"Le Black", Alinghi's 41ft catamaran is sailing in Valencia

Rectification: There was a small error in yesterday's article concerning the yachts in Valencia. There were indeed 3 catamarans in front of the Alinghi base, but not all of them were Extreme 40's. As this article states, one of them was the Alinghi 41ft. Our apologies.

[Source: Alinghi] The 41footer has been reassembled in Valencia and set off for a shakedown sail on Tuesday with Ernesto Bertarelli at the helm.

Yves Detrey, boat captain and regular sailor onboard gives some insight on the fast lake sailor: “This boat was built for Ernesto Bertarelli in 2000 for the famous Bol d'Or. It sailed for three years and since 2003 has been in a shed. In its time it was probably one of the world’s most powerful multi-hulls on a power to weight ratio.”

Today Le Black will complete the Alinghi training platform. “We are happy to have the boat back on the water and to be sailing it again. It is a very impressive boat and continues to be very competitive. Up until now, apart from the 60ft multi-hull, we have not had a very powerful platform to practice on. We still have a lot to learn and this boat will teach us a lot,” said Yves Detrey.

The original objective of this high performance light air speedster was to compete against trimarans in strong wind and against catamarans in light air. The 41footer soon built up a winning pedigree claiming the Bol d’Or four times consecutively from 2000 to 2003.