The Alinghi Décision 35 (D35) crew is limbering up this week in preparation for the 44^th edition of the Geneva – Rolle – Geneva, a 35nm (65km) sprint across the Swiss lake. The start gun is due at 14:00 on Saturday 7 June and heralds the third event of the D35 Julius Baer Challenge, which Alinghi is currently leading. This event is also an opener for the Bol d’Or, Geneva’s famous annual regatta and many of the 250 competitors will be on the start line again a week later, on 14 June. 

 

Mainsail trimmer and multi-hull specialist, Pierre-Yves Jorand, gives some insight on the event:

 

“I think the Geneva-Rolle-Geneva is probably the nicest race on the lake. It’s a sprint: a couple of hours racing. You sail this race as if you were sailing an up and down course but it can last anything from two to five hours; it’s non stop, fully focused and a hard race in which you have to push to gain every single metre. You have to take into account the rest of the fleet too, not only the D35s but all kinds of boats, for instance the M2 – a small 28 ft multi-hull – much lighter than the D35 will have a fleet of 25 boats on the water. These boats are really quick in light airs so we will have to look both at the fleet of D35s but also at these boats when working out our strategy.”

 

“This is the first of the open races and we are going to change our sail configuration looking for more powerful sails because you need to be quick in all the transitions, so having some more ‘all purpose’ designs on board. We will look carefully at the weather on a wider scale. It’s a 35 nautical mile course so the weather is quite important, especially for the final cross, so we are carefully going to look at our targets.”

 

“This event is one week from the Bol d’Or so all the best boats and crews will be there. It is unlikely that there will be any crew changes between these two races because it’s the best training you can have for the Bol d’Or. We take this race very seriously and historically Alinghi boats have done well: we’ve won it seven times, although we haven’t got the record! The competition will be tough. I’m really looking forward to it, I can see not only the D35s are the favourites, but probably 10 or 15 of the M2s as well - the game is open.”

 

 

Ernesto Bertarelli, helmsman

Pierre-Yves Jorand, mainsail trimmer

Murray Jones, tactician

Yves Detrey, bowman

Nils Frei, headsail trimmer

Christian Wahl, strategist

 

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