Swiss Bol d’Or - Second place for Realteam

by MaxComm on 16 Jun 2014 Swiss Bol d’Or 2014 - The Realteam Decision 35 crossed the finish line after a 5 hour, 41 minute and 24 second race against some of the giants of Swiss sailing on Saturday. Ladycat powered by Spindrift Racing won the 76th edition and Alinghi completed the podium behind Realteam, in third place. This excellent result reinforces Realteam’s second place overall on the Vulcain Trophy Decision 35 season championship leader board as the fleet reaches the season halfway mark.

Geneva, – Realteam, led by Jerome Clerc, crossed the Bol d’Or finish line at 15:41 on Saturday afternoon, just three minutes behind Ladycat powered by Spindrift. Conditions for the Lake Classic were superb with 15 knots for the leg up to Le Bouveret and up to 25 knots on the return to Geneva.

The Realteam crew established themselves at the front of the fleet right off the start line at 10:00 along with Alinghi and Mobimo.

'We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves,' said skipper Jerome Clerc back ashore. 'It was a magnificent Bol d’Or! The race was won on the first leg, off Lausanne, when the transition between the ‘Bise’ and the ‘Rabat’ (a thermal) was very difficult to manage,' he described.

So difficult in fact that the fleet came to an almost total stop for an hour testing the navigators’ nerves to the hilt. 'We thought that the ‘Bise’ would dominate but the thermal filled in and that paid off for Ladycat and Veltigroup out in the middle of the Lake, first,' he went on.

Unable to catch the leaders after this turning point in the race, Realteam stayed focussed and continued to push hard to finish in second place overall (Veltigroup received a penalty). 'Even though it was pretty windy, it wasn’t that physically challenging as there weren’t many manoeuvres during the race,' described Jerome.

With three consecutive Decision 35 podium finishes, this result is all the more important as it counts for points towards the Vulcain Trophy, the D35 annual championship. With four events behind them and four to go, the Bol d’Or heralds the halfway mark of the Decision 35 season. Alinghi is currently holding the top spot on the leader board while Realteam is in second place overall going into the second phase. 'We are very happy with this result going into the next round. We have everything to play for in the second half!' declared Jerome.

But first, Realteam will travel to St Petersburg in Russia on Saturday for Act four of the Extreme Sailing Series.