The Bise wind from the north regularly gave a maritime air to our Lake Geneva in March. However, the near-polar temperatures dissuaded everybody from going out on the water. It must be admitted that like most Swiss, even the most passionate sailors tend to spend winter weekends on the snowy slopes of the Alps rather than on the lake.

Nonetheless, some have been assiduously preparing their boats in view of putting them shortly into the water. They have promised themselves to begin the season early so as to be perfectly ready for the Bol d’Or Mirabaud 2008.

Before the imminent start of this year’s training sessions,

The people who
make the «Bol d’Or»
Philippe Durr

With seven overall wins, Philippe Durr is one of the Bol d’Or’s most victorious yachtsmen. He estimates having participated in the race some forty times. His first time on the La Nautique-Le Bouveret route was as a crewmember
on his father’s 6mR in 1964.
He gladly speaks of that period when it was common to
reach the eastern extremity
of the lake in the evening.

“We weren’t allowed to touch the pork pie my mother had made until we passed the halfway mark,” he remembers. Much water has gone under

the bridge since then and Philippe has subsequently
sailed on boats that have made it back to Geneva before nightfall.

He has a winning record fit to make other sailors green with envy, whether they be from Lake Geneva or elsewhere.
He holds 11 Swiss Champion titles, three European
Champion titles and seven World Champion titles in
various classes. A native of Versoix, a boat constructor
and above all the owner
of the Vieux-Port boatyard,
he has built a number of prestigious yachts such as Pierre Fehlmann’s Gauloise
and several versions
of the famous Altaïr multihulls.

Philippe Durr began
competing in Fireballs
(wooden centreboard boats
of the time), with which he won his first Swiss Champion title. He then turned towards keelboats in which he continued to excel. He considers his

greatest victory to be unquestionably the 6mR
world championship that he
won in Cannes in 1985.
The contemporary press ran
the headline «Tom Thumb brings down the Ogre»,
the ogre being Tom Blackaller, master of the discipline and holder of three world titles.

With seven victories in the
Bol d’Or, Philippe Durr doesn’t intend to try and win the
race again. “I know all about winning, I’m now interested
in other things!” he declared.
“I would be more tempted
to sail on a boat that reminds me of my early years in the regatta,» he added with
a touch of nostalgia.
Following the voice of wisdom
in his professional world
as well, his boatyard is specialised in the restoration
of vintage wooden sailing
boats. He has recently been honoured moreover with
the 2005 craftsmanship prize for the renovation of the
5.5mR Ballerina, the boat
that took the bronze medal
at the 1960 Rome Olympics
with Louis Noverraz
at the helm.

The «Bol d’Or»
racing boats
The 6mR yachts

The 6mR yachts, the jewels
of the international (or metre) class boats, won the Bol d’Or
23 times between 1939 and 1967. They were definitively dethroned by the Tigre 8mR sailboats and then by the Toucans, which revolutionised the Lake Geneva fleet from 1971.

The International Rules for Metre Class boats were developed in 1906, following
a meeting of different European clubs to establish a common system for holding fair and equitable international regattas.
Literally standing for “6 metre (International) Rule” boats, 6mR craft in fact are nearly
11 metres long. The number doesn’t correspond to
the boat’s length but rather
to the result of a complex equation integrating different measurement parameters such as length, weight and sail area. The term “metre” indicates that metric units of measurement are used, due to the European nature of the project.