Monthly Archives: June 2007

Photo © Juerg Kaufmann

This weekend I hade the chance to sail the Bol d’or regatta on one of the extreme 40Catamaran and shooting some pictures. We left the harbor at 7.30 in the morning and by 20.00 we where back in the Club in Geneva. The speed of these boats is simply amazing, all build in carbon, it’s really close to the flying feeling. Compared to the local D35 the extreme40 are a bit heavier with a smaller sail surface, and they are not sailing a code zero kite what the D35 do and therefore a bit faster in low wind.The design concept is simpler as the D35 and therefore transportable. Next weekend the Extreme40 will sail the round the island race in Cows and then heading down to Marseille, maybe I will make it to Marseille right after the tour de France a la voile and see these carbon speed weapons in offshore action.

Click here to see the images.

Photo (c) Chris Cameron

First 3 races of the LVC Final are over, Emirates Team New Zealand is leading 3:0 against Luna Rossa the Italian team. I the TV Studio from the Televisione Svizzera Italiana we are commenting every day this races, it a great pleasure to work with professionals like Giordano De Lucia journalist from the TV and Flavio Favini, Mascalzone Latino’s helmsmen.
For me it’s the first time commenting life on tv a sailing regatta. It’s not so easy to talk all the time, as umpire we are trained to describe a situation based on the rules within a few words, not missing any rules relevant part and not talking more as necessary, here in the TV it’s all different.
Imagine the spectators if they here “Luna rossa on port give way and ETNZ starboard right of way” not considering to use all our sailing slang words such as “rolling over” situation of yesterday in during the pre-start after the long dial up….ups again one of this words. Anyway Dial up is when both boats are heat to wind and not moving at all, really boring to watch for non sailors and the talking we do makes it hopfully “inetresting”.
Today we have a day off and from Tuesday onwards we will be again in the box commenting the races. I’m sure that Luna Rossa in the mean time is working hard to reflect and regroup there team.
Ragazzi we payed the ticket for 9 races come back on Tuesday and win the match!

Juerg