event. However, with a very flat forecast, it turned into an all-afternoon extravaganza. At least 500 people came down from Crozon to watch. The local people in Brittany made everyone at the event feel very welcome, and this was no exception. The corner of the marina had music pumping, brand tents, and commentators.

50 people had signed up for the dock start event, with some people having travelled from across Europe just for this! The format featured 5 racers on a pontoon each, a gate to go through about 50 meters away, and a sprint back to the finish line—which was shockingly close to the starting pontoon. There were two knockout rounds, followed by quarters, semis, and finals, as well as a separate women’s division. 

The result of all of the above was complete carnage. The event was quite simply hilarious and possibly the best part of the weekend, certainly from a spectator’s point of view. It turns out that the pressure of competition and hundreds of spectators makes it very difficult to get your take-off right! So many highly talented riders missed their take-offs or made mistakes during the race. It made for very entertaining viewing, with some races having all five riders paddling back to the start to try for a second take-off as quickly as possible.

One race saw Gwen Le Tutour, of YouTube fame, pump so fast for the finish line that he went full speed into the starting pontoon and had a mega crash! Luckily, he escaped relatively unharmed… I had a blast doing this event and was happy with a third and second in my respective races. I think this format has serious potential, especially for those classic demo events around the UK when the wind doesn’t show up.

Day 4 - Prone Finals & Downwind 2

A big shoutout has to go to Amaury and his team. The Crozon Foil Fest was organised impeccably. I honestly can’t fault it. The riders were looked after well, and no moment was missed when competing in the available conditions.

With that in mind, they managed to host the surf foil finals at dawn (7:30 a.m.) and finish it off in time for an 11 a.m. shuttle and a midday start for the final downwind race. Impressive logistics, for sure!

La Palue provided outstanding conditions yet again, and our winners were decided:

Women

  1. Bella Gabriella Eliah
  2. Naomi Eychenne
  3. Camille Dubrana

Men

  1. Keoni Van Der Bij
  2. Jack Ho
  3. Oskar Johansson

It was to be a shorter downwind run of 8 km for the weekend’s second race, this time with an Easterly wind and a slightly stronger wind strength of 10 knots. The route started at Place de Trez-Bellec and finished back in Crozon by the marina. I wasn’t taking any risks this time, and I rigged the biggest foil I had with me, the Armstrong APF 1350. It seemed that everyone else had done the same, as most competitors were able to flat water start and pump towards the start line. 

As we waited on the start line, it was evident that the bumps were a little better. There was about 5km of fetch from across the bay, but the wind was light. The start boats had a bit of trouble getting everyone on the start line, as some riders were a little confused as to which boats were the start boats. Eventually, everyone was in place, and the start flag went down—we were off! 

I got up first time and started making my way downwind. It was hard work, that’s for sure, but this time, I knew I would make it. I crossed the line in 43rd place, having only come off foil a few times for a very short time. Once I reached a certain level of exhaustion and could no longer pump, I figured out that it was better to turn back and forth on the bump and ride super slow rather than continuously pump to the next bump I saw. It was a real learning experience as I’d never ridden in bay conditions in such light wind. What an experience, though. It was super satisfying to finish this time! 

Matt also did well, coming in a short time after me. We packed up the van straight away and hit the road to Cherbourg for our overnight ferry, as we both had work the next day!

Summary 

Considering the forecast, the Crozon Foil Fest was pretty exceptional. As I mentioned, Amaury and his team did an amazing job filling every moment with some kind of competition. It made for a great weekend.

I know some of the downwind racers will be potentially complaining about racing in light wind… despite my failure on the first race, I’m all for it. If you’ve travelled for an event, you want to race regardless of the weather, and equipment is always improving. As James Casey said in his ‘Thursday Thoughts’ video after the event - ‘as much as it sucks, giddy up!’.

P.S. - A big shoutout to Gio de la Rosa from Puerto Rico. Gio had turned up in France only to find that his accommodation booking hadn’t worked, and he had spent the first night in his hire van. Luckily, we had a spare room in our Airbnb for him for the rest of the trip. We had some great laughs learning of how, before this weekend, he’d literally never worn a wetsuit (that blew my mind) and that after the race briefing on day one saying that it would be ‘warm’, he only wore his 2mm shorty - the poor guy was nearly hypothermic by the end of the race!

Results

Overall Downwind - Women

  1. Olivia Piana
  2. Bella Gabriella Eliah
  3. Naomi Eychenne

Overall Downwind - Men

  1. Clement Colmas
  2. Benoit Carpentier
  3. Tom Constant

Dock Start - Women

  1. Naomi Eychenne
  2. Olivia Piana
  3. Katrin Kolo

Dock Start - Men

  1. Haunui Haumani
  2. Toaura Haumani
  3. Oskar Johansson

Overall - All Events Combined - Women

  1. Bella Gabriella Eliah
  2. Naomi Eychenne
  3. Olivia Piana

Overall - All Events Combined - Men

  1. Haunui Haumani
  2. Gage Schoenherr
  3. Benoit Carpentier

Videos

Crozon Foil Festival 2024, l'histoire ne fait que commencer ...
Crozon Foil Festival - Surf Event - VLOG
By Jack Galloway

Comments