THE D35 CATAMARANS ON THE STARTING LINE OF THE BOL D’OR MIRABAUD

The Bol d'Or Mirabaud, the race of all the records...
72 km long, 13.8 km wide at its maximum, with a crescent shape, the whole Lake Geneva will be the playing field of the D35 fleet and all participating boats. This represents approximately a race of 140 km or about 75 nautical miles: the biggest race on a closed basin in Europe, over 600 boats on the starting line, more than 3,000 sailors, professional and amateurs, monohulls, multihulls, experimental crafts...

Record time to beat (for the Bol d'Or Mirabaud): 5h 01 '50'' record set by Peter Leuenberger on Triga IV in 1994 ... Course record (Ruban Bleu): 4h 53' 19'' held by Philippe Cardis on the Julius Baer D35 in 2007. The record of the slowest race was reached at the 1962 edition with 31 h 54 '59'', which could not longer be possible today as the closing time of the regatta is set at 5 pm on Sunday, with a maximum 31-hour race!

The D35 are ready to get into the arena of the 74th edition of the Bol d'Or Mirabaud presented by Corum on Saturday at 10 am, on a starting line dedicated to multihulls. About 600 meters long, the line is set up off the Tour Carrée (Geneva Yacht Club), a few boat lengths ahead of the one dedicated to the monohulls. A clearing buoy is placed off La Pointe à la Bise. At Le Bouveret, the boats must leave two marks to starboard, a barge and an entrance buoy. The arrival is at the Port-Noir at the level of the SNG.

D35 Teams ready to go
Paul Cayard will be in charge of the tactics on Artemis Racing alongside Torbjorn Tornqvist, while Yann Guichard will be the tactician on Ladycat, with Dona Bertarelli at the helm. Arnaud Gavairon will support Boris Lerch on Marco Simeoni’s Veltigroup; Philippe Cardis, the holder of the Ruban Bleu, on De Rham-Sotheby's will rely on his "magician" Christian Wahl, and Ernesto Bertarelli will lead his faithful crew on Alinghi. Fred Le Peutrec will be at the helm of Zen Too with Guy de Picciotto, while Fred Moura and his team, Lake Geneva true connoisseurs, will take the helm of Romandie.com – Nickel. Nicolas Grange will be at the helm of Okalys Corum, while Jerome Clerc, on Realstone, with its crew of the Regatta Training Centre of Geneva, will be in the starting blocks after winning the Genève-Rolle-Genève, the rehearsal of the Bol d'Or Mirabaud.

Racing for Geneva Lake
The class D35 has decided to support the association Net'Léman by placing the association’s logo on the mainsail of all the catamarans. Initiated by the OMYP (Organization for ecological yacht clubs and harbours – a nonprofit NGO founded in 1997), the association Net'Léman founded in 2005 aims to preserve the environment. Net'Léman collaborates with the neighboring cities and brings together many local actors, including a number of Lake Geneva diving centers, as well as volunteers from all backgrounds and all generations. Net’Léman regularly organizes cleaning actions. Between 10 and 20 tons of waste are retrieved during each cleaning action before being sorted and recycled. This year, the cleaning action will take place on September 22.

www.omyp.org

www.netleman.ch

Overall ranking after 4 events:
1. Realstone Sailing (J. Clerc) - 3 points
2. Alinghi (E. Bertarelli) - 8 points
3. Ladycat (D. Bertarelli) - 8 points
4. Artemis Racing (T. Tornqvist) - 10 points
5. De Rham Sotheby's (Ph. Cardis) - 10 points
6. Veltigroup (M. Simeoni) - 17 points
7. Zen Too (G. de Picciotto) - 18 points
8. Okalys (N. Grange) - 19 points
9. Nickel (F. Moura) - 24 points
The complete results on www.vulcaintrophy.com