Bold'Or Newsletter

Dear subscribers, dear partners,

Bilan is proud to annonce the Bol d'Or Mirabaud's newsletter presented by Girard-Perregaux.

You will receive the newsletter every three weeks and you will be able to consult the old editions (with videos) on the web site http://boldormirabaud.bilan.ch

Best regards

Stéphane Benoit-Godet
Chief redactor, Bilan

DATE 13 JUNE 2008

	The people Michel Glaus
	The watch of the Bol d’Or Chronograph
	The races the navigators dream about La Transat Anglaise
	Vidéo

The sailing season has well and truly begun, and the Geneva-Rolle-Geneva race marked the start of the classic Lake Geneva regattas. This round trip to the Vaud township, an essential warm-up to the Bol d’Or Mirabaud, was the first occasion of the year to measure up the competition on a long run. The 2008 edition of the Yacht Club classic served to remind everyone that the qualities to do well in a big race aren’t necessarily the same as for a windward-leeward course, as confirmed by Zen Too’s multihull victory with Steve Ravussin at the helm. Only those crews armed with a good dose of patience and finesse managed to do well in this 44th edition. Many others couldn’t take it and 113 competitors pulled out before the end

because of the lack of wind. Fourth place went to Zebra 7, the Decision 35 sponsored by Girard-Perregaux and skippered by Franck Cammas. The world’s leading single-handed trophy collector, Michel Desjoyeaux a.k.a. «the Professor», was co-skipper on board Julius Baer, the boat owned by Philippe Cardis that finished third. As for the single-hull boats, Gasparini’s Startpeople beat the Psaros 40s, once more demonstrating the unpredictable aspect of a race like this. This prologue leads straight on to the Bol d’Or Mirabaud regatta, which registered its 500th entry application on Sunday. As long as Aeolus doesn’t need too much coaxing, it should be a great party.

Vidéo:

The Bol d’Or trophy is up for grabs every year unless a competitor wins the race three times over a five-year period, when he gets to keep it. To date, the trophy has been won definitively by the 8mR Marie-José II belonging to Horace Julliard, Altaïre XI owned by Philippe Stern and Ernesto Bertarelli’s Alinghi. Okalys, owned by Nicolas Grange, is well-positioned as a prospective owner for this 70th edition. Having already won the race in 2005 and 2007, it could become the 4th boat to take the trophy home forever.

The people who
make the «Bol d’Or»
Michel Glaus

President of the organizing committee since 2007, Michel Glaus is also a regular competitor in the race. He started sailing at age 15 on a 470 sailboat. «The series was very popular at the time,
there were races nearly every weekend,» reminisced the
head of the largest inland regatta in Europe.

He quickly became hooked and participated in prestigious regattas like the 1971 European championships in Great Britain and the world championships in Canada the year after.

He then graduated to keeled boats with his father’s purchase of the half-tonner Diane III. A rather avant-garde boat for its time compared to the rest of the Lake Geneva fleet, it rapidly won a reputation as the fastest boat on the lake.

Michel and his crew competed regularly in what was then known as the ABC championships on Lake Geneva between 1974 and
1980, winning all the season’s regattas during the last of those years.

Following that, he participated in the Tour de France à la Voile,
took a second place at the Bol d’Or and won a Swiss champion
title in match racing. Looking for a new challenge, he acquired
a J24 in 1982, the most widespread one-design boat worldwide.

His crew continued to shine in this notoriously competitive series.

Always in the lead group, he took home two European titles in 1982 and 1983 and placed in the top ten of the world
championships three times.

If asked to name his best
memory of that period, he says without hesitation «the Dublin world championships of 1990, where we finished 7th in front
of skippers like Ed Baird and Francesco de Angelis, who
are now America’s Cup skippers.»

The following year, the crew decided to return to a more Lake Geneva-oriented boat. He therefore procured a Surprise, the celebrated Teo Jakob that dominated the series for more
than a decade.

Accompanied by his faithful friends Bernard Dunand, Christophe Ganz, Jean-Claude Burdet and last-to-join Nicolas Wyler, the red and white Surprise and its «Dream Team» won the national title three times, the Mediterranean championship three times, the 2007 Trophée Mirabaud and an incalculable number of one-design races.

Vincent Curutchet/ DPPI/The Artemis Transat
Edipresse/myimage.ch

The Watch of the Bol d’Or:
The Laureato Bol d’Or Mirabaud Chronograph

For this fourth edition of the newsletter, we exceptionally propose to present a watch in place of a sailboat. Not just any watch nonetheless, since the Laureato de Girard-Perregaux Chronograph has been created exclusively for the 70th Bol d’Or in a limited series of 30 pieces. At a closer look the subjects are not so far apart, as watchmaking has many parallels with sailing and inventing a timepiece is indisputably similar to designing a sailboat. The two domains are based on strong traditional values and chronograph development has long been related to navigational needs. The worlds are related as well in their concept, which can appear outdated at first glance – sailing and mechanical watches are no longer used for commercial purposes, as time can now be measured with atomic clocks and maritime transport hasn’t utilised wind power for a long time – but both are doing very

well economically nonetheless. Finally, watchmaking and sailing work on principles that, in spite of enormous progress, have fundamentally stayed the same for centuries. Masts, sails, hulls, balances, wheel trains and escapements are the basic elements that even now continue to turn over watches and move sailboats. The current Laureato probably best symbolizes this ongoing evolution, as its creators have incorporated numerous developments that make it not only the Bol d’Or Mirabaud watch but also a precision tool for maritime navigation. One of the challenges taken up for its conception was the quest for lightness, as for a sailboat. Its titanium case, a metal similarly used in nautical design, is employed in response to this constraint. In addition, several of its pieces are coated in rubber, a material highly appropriate for the nautical environment. A perfect illustration of the marriage of high technology and tradition, the Laureato chronograph represents better than any other object the values of the 70th Bol d’Or Mirabaud, presented by Girard-Perregaux.

The Transat:
Specification sheet

Date: The 2008 edition left Plymouth on 11 May. The next Transat is scheduled for May 2012. A race specifically geared for amateurs and renamed the OSTAR will be held starting on 25 May 2009.

Departure: Plymouth, in southwest England

Club: Royal Western Yacht Club

Race course: Plymouth – Boston, with a gate at 40° N off the banks of Newfoundland to avoid the icebergs that are found ever more frequently in the area. Course length: 2955 nautical miles.

Boat categories: IMOCA 60 and Class 40 single-hull boats for 2008. ORMA multihulls have always taken part in previous editions. The new ORMA 70 class, still in gestation, should participate in 2012.

Number of entries: 34 in 2008. There were 69 in 1996 and in 2000 (when multihulls took part).

To enter: The OSTAR amateur race will depart from Plymouth on 25 May 2009. It is open to 30-50 foot yachts. Programme, information and application forms can be found at http://www.rwyc.org/

The races
the navigators
dream about
The Transat

The centuries-old love-hate relationship between the English and the French is also prevalent in the world of sailing, where each country claims to hold the most prestigious trans-Atlantic ocean race: the English Transat on the one hand, the Route du Rhum on the other. We have no intention of taking sides in this ancient quarrel. If we present on these pages the race that for twenty years was called the OSTAR (Observer Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race), it is because it is the oldest of these two sailboat races across the Atlantic.

Born of a tiny bet between Sir Francis Chichester and Lt. Colonel Blondie Hasler, the initial OSTAR consisted of five competitors sailing from Plymouth in the spring of 1960. Chichester was first to New York after 40 days at sea, eight days quicker than Hasler and 34 before the only Frenchman, Jean Lacombe, who finished last. With its arrival port

redirected to Newport from its second edition and in 2008 to Boston, the race was won in 1964 by a certain French officer by the name of Eric Tabarly. This victory is probably the one which most contributed to the celebrity of the sailor from Brittany. He won moreover a second time in 1976, further confirming his reputation.

As well as the famous names of its participants, the prestige of the Transat is due to its difficulty. It inflicts on competitors the travails of the North Atlantic, with violent depressions, contrary winds and even icebergs. Some consider this part of the Atlantic to be more challenging than the Roaring Forties. In 1996 and 2000, just over 50% of the boats involved managed to cross the finish line, due to the punishing conditions. On 24 May of this year, Loick Peyron, who is well-known on Lake Geneva as skipper of the Décision 35 Okalys, won the latest edition of the race with Gitana Eighty.

In doing so, he became the first to rack up three victories in this mythical competition.