David wins Decision 35s

Anne Hinton reports on the final race of the year for the high performance catamarans at Lausanne, Switzerland

The Décision 35 catamaran's final race weekend of the year, the Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace, in the Challenge Ferrier Lullin series, got under way in bright but chilly conditions and winds of up to Force 3 on Friday. The eight boats, built new this year by the Décision Boatyard, to the design of Sebastian Schmidt, all competed in the regatta held over the weekend on Lac Léman, Lausanne, Switzerland.

The breeze was very flukey all weekend and Friday was no exception. The strongest puffs were all on the left of the beat to start with, but by the last race of the day, the strongest pressure came from the right side of the approximately north-oriented course. The wind directions changed markedly near the top mark in races four and five, adding to the wide place changes amongst the top group.

It was noticeable how Team Red - Zebra 5, skippered by Etienne David, was nearly always first at the top mark - the exceptions being in races 4 and 5, in which Alinghi dominated. Alinghi was sailing without her propriateur, and has done most of the season as Ernesto Bertarelli only competed in the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve and Bol d’Or races, citing work committments as the reason for his absence.

The other boat well up with the leaders was Ferrier Lullin skippered by Philippe Cardis with Team Red-Zebra 7 skippered by 60ft trimaran star Loïck Peyron being at the back of the ‘top four’ boats on this occasion. Cadence was generally in fifth by the end of
the races, often losing out to the others after a reasonable start. Alinghi started well throughout the racing.

Perhaps the real turn-up was Bédat & Co. Sailing with a reef in the main, in spite of the light winds, a protective measure due to earlier hull damage, she was usually sixth (out of eight boats) at the end of the races. Certainly the crew work on Zen Too and Gonet did not appear to be up to that of the other boats. This often played a crucial element at mark roundings.

The damage that Bédat was nursing had occurred the previous weekend in the racing from Versoix, near Geneva. The boat had pitchpoled completely in a gust. The starboard hull was forced three metres under water and suffered a small area of delamination forward of the front bulkhead. The crew were anxious not to have that hull under water again before the delaminated area had been properly repaired and reinforced.

"We have a breakage of the shear strength of the honeycomb," as builder, Bertrand Cardis, put it. "We need to check this, and the calculations, thoroughly." Cardis is hoping to build two more of the boats, for new owners keen to join in the racing, for next year’s series, bringing the total up to 10 of these exciting 35ft catamarans.

At the same event, Zen Too tipped backwards up to nearly right-angles, throwing her crew in the water, before landing back the right way up again. Remarkably, considering the damage to Bedat, thorough inspection has shown that Zen Too survived completely intact.

Going into the Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace, the top four boats were well clear of the other four points-wise in the Challenge Ferrier Lullin series. Loïck Peyron’s Team Red - Zebra 7, with three victories across five events, were one point ahead of Etienne David’s Team Red - Zebra 5, who had won the Bol d’Or and come second on three other occasions. Ernesto Bertarelli’s Alinghi, with a win in the 100 Mile Race, was third overall
with Philippe Cardis’ Ferrier Lullin in fourth. The fifth boat, Bédat & Co had less than half the score of the fourth-placed one. After the Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace, the teams were able to discard the results of their worst event in the Challenge Ferrier Lullin series.

The results of the Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace saw an overall win for Team Red - Zebra 5, with Alinghi second, Ferrier Lullin third and Team Red - Zebra 7 slipping to fourth place. This was enough to ensure that the overall victory in the Challenge Ferrier Lullin for 2004 went to Etienne David’s Team Red - Zebra 5 with Loïck Peyron’s Team Red - Zebra 7 finishing second and Alinghi third overall.

"We like [sailing in] all weather conditions," said David. "We trained every Wednesday and Saturday for 5-6 hours. We like the Décisions a lot. We find them great fun and very technical. The team is fantastic - young. Everyone contributes their point of view and that’s how the team works." The background of the sailors in the team had not previously been in sailing multihulls. David felt that all the Decisions "have a very similar speed. It is only the sails that are a bit different from one boat to another."

David praised the work of crew member Jean-Marc Monnard of Europ sails in producing excellent sails for both the Team Red boats, especially different genoas from those on the other Decision 35s.

The battles had been won and lost on the water, but the war was not yet over on land between second and third place getters, Peyron and Bertarelli - erupting in a fizz of champagne as each tried to out-do the other in a haze of the bubbly on the rostrum. Both got wet !


Sailing Stars in the Decision 35s

The Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace is normally held annually in multihulls. This year it had been added to the Challenge Ferrier Lullin for the new Décision 35 catamarans. Traditionally the event comprises a competition in large multihulls for ‘stars’ of sailing and previous winners have included Grant Dalton, Russell Coutts and, in 2003, Jochen Schümann. While these are now all ‘names’ from the America’s Cup world, most invitees this year were French or Swiss ocean racing or multihull sailors.

Brad Butterworth was the America’s Cup representative this year. The others were Bernard Stamm, Laurent Bourgon, Steve Ravussin, Dominique Wavre, Jean-Pierre Dick and Marc Guillemot.

Competitors changed boat after each race, their score going with them. Courses were short, keeping the boats close together in very patchy, maximum force two, winds. It was noticeable that Alinghi was nearly always at the front of the fleet and the skippers commented afterwards that she had the best crew.

Butterworth started by sailing on Alinghi. Caught out beyond the pin at the starboard end of the line, he had the option of barging or starting behind everyone else. Choosing to squeeze in resulted in a pile-up, with Alinghi making contact with Ferrier Lullin, Ferrier Lullin with Cadence and Cadence with Team Red - Zebra 7 down the line. Alinghi took a 360deg penalty on the second leg to resolve the three boats’ protest flags, going
from first to third in the process. However, with close encounters between
boats at marks, Team Red - Zebra 5 also ended the first race with a protest flag flying. Butterworth started in the back row in the second race, but still pulled through to finish second. The number of protests declined as racing went on, but all races were well contested, including some in which some competitors sailed the wrong course, but still managed to regain contention.

A halt was called after six races. At this time Butterworth was in first place, Marc Guillemot, second, and Jean-Pierre Dick, third. Brad Butterworth continued the America’s Cup tradition by winning the Grand Prix Beau-Rivage Palace for 2004.

"It was a fantastic regatta and I had some lucky breaks," Butterworth commented modestly in relation to his victory (he had not sailed multihulls before). "They’re pretty exciting - I love the boats. Any little bit of wind and they go very fast. There’s a lot of acceleration. If you make a mistake you could be punished for it. They’re great boats."

Asked about the status of Alinghi’s America’s Cup winning boat, SUI 64, after her fall in Marseille, Butterworth said that she had not been as badly damaged as it had looked from the pictures. "It was damaged on the port side along the waterline where it fell on to a container. The mast cradle punched a hole through the back of the boat in the scoop."

In terms of SUI64's delamination: "whenever you punch a hole in them they delaminate in that area. There’s a bit of delamination going on but it’s only in that area." Butterworth confirmed that Alinghi will be using SUI 64 in the Louis Vuitton Cup Acts in Valencia next month.