Bol d'Or Mirabaud underway

thedailysail out on the water off Geneva

There was considerable packing of overnight bags prior to the start of today’s Bol d’Or Mirabaud. While a fine breeze has been blowing most of this week, and even 20+ knots for last weekend’s dry run, the Geneve-Rolle-Geneve, for several days now the forecast for Switzerland’s equivalent of the Round the Island race, has been showing it to be light come race day. And so it was that after a short delay the start gun went shortly after 1000 local and…er… nothing. Freeze frame. With all 600 or so starters heading off simultaneously, like a mini version of Italy’s extreme Barcolana, but with the multihull fleet on a their own line ahead of the giant monohull fleet, that spanned the breadth of the ‘Petit Lac’, the start was a decidedly static affair.

By far the biggest sailing event in Switzerland, the Bol d’Or Mirabaud sends its fleet off up the length of banana-shaped (or croissant-shaped as the French prefer to describe it) Lake Geneva to a turning mark off Bouveret at the eastern end of the lake, close to where Alinghi’s new monster multihull is soon to be launched, before returning to Geneva - a total distance of 93 nautical miles. The course record stands at 5 hours 1 minutes and was set by Peter Leuenberger on the trimaran Triga 4 15 years ago.

Since the era of the most extreme multihulls - typically rebuilt Formula 40s, sporting rig heights in excess of twice their length - has passed, so today the most extreme boats entered in the Bol d’Or Mirabaud are the D35 catamarans of which 12 examples are racing this year. The D35 record for the Bol d’Or stands at a few seconds under 9 hours (set by Zebra 7 in 2004) but this is less due to any lack of pace on the part of this extreme 35ft catamaran but mainly due to the lack of any big breeze in the intervening years. Certainly any records broken this year are more likely to be due to the number of retirees from the lack of wind.

The line-up for this year’s race includes yet more stars. In the high profile D35 fleet so Alinghi dominate with effectively four boats now in their Niort-based training posse - Ernesto Bertarelli’s own Alinghi 1, the Ed Baird-helmed Alinghi 2 (complete with Brad Butterworth and Warwick Fleury), Dona Bertarelli-Spath’s Ladycat and Alain Gautier’s Foncia, Gautier being a consultant on the Alinghi design team. His crew this year includes Foncia-sponsored double Vendee Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux. More of Brittany’s finest are to be found in the D35 fleet with Karine Fauconnier helming Ladycat, Pascal Bidegorry fielding his new Banque Populaire D35 (and leading the D35s out of the ‘Petit Lac’ this morning followed by three time winner of the event, Ernesto Bertarelli and Alinghi 1) and Loick Peyron helming Nicolas Grange’s Okalys. Switzerland’s top multihull sailors, the Ravussins are also much in evidence - Steve steering his own D35 Veltigroup, while brother Yvan is on Banque Populaire.

Ironically this Bol d’Or is forecast to be so light that there is a chance that it could be won by one of the smaller 28ft long Ventilo M2 catamarans, that form the majority in the 29 strong M2 fleet. Two led the fleet out of the ‘Petit Lac’ - well known Swiss Moth sailor, Arnaud Psarofaghis on Rhone Gestion and Patrick de la Chesnais' dfi Bladerunner - having been first to the new breeze. Being lighter and smaller, the M2s are affected more by the positioning crewing and on the leading boats we noticed they have giant tiller extensions so that the entire crew, including the helmsman, can sit forward of the main beam, thereby getting the transoms out of the water, something the D35 crews didn’t seem to be making so much effort to try and achieve.

While the D35s race in what is known as the M1 class, making its race debut on the Bol d’Or start line was Gonet & Cie, the first 35ft long Ventilo M1, complete with the same reverse bows as the M2, looking more spindly and lightweight (and thus faster) than the D35. The boat is controversial for a number of reasons. Firstly readers may possibly remember that Nicolas Gonet, one of the founders of the Decision 35 fleet (as was) and who used to race with a certain Russell Coutts in his number, withdrew from the D35 class in February last year when at a owners meeting it became apparent that they were not keen for a BMW Oracle Racing crew to join their party. So the new boat not only comes with this history, it is also designed to be a ‘D35 eater’ that is clearly much lighter and probably cheaper too. Nonetheless the boat looks cool, despite we understand the paint literally being just dry on her. Quite how she will race on the lake in the future given that the Challenge Julius Baer is strictly a D35-only series remains to be seen.

Sadly the 30ft long Van Peteghem-Lauriot Prevost designed Syz & Co foiler catamaran that had its maiden voyage in April has been withdrawn from the Bol d'Or Mirabaud. She is currently back at her builders having her first set of modifications made.

Among the monohulls there are a number of new additions this time. In the Bol d’Or Mirabaud the monohull fleet are dominated in number by the local thin and powerful, Surprise, Grand Surprise and Toucan one designs. In addition there are three general handicap monohull classes and a special LX-TCFX class for one-off monohulls that race on elapsed time.

It is in this latter class that the interesting specimens reside, including the Mirabaud LX, Thomas Jundt’s 18ft skiff foiler, that decidedly was not liking the light non-foiling conditions when we spied her earlier. Britain’s sole representation is also to be found in this class with Stephen Fein’s Jo Richard-steered Full Pelt - the Bol d’Or Mirabaud, as well as other races on the Swiss-Italian lakes having been standard fare for the Cowes-based team for more than 20 years now.

Aside from Full Pelt, still the benchmark boats in the development class are the Sebastien Schmidt-designed Pharos 40 monohulls, extreme canting keel, bowsprited trapeze boats. Read more about these here.

Having not been to this event for three years now, the most noticeable increase in participation is in the sportsboats, including a couple of classes that have yet to make much impression outside of France – the Open 7.50 and 6.50 and Open 5.70

Designed by Finot the Open 7.50s are popular among some of the top offshore racers in Brittany. Among them is Safran Open 60 skipper Marc Guillemot who has brought his to the Bol d’Or Mirabaud where his crew includes Swiss fellow Vendee Globe skipper Dominique Wavre and partner/Barcelona World Race co-skipper Michelle Paret.

Among the line-up of new sportboats here are the Le Defi inspired Franco-Chinese effort that is the 6.8m Longtze Premier, while former Ellen MacArthur-preparateur, Mini turned Class 40 sailor Tanguy de la Motte is here with the K650, nothing to do with K-Challenge confusingly but K standing for the French deck gear manufacturer for whom he works, Karver, and the fact that it is a very obvious Juan K design (more on this boat later next week).

So when will the first boats be home? Sunday seems most likely.

See our photo gallery here