Feature Story

14.07.2009 (11:50 CET) - Geneva, Switzerland - Agence France Presse

Lake Geneva's calm waters: high tech sailing lab

(Photo credit: Stefano Gattini/Alinghi)

By Samuel Gardaz

GENEVA (AFP) — Surrounded by the Alps, graced by balmy winds and offering stunning views, the calm waters of Lake Geneva have enchanted poets and writers, and captured the eye of great artists.

Today those bucolic surroundings are inspiring a generation of naval architects and boat builders, who have turned western Europe's biggest inland waterway into a laboratory for cutting-edge sailing technology destined for the high seas and the America's Cup.

New developments for hulls, sails, rigging, or even whole boats that literally fly on the water have been hatched here over the past 15 years, and one of the first to benefit has been America's Cup holder Alinghi.

The Swiss team this week completed a huge, innovative, 90-foot (27-metre) catamaran to fight a duel with US challenger Oracle, resorting to a huge Russian helicopter to airlift it from the boatyard into the lake.

It will be tested and developed there before it heads for the open seas.

The lakeside area between the city of Geneva and Villeneuve is home to a dense network of naval designers, boat builders, sailors, cutting edge engineering expertise as well as sponsors ready to bankroll them.

"You can take a lot of risks here by navigating on the high seas with boats that are very extreme, powerful and endowed with huge sails thanks to very high masts," said Sebastian Schmidt.

"If we capsize, we are never far away from the shore," quipped the naval architect.

In 2004 he built some sailing jewels, among them the D35, a series of 35-feet catamarans capable of reaching 30 knots (about 50 kilometres/31 miles per hour).

More recently, the first hydrofoils, boats equipped with winglets underneath the hull that lift the craft above water, appeared on the lake.

Among them is the Mirabaud LX, a 10-metre single-hull vessel, which achieved its first success early June during a classic boat race.

French sailor Alain Thebaud also chose Lake Geneva -- called "Lac Leman" in French to develop a 30-metre hydrofoil, with which he intends to do a world tour.

He was drawn to the lake by the varied wind speeds, in particular the dominant gentle winds that would allow him to test his prototype in stages. The first tests are planned for the beginning of 2010.

For engineers at the Federal institute of technology in Lausanne (EPFL), one of Switzerland's foremost science and engineering universities, the developments on the lake also offer the chance to try new technology out in pratcice, rather than rely on theory and concepts.

The university has been working with Alinghi.

But besides the 70-kilometre long configuration of the 582 square-kilometre lake (224 square miles), the favourable wind conditions and the brains, local wealth has funded the creation of new innovative boats.

Carinne Bertola, who heads the Leman Museum, described the tradition of sailing as being "very established among wealthy families" in the region.

The favourable economic climate helped, along with the arrival of private banks as sponsors, and sailing enthusiasts such as billionaire Swiss businessman Ernesto Bertarelli, the charismatic boss of the America's Cup defenders Alinghi.

This tradition "crystallised" around the Nautical Club of Geneva and its annual regatta, the Bol d'Or, a round the lake race which gathers 550 yachts in June every year, Bertola explained.

Since the 1990s, sailing enthusiasts have been developing boats adapted to local conditions -- capable of pace with low wind-speeds, but also able to deal with short, violent storms that can whip through the lake without warning.

Luxury watchmakers and Geneva private banks contributed significantly to the development, keeping up their commitments even through the current economic crisis.

An innovative sailing hydrofoil, Mirabaud LX is sponsored by Bank Mirabaud, while Bank Julius Baer finances a race that brings together 12 "D35" class catamarans.

Some of the biggest names in ocean sailing have become regular competitors: Loic Peyron, Franck Cammas, Alain Gauthier, Pascal Bidegorry, Russell Coutts and crew from both boats competing at the next America's Cup.

Thebaud's project is also sponsored by a Swiss banker, Thierry Lombard of private bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, another sailing enthusiast.

"These sponsors are real partners, who have dreams ... and not are not just interested in the results," said Thomas Jundt, who conceived Mirabaud LX.

Their boat builders and naval architects are therefore given a free rein to create very powerful boats with ever more daring designs and hulls, Jundt explained.