Lady lake racers

We speak to Ernesto's sister Dona Bertarelli Späth about her and Karine Fauconnier's LadyCat D35 campaign

Before he got so deeply entrenched in the America’s Cup, Ernesto Bertarelli actively raced on Lake Geneva aboard state of the art multihulls. Now his sister Donata is campaigning D35 catamarans on the lake with her Ladycat team, while a women’s entry in the next America’s Cup has raised its head above the parapet in Fuxia Challenge. It doesn’t make much imagination to join the dots…

In fact when we meet her in Geneva, Dona Bertarelli Späth seems far too level headed to start an America’s Cup campaign and she flatly denies any ambition in this respect. “I get asked the America’s Cup question all the time, especially as there is all this noise about the Fuxia Challenge and at the beginning people thought it was me behind that.”

While she might look at other sailing projects in the future she says right now she is happy with her D35 project. “It is already taking a lot of my time. I might do something different [but if I did] I don’t know if I’d do it with the same set-up with only women or under the same name with the same objectives. As far as the America’s Cup is concerned it is out of the question. We already have one family member involved in that!”


Dona Bertarelli Späth (right) with Karine Fauconnier

As was the case with her brother, Dona Bertarelli Späth was brought up in an active sporting environment. Her family and their pharmaceuticals company Serono moved from Italy to Switzerland when she was just four years old and she says her father was as passionate about sailing as he was for mountaineering or indeed any extreme sports.

“It was the way my father brought us up. Any sports we like to do at the best level. We have been exposed to so many different sports on the snow, the water, tennis or golf or horse riding, etc. But it is true that when we decide to do something we put in the energy and time needed to do it correctly, because it is not just a question of money – you can have all the money you want but if you don’t put your energy and time into doing it correctly then you don’t get anywhere. That is the same with any sport.”

During her and Ernesto’s childhood ‘Alinghi’ was a playword, but their father ended up christening his boat with this now famous name. “Then the name disappeared for 20 years until the day Ernesto decided to do the Cup in Auckland when he came to me and said ‘what do you think?’ We were looking for names and I said ‘yes, this is the right name’. It doesn’t mean anything and you can pronounce it in any language and it has a history for us in the family.”

While Bertarelli Späth admits that her number one sport in recent years has been skiing she has always continued sailing either cruising with her brother or friends or from time to time competing with Ernesto on his race boats. Their mother still owns a Swan. However Ladycat is the first boat that is actually hers.

So why now and why the D35? “I was not interested in doing a monohull campaign. I used to go sometimes with my brother on his Formula 40 when he had it, but those boats were so powerful. There was always a lot of interest from local women sailors who were saying ‘Dona, we know you sail - when are you going to do a lady’s team? Why don’t we do it?’ And I was never quite ready to do it and the boats were too complex and powerful for an all-lady’s team. One night I was at dinner at Bertrand Cardis’ house. It was at the beginning of the class and he was working on the designs of the D35 with Ernesto and Nicolas Grange and Philippe Cardis, etc and Bertrand said to me at the dinner ‘if this boat comes out and we can find enough people who are willing to buy it, this is a boat you will be able to sail’. And the idea stayed there.”

But it was only at the end of 2006 that the stars came into alignment. French trimaran skipper Karine Fauconnier had been invited to compete in the D35’s last regatta of the season and at a dinner Ernesto introduced Fauconnier to his sister. This was at a time when Fauconnier’s Sergio Tacchini sponsorship had ceased and she had just had her first child. At his Decision yard, where the Alinghi Cup boats have been built, Cardis had two build slots available for D35s.

“I was at the table with my brother and people from Audemar Piguet and my brother said ‘you either do it now or you’ll never do it’. That was the magic conversation.” She adds she got on with Karine immediately. Also at the table was the head of watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet who offered sponsorship. It was hard to say no.

From the outset Bertarelli Späth was adamant that the project should be an all-female affair. “I said its this or nothing. I wasn’t interested in having another boat, otherwise I could go sailing with my brother. If I wanted to have a project of my own I had to bring something new to the table and this was the only thing that really made sense. But it needed to be possible.”

Fauconnier wasn’t keen on the all-female route at the outset. With her campaigns she has always sailed with men. “She didn’t know if we would find enough competent women to sail these boats. And she is a winner and she will not start a project unless she knows she could win - and I am the same. From the first regatta last year we realised that it would be hard work but with a lot of training maybe we would have a place to play.”

And this is also the reasoning she uses for not being interested in entering the America’s Cup. “I would never have started the campaign on the D35, if I didn’t believe that we could do it. The America’s Cup class boats - if it is the old monohulls or a multihull - I believe it wouldn’t be right to have a ladies team. And I will never enter into a competition if I don’t think I have a chance one day.”

So with Ladycat we have a rare example of a women’s sailing team competing against male crews with equal resources. There have of course been examples in the past – the Dawn Riley-driven America3 Cup campaign, Ellen MacArthur’s Open 60 and record breaking campaigns along but usually they are underfunded under resourced affairs like the past Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Race campaigns.

At the end of 2006, they were able to borrow the Alinghi D35 and Bertarelli Späth and Fauconnier trialled some crew. “There were a lot of question marks. We knew we needed strength. But after the second day we had so much pleasure sailing together, I picked up the phone, called Bertrand and ordered the boat.”

The following spring they conducted a more serious crew selection trials. “The problem is the level of women’s sailors - there are some excellent ones, but in teams on this type of multihull there are not that many. It was a challenge to find the girls, but we did find some good ones.”

Among the present crew are several of Claire Leroy’s match racing team, the no1 ranked in the world, including Marie Riou, Morgane Gautier and Ophélie Théron. A new addition this year has been Switzerland’s Olympic 470 representative Emmanuelle Rol, who with Elodie Jane Mettraux and Dona form the Swiss contingent of Ladycat’s French-speaking crew. Sadly over the winter Théron broke her knee and at present leading Figaro sailor Jeanne Gregoire is standing in for her. In support they have Claudy Dewarrat as the team manager and have ex-Hobie 18 World Champion, Olympic Tornado sailor and former Sergio Tacchini crewman, Franck Citeau as their coach.

“Every time we brought a new girl it brought a new dynamic to the team,” continues Bertarelli Späth. “You can really see it is down to experience - you have to sail and sail and sail. We change positions quite often. I helm or Karine helms and then Karine goes and does something else, because you need to realise what the other people are doing. Karine needs to realise if she doesn’t do the gybe correctly what it means to the girls in the front in terms of power and fatigue and everything else.

“We still have to work on our strength for certain but the pieces are in place. We don’t make as many mistakes. We know we can sail and be in the top four and we know we can win sometimes, so it is very motivating to keep on doing that.”

However they have been on a steep learning curve. From the outset, Fauconnier was the only one on board with previous multihull experience and says she had to teach the crew about that, the all-important bear aways, etc.

Strength compared to the male crews is the principle issue for them to compete on a level playing field. Fortunately the majority of racing on Lake Geneva takes place in 5-10 knots. However there are occasions when it blows at more than 20, kicking up a nasty short chop on the lake, as occurred at the final race of the season in 2007. Bertarelli Späth says that they have been out training in these conditions and now they are feeling more confident in them. “Now I think we have got to a level where we can race the boat in any conditions. Now it is just a question of how many races we have to do in them. But the boys are tired as well. When we see them after one day of racing they are dead and we are exactly the same. But we are not scared of the wind any more. Maybe last year we were a little bit. You could feel the tension on board before the start of the race.”

But the D35s are also a handful for the crew in light winds, particularly upwind when the drifter has to be furled and unfurled during tacks.

According to Bertarelli Späth the bar is being raised every year in the class. We observe that there seems to be more and more professional teams entering, be it her brother with a boat packed with talent from his Cup team to Alain Gautier’s Foncia to themselves. But she counters that it is not just the professionals who are winning everything. “If you look at a boat like Cadence, the one sponsored by Chopard, the team has been the same for years: They have no professionals on board and they are usually in the top three at Grand Prix.”

While the D35 class is principally an amateur class, it has no Farr 40-style rules about owner-drivers or the number of pros in the crew. When it comes to Ladycat, Bertarelli Späth says they don’t really have a choice other than going for pros. “We needed to have a certain level of competence to sail this boat. We couldn’t sail this boat with girls that were not professional sailors.”

The D35s however do have a weight limit for the crew and to level the playing field the class have allowed the all-female team to race with six or seven rather than five or six crew as is the case for the men. “There is also a minimum weight of 370kg so when we are six we are at the minimum. So we couldn’t be five like the men. If there is no wind and it is very very light you want to be at minimum weight.”



At present Fauconnier helms Ladycat but one of Bertarelli Späth’s objectives for next season is to be able to take the helm more often. Already this year she has steered, to give Fauconnier a break, during the two longer distance races the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve and the top event on the lake, the Bol d’Or Mirabaud. “Now I am starting gently to train on helming also during Grand Prix. Next year little by little I would like to do more.”

To up their game for this season, aside from the crew changes, they have also added another two weeks of training to their program. But there are no shortage of races in which they can improve. The D35’s championship, the Challenge Julius Baer, comprises eight races with a two month break in the middle for the summer holidays. With the exception of the two longer distance races, the other six are round the cans at different places around the Lake Geneva shoreline. However new for this year is that some of the events have increased from two to three days.

So how are they getting on? Having finished 9th out of ten boats in 2007, half way through their second season they are presently lying seventh, having come second to Alinghi at the Rolle Open, the second event this year. With four more events left this season and just four points off third place, it seems there is all to play for, starting this weekend with the HP Cup, la Réserve.

Aside from Audemars Piguet and Grand Hotel Park Gstaad (which
Bertarelli Späth owns), the other name emblazoned on the hull and sails of their electric pink catamaran is that of the World Heart Foundation. The Bertarelli family have a number of foundations, some focussing on infertility (one of Serono’s key markets was infertility treatment) while Bertarelli Späth’s focus is on children, such as the Geneva-based Smiling Children. With the all-female Ladycat likely to grab media attention, she felt it was appropriate to use the campaign as a platform for a women’s cause.

“I am not 20 years old, Karine is not 20 years old. We are mothers, wives,” Bertarelli Späth states. “I wanted to associate myself to a good cause and give something back. And Danièle [Castle – who handles Ladycat’s PR] came up with the idea of the World Heart Foundation and I think it is brilliant, because what this campaign is saying is that women are more at risk of cardio-vascular diseases than men. If you talk to a 35 year old women and say that they won’t believe you, but it is a fact. Today the stress that women have is the same as it is for men. And on top of that it is so simple not to be at risk: Eat healthily, do some sport and try not to smoke. Ladycat and the way we have to live in order to perform is exactly that – it is the same objectives. It is just perfect a demonstration of the way of life.”

Back to the racing and while Ernesto has been keen to help them wherever possible, we wonder how far that might go as Ladycat become increasingly competitive... Bertarelli Späth denies sibling rivalry, but given the competitive nature of their upbringing we are not surprised when Fauconnier raises an eyebrow to this… She says Ernesto suspects her of this even if isn’t the case. “He thinks so! He is certain, even if we are like fifth and they are sixth! Once we beat them and we cheered and they saw us and they thought it was because we’d beaten them. In fact it was because we realised we had done well. It was at the beginning of the season last year. The biggest satisfaction that I had was a couple of races when they arrived first and we arrived second and everyone else was behind.”

In fact Fauconnier is of the opinion that Ernesto is simply very proud of his sister and if they can take on the boys teams and win, then maybe it will be an inspiration to other women’s sailing teams around the world.

More photos on the following pages...