Every year in June the SNG in Geneva, that is also home to the current Americas Cup winner Alinghi, together with other sponsors, arranges Europe’s biggest lake regatta - the Bol d’Or. This year’s Bol d’Or Mirabaud was presented by Girard-Perregaux and attracted almost 600 boats from all over Europe.
What’s so great about this event - besides its sheer size - is that hobby sailors can compete with the top elite of the world.
Now in its 70th year, this year’s Bol d’Or was again plagued from very little wind like last year. While the fast racing Multihulls are less affected by these conditions and have already finished the 123km (66,5 nautical miles) race this evening, some of the slower boat have until now not even reached the half mark and - if the weather won’t change through the nights - a few might take almost until the tomorrow afternoon’s 16:00 time limit.
The fastest racing boats within the M2 and M1 class - both multihulls and extra light builds for lake racing are dominated by Swiss boat types - the 46 feet Decision D35 cats in the larger and normally much faster M1 class, and the 28 feet Ventilos in the M2 class.
But this year - not like 2007 when the super fast D35 swept the top three places in the race - one M2 boat managed to come in second just minutes after the first M1 catamaran (and also before the Alinghi team) - the M2 Team Parmigiani. Congratulations to this great success.
Below a snapshot of the runner up boat and - as you can see - there was very little wind this year. The max speed reported online for the fastest boats was only around 16knts today.
Click on the image below for a larger version
More information:
On the M2 Team Parmigiani boat
On the Bol d’Or race
Decision boat yard
Ventilo 28 feet cats
Leave a Reply
(all comments are moderated)