Monday, May 5, 2008

D35 regatta on Lake Geneva


(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

(Photo credit: Loris von Siebenthal - myimage)

Checkout more photos at Myimage - Philippe Schiller & Loris von Siebenthal

There is also some great video on Alinghi's website of the racing.

[Alinghi.com] Alinghi scored two victories today – the final day of the first D35 regatta on Lake Geneva – putting the team one point behind Okalys in second place after three days of racing.

Ernesto Bertarelli, helmsman, comments on the overall result:"We are happy with the result. I think Okalys (owned by Nicolas Grange) deserves to win as they were more constant during the three days of the Grand Prix, but we are only one point behind so I think it's a good result given the fact that we only started sailing together four days ago. It's the first time that Murray [Jones, tactician] is on this boat, Yves [Detrey, bowman] hasn't sailed on a multi-hull for nearly five years now – he was one of the core sailors in the early days – and this is the first time on the helm for me this year. We are happy; I think we have the potential to improve but I definitely think that it was a good start to the season. I am particularly happy for my sister's results. They've had a great day today with two seconds!"

Murray Jones, tactician, comments on both races of the day:
"We were over at the start line for race one, so had a bit of trouble fighting our way out of the back of the fleet. On the last leg we could see the conditions were getting light so we went for the left hand side of the course looking to stay in the breeze and Ernesto [Bertarelli, helmsman] and Nils [Frei, trimmer] did a great job of sailing the boat through and keeping the momentum. That's really what won us the race. There was good crew work but we were quite lucky, we don't deny that... That makes up for the first day when we were quite unlucky!

For the second race we set up at the start line with more room to leeward. We were a little crammed in with the other boats but we managed to get ourselves a nice slot below them and accelerated pretty quickly to get into a situation where we could tack. From then we sailed the puffs as we saw them. The crew did really well and the boat sailed fast."

What's your personal view and experience after this Grand Prix?
"The boats are fantastic. They are really challenging to sail. If you sail them well, you go fast and you can't afford to make mistakes as you pay dearly for them. They are great boats, really quick: today, there was a little bit of breeze on the lake and we came into the finish line at 18 knots and there was probably 10 knots of breeze – good fun!” - Alinghi.com