Quite the machine
This month will mark the beginning of a new chapter in the already colourful racing scene on Lake Geneva with the long-awaited fleet debut of the sophisticated, extremely light and powerful, yet also ‘allegedly’ unusually user friendly, TF35 high-speed foiling cats. One of the key members of an extraordinary design and engineering team behind the project, Dirk Kramers shares the story
52 SEAHORSE
First some history The racing scene on Lake Geneva is no stranger to unique and interesting boats. When you explore the history of the Bol d’Or event you will find that catamarans competed as early as 1960 and since 1990 we have grown quite used to seeing wing- sailed cats and trimarans that were wider than they are long and numerous experi- mental foilers. There has even been an America’s Cup cat taking the start in some style. The current king of the hill is the D35 one-design cat, which was first launched in 2007. Very much a light-air machine even today she is really difficult to beat in her conditions by any foiler. The D35 was conceived after Ernesto
Bertarelli’s ‘Le Black’ designed to the M1 rule became invincible on the lake, after
which a group of owners, led by Ernesto and Bertrand Cardis, decided to transition into a one-design class to keep costs under control. This led to the Séb Schmidt- designed and Décision-built D35 class.
TF35 project – the owners The creation of the TF35 was driven by the vision of the owners of the D35 class, who now wanted an up-to-date boat that brings the excitement of foiling and the very latest technology to the lake. The owners were represented in the develop- ment team by Bertrand Favre, Pierre-Yves Jorand and Fred Le Peutrec, along with the sailing team members.
The team The group that was tasked with the design
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110
