Two wins for Ernesto Bertarelli on Alinghi SUI1 at D35 regatta, day two

[Source: Alinghi] It’s either not enough or too much wind on Lake Geneva! The second day of the GP Corum (first of the Challenge Julius Baer summer series) organised by the Société Nautique de Genève had a late start today. After a morning of postponements, and two false starts, by 16:00 the forecasted 10-12 southwesterly finally came through and the fleet got away.

It was a day of mixed results for the two Alinghi boats: Alinghi SUI1, helmed by Ernesto Bertarelli, won the first race, while Alinghi SUI6 with Ed Baird on the helm finished seventh, climbing back from the bottom of the fleet.

With conditions building, race two saw Alinghi SUI1 finish seventh with Alinghi SUI6 on its heels in eighth place. The last race of the day was sailed with reefed mains and again Alinghi SUI1 led over the line, this time with just one boat between Ernesto and Ed Baird in third.

Ernesto Bertarelli, on the helm of SUI1, dominates second day of Grand-Prix Corum. Geneva, 9 May 2009. Photo copyright Loris von Siebenthal

Pierre-Yves Jorand, Alinghi SUI1 mainsail trimmer, explains the seventh in race two: “It was a great day for us today… Tricky, very shifty, very gusty… The breeze ranged from eight to 12 knots at first, the left-hand side was very powerful, it was the ‘must-have’ side, so we managed to get it in the first and the third races but not in the second so it was obvious that we were not going to get a good result in the second race.”

“It was a typical southwesterly-type day, with 35 degree shifts; you have to pick through them on the right tack. It was a wonderful day: beautiful warm weather and great competition with this huge fleet, where every metre counts. This is going to be a great season!”

Ed Baird, helmsman onboard Alinghi SUI6, takes us through the day for his team: “There was no wind until late in the day and then it came through from the same direction as yesterday and it was very puffy. We saw as much as 22.5 knots for a while but most of the racing was in15 to 20 knots, so off we went. In race one we thought the right was going to work out and the left was much better; in race two we had a weak start and didn’t get what we wanted out of it and once again we were trying to catch up. We passed a couple of boats later during the race, but obviously we would have liked to have finished better. We are learning a lot about how to make the boat go, about the manoeuvres; all those things that we don’t understand fully yet, by any means! In the last race we pushed it up on the line pretty hard – we actually had the reefs in for the last race- and we pushed up on the line pretty hard; got up in the front group and chased around in the top four for the whole race. In the end we finished third and in pretty close contact with the first two, so we felt good about that one. We learned some things during the day, but we are definitely well outside our skill set as a group. Every minute we sail and race this boat we are learning.”

“Our learning curve is still very steep. This is a new piece of equipment, a new place to race, and a new group of competitors. We are trying our hardest and we are definitely better than we were a week ago; we have a long way to go.”

Ernesto Bertarelli, on the helm of SUI1, dominates second day of Grand-Prix Corum. Geneva, 9 May 2009. Photo copyright Loris von Siebenthal