Demesmaeker and Tas win La Rochelle as F18 tour gains momentum
Demesmaeker and Tas turned La Rochelle into a title test, winning both the Tour leg and the French Nationals crossover after 11 races in brutal Atlantic conditions.
La Rochelle did more than deliver a regatta winner. It gave the new F18 European Tour a real stress test, and Patrick Demesmaeker and Gilles Tas passed it by taking the overall victory after 11 races and three hard racing days in a fleet of 28 teams from 8 nations.
The Act 2 stop, run from 14-17 May with registration and welcome on 13 May, doubled as the French National Championship and National Cup, which raised the stakes from the first gun. Thursday never got off the water because of excessive wind, but the rest of the week produced the kind of shifting Atlantic racing that separates sharp crews from the merely fast. Friday brought five races in very mixed conditions, then Saturday changed the picture again with a coastal raid around Fort Boyard and Île d’Aix in 8-15 knots. Sunday was set up for a final push in 15-20 knots and three deciding races.
That variation mattered because the F18 European Tour was built to create a tighter, more coherent season rather than a loose collection of standalone events. Launched in January 2026, the four-event circuit is designed to structure and strengthen European Formula 18 sailing, cut calendar overload, and improve turnout. Only three results count from the four Acts, so every stop carries weight far beyond its own podium. In that context, La Rochelle was not just another French venue. It was a key measure of whether the Tour can hold major fleets together across countries and conditions.
Demesmaeker and Tas handled that pressure best, edging Victorien Erussard and Cédric Bader into second, with Smith Cruz Gonzalez and Mariano Heuser finishing third after a strong final-day surge and a race-win streak on the raid day. For the French teams, the national-title crossover made every shift and every tactical call mean more. For the wider Tour, the Belgian win underlined exactly what the series is trying to build: international depth, consistent participation, and a championship structure that rewards crews who can travel, adapt, and stay sharp from one Act to the next.
La Rochelle also carried a sense of déjà vu for Demesmaeker and Tas. The class archive notes that the same pairing had already won a tense French Nationals in La Rochelle in 2023, and this latest result only sharpened the venue’s reputation as a place where the Tour’s identity gets tested, not just recorded.
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