With two clean victories followed by a second and third on the first day of racing at the Les Voiles de Choisi, skipper Jérôme Clerc and tactician Sébastien Col showed why Realteam Sailing are two times TF35 tour champions.
As is typical on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, the day started slowly with the bright sun glistening off the glassy windless lake. At the skipper’s briefing, the crew welcomed the call to hold ashore in the stunning grounds of Villa Choisi to see if the thermal wind would fill in. At 1400, the decision was made to head towards Nyon for a possible start, and a modest 8 – 10 knot breeze filled in, allowing four races to be sailed.
As always, clean, fast starts in the TF35 high-performance one-design foiling catamarans are the key to the podium positions. In races 1 and 2, Realteam won the committee boat end of the line and, on port tack, went furthest to the favoured right to pop out ahead at the windward gate and, from there, led to the finish. “Today was complicated tactically but not strategically. We knew it would go right, so we had to be even more precise on the lay lines, at the start and on the smaller details because they are more important on days when the race course has fewer strategic possibilities,” explained Col.
However, in Race 3, Realteam was forced to duck starboard boat Ylliam 17 as the start horn sounded, and were caught off guard in the traffic of the fleet. Holding their nerve a little longer to the righthand lay line, Guy de Picciotto’s Zen TOO managed to get the inside track on Realteam at the windward gate and held on to take their first win of the regatta. “Today was a difficult day and a bit frustrating because we felt that we weren’t sailing to the best of our ability,” mused tactician Grégoire Siegwart. “We had quite a few problems with the starts, making the races very complicated. But fortunately, we won a race, which is good for us and keeps us in contention for the rest of the regatta.”
With the entire fleet now starting on port and going right in Race 4, the teams were compact at the first gate. Duncan Späth’s young crew on Sails of Change 10 tucked around the inside ahead of Realteam Sailing. Downwind teammates Sails of Change 8, helmed by Yann Guichard, were sleeker with their boat handling and pulled ahead to take the win, with Späth’s team in second and Realteam in third.
At the end of day one, Realteam Sailing lead the overall rankings, with Sails of Change 8 in second after Guichard opened the day with a fifth and built their performance race-on-race to end the day with a win. Happily, Zen Too is in third: “We’re a bit surprised to be third tonight. I don’t think we should rest on our laurels. We can do a lot better, and we’d like to show that during the rest of the event,” Siegwart adds.
In the chasing fleet, three points separate fourth to sixth place. After a promising start to the regatta with a 2, 3, 5, Ylliam 17 suffered an OCS in Race 4 that they were unable to recover from. They are fourth on countback overall and tied on points with Zen Too. “We’re really happy with what we’ve done today. We had two very clean races, manoeuvred well, and were with the frontrunners. We didn’t make any big mistakes, and we were going for the win, so it was nice,” owner Julien Firmenich explained.
Similarly, Bertrand Demole’s Ylliam XII – Comptoir Immobilier started the day well with a third, dropped to fifth in the second race but picked up again with two fourth-place finishes to end the day in fifth overall and just one point ahead of Sails of Change 10 in sixth.
TF35 LES VOILES DE CHOISI:
(after four races with one discard)
1. Realteam Sailing (SUI 7) – 1 1 2 3 – 4
2. Sails of Change 8 (SUI 8 ) – 5 2 3 1 – 6
3. ZEN Too (SUI 4) – 4 6 1 5 – 10
4. Ylliam 17 (SUI 17) – 2 3 5 6 – 10
5. Ylliam XII—Comptoir Immobilier (SUI 12) – 3 5 4 4 – 11
6. Sails of Change 10 (SUI 10) – 6 4 6 2 – 12
TF35 TROPHY OVERALL RANKING 2024:
1. Sails of Change 8 (SUI 8 ) – 1 2 1 – 4
2. Realteam Sailing (SUI 7) – 2 1 2 – 5
3. Ylliam XII—Comptoir Immobilier (SUI 12) – 3 5 3 – 11
4. ZEN Too (SUI 4) – 4 3 5 – 12
5. Sails of Change 10 (SUI 10) – 5 4 6 – 15
6. Ylliam 17 (SUI 17) – 6 6 4 – 16
Photo credit: Loris Von Siebenthal
2024 TF35 Trophy Calendar
24 – 26 May – TF35 Nyon Cup, Société Nautique de Nyon, Switzerland
7 and 9 June – TF35 Mies Cup, Mies, Switzerland
8 June – Genève-Rolle-Genève, Geneva Yacht Club, Switzerland
15 June – Bol d’Or Mirabaud, Société Nautique de Genève, Switzerland
30 August – 1 September – Les Voiles de Choisi – Bursinel, Société Nautique Rolloise, Switzerland
20 – 22 September – Realstone Cup For Léman hope, Société Nautique de Genève, Switzerland
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