The Bol d'Or - or sleepless in Geneva

Yesterday the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve race was held. The big warm-up to the main event (Bol d'Or of course).

I have only looked at the M1 results so far, where all the D35's led by Alinghi/Ernesto Bertarelli well ahead of two GC32's, a Seacart 30, a Corsair 28, and the Pi28 which was DNF.

Hmm, there's a boat in the M2 class (mostly Ventilos) which I think may also be a GC 32, came 12th behind the Ventilos. Will look at that later.

Now it's back to the grill and all those steaks!

 

So today being Friday before Saturday's great 75th. Bol d'Or - have you seen that trophy by the way? It makes a nice addition to anyone's mantlepiece - it has been a requirement to attend the opening ceremonies, followed by free cocktails on the terrace of the SNG!

Since tomorrow morning is not reported to threaten too much wind, I should think that at least a few cocktails are in order!


......Overheard at the Société Nautique de Genève:



There'll be plenty of wind in the afternoon, anyway, and we can comfortably predict that the D35 contingent - the pride of the Swiss Navy - will make absolute mincemeat out the few M1 class challengers from Italy (Marstøm 32), Germany (SL33), or the two entered G32's from Holland and Schhwweitz.

Altogether there are 509 boats entered in this year's race, and all of them will have beacons this year for the tracking.

In a way, I sort of miss the good old days of the Lake Geneva Arms Race, after which this current LOA limit was imposed to the terrible discouragement of all the wonderfully stretched and overrigged F40's etcetera. Not to mention the most wonderful, and since then mothballed, Le Black...

Another cocktail please, garshon, so we may offer a toast to history's most delightfully overrigged lake multihulls!

 

...

The Bol d'Or started an hour ago, and the leading boats have now covered about a quarter of the distance to the Le Bouveret mark rounding.

Faltering wind on the Swiss side of the lake has caused the M1's and M2's to bunch up there near Nyon, the German SL33 Black Jack caught up with Alinghi and the SL33 is at the moment disregarding the rest of the fleet's sudden preference for the French side - German pigheadedness I suppose...

A pack of mostly Ventilo M2s led by D35 Ylliam were the first to make a bold dash for the French side, so at the moment there are mostly M2's in the lead of this race, unusually.

Here's the tracking page.

Foiling Mirabaud LX is also in good position.

 

...

Geneva's Tribune is live blogging the Bol d'Or.

They write that when the gun sounded at 10.00hrs, then Dona Bertarelli's D35 Ladycat helmed by Yann Guichard had a 'magnificent' start.

The Ventilo named '75th Bol d'Or' is now neck and neck in the lead with D35 Ylliam.

Ladycat at the start:

 

...

Having a Ventilo M2 leading the race is so unusual that there is already a cartoon. Caption: It's not the size that matters.

... this guy drawing the cartoons quickly is more updated than the tracking, which server seems to be crashing.

 

The live blog (see above) reports there are 2 M2's now in the lead, and they have begun including videos of the leading boats on the blog.

Finally the tracking came back online, and it's amazing to see how completely stuck the German SL33 Black Jack became, once in the lead now dead last, by staying to close to what suddenly became the unfavored shore.

Here is another page, showing video from the frantic M1 starting line at the gun.

 

Thanks, that was a tight start but well handled by the competitors. Watching the tracker with interest.

 

^^^

SUI9 is also a D35 to watch, close to the leading boats alongside Alinghi and Ladycat, Christian Wahl is considered a guru on the secrets of the different peculiar lake winds, which all have their own names.

Too bad there isn't a webcam at the Bouveret mark this year. Trust the blog fills in by covering the first roundings.

Ladycat will be hoping to repeat their performance (2 or 3 years ago?) with a brilliant return to Geneva.

 

...

To the immense satisfaction of everyone else on the lake, the seven or eight D35's now leading the race have slowed down to such dismal speeds as 0.2kts, closing at a painfully slow rate on the 'rounding barge', where there is no damned video camera!

This is where all the other skippers have fantasies of a magic wind soon permitting them to quickly catch up on those snooty D35 Club Prima Donnas.

Bouveret is becalmed. Let's hope they all have to spend the night there.

lol

Correction! The leading boat Zenith Fresh is the Ventilo M1 35-footer (previously sponsored by Gonet). The superlight D35-killer, which by this time (since launch in 2010) is sporting Cfoils perhaps?

 

Zenith Fresh Ventilo 35, passing the barge. No complicated foils there. Sui9 and Realstone D35's were close behind:



Just after rounding, Christian Wahl chooses to go left toward the shore, while Zenith goes right and finds more speed there. The return to Geneva has begun!

 

The Geneva Tribune blog has kept the same subhead for a while now:

"The M1 helmed by Bucher officially led at half-way mark. A mob of D35's are ready to ambush it"

And a race commentary says the talk on the dock at SNG revolves around if the Ventilo can manage to break the 'hegemony' of the D35's, which since their introduction in 2004 have always been first to finish this race.

It's a long way remaining, soon Zenith Fresh will face an empty lake stretched ahead (the other boats bunched up to the east) and the D35's will very likely mug the aspiring young Ventilo 35, most pitilessly, when nobody is watching...

 

...

The 75th Bol d'Or tracker is a sight to behold at this moment.

Something quite awesome is happening... the gods must have interceded on the behalf the Zenith, so as to allow it to reach its zenith!

The mighty D35's in all their lavishness, their professional, moneyed, experienced capacities, have all tumbled into a big airless hole in the lake, while the Zenith stretches out its 7 mile lead and is soon halfway down to the finish line.

Is the cat going to escape this ferocious pursuit? There's about 40 nautical miles to go, evening has set in, and if tradition holds then the wind will become more fickle still...

 

...

Here is the crew of Zenith, all looking aftwards hardly able to believe their eyes!



To make matters even worse, for the champagne and caviar set, at the moment all the leading D35's have become enveloped in M2 Ventilos, which have overtaken them.

To the most anxious satisfaction of Christian Favre, no doubt; he designed and built this boat and it has taken a long while for all this to come together! Here's a little video he posted on the helitreullage of Zenith a few days ago:

 

Alinghi, some 8 miles behind Zenith, has been doing over 15 knots for 15-20 minutes and at one point doing 21 knots. While Zenith is kind of meandering around at 10 knots or so.

Are they going to blow it, and have to suffer the indignity of seeing stinking rich Ernesto, grinning and paying them compliments while he shovels up the prize again?

God forbid...

 

...

An ominous photo just taken at the SNG dock, where the wind reading is at the moment 0.0, and weakening...