Challenging Conditions for the first GP of the D35 Trophy, Alinghi Finishes in 2nd position

11 May, 2015

Amid challenging condtions, last weekend saw the first Grand Prix of the 2015 Decision 35 Trophy at Société Nautique de Genève.

With winds going from 28 knots to zero on Friday afternoon, with a mix of rain, gusts, breakage and even a capsize for Racing Django – taken by surprise by a strong gust when leaving their mooring – the race committee had little choice but to call the day’s racing off without a single regatta sailed.

On Saturday morning all of the teams were back at the Société Nautique de Genève, impatient to start competing. But the wind was, again, capricious and the first start gun could only be fired at the very end of the afternoon – the SNG Starting Vessel and the 11-boat fleet of the Decision 35 having spent their time chasing the wind up to almost Nyon all afternoon. The racing finally took place between la Belotte and le Reposoir – in a rather strange direction with very shifty winds… Two races were sailed in these tricky conditions and the race committee did a terrific job managing to get the racing going. At the end of the first racing day, three boats were tight on points, Team Tilt, Ladycat powered by Spindrift Racing and Alinghi, with five points each.

On Sunday, a nice Séchard, allowed the fleet to sail four more races in relatively steady wind conditions. Alinghi led race five from start to the finish, showing that the 2013 and 2014 champion is still very much in business.

The lasting impression after this first weekend isthat the fleet is more compact than ever and that podium places will not be easy to come by.

After six races, the overall ranking of the week-end was:

http://d35trophy.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Classement-GP-SNG-2015-officiel.pdf

And the provisory season 2015 ranking is:

  1. Team Tilt (1pt)
  2. Alinghi (2pts)
  3. Zen Too (3pts)
  4. Ladycat powered by Spindrift racing (4pts)
  5. Veltigroup-Swisscom (5pts)
  6. Realteam (6pts)
  7. Racing Django (7pts)
  8. Oryx (8pts)
  9. Okalys (9pts)
  10. Mobimo (10pts)
  11. Ylliam Comptoir Immobilier (11pts)