The skipper of the Psaros 33 Pro Yachting Nivose crossed the finish line at 12:46:15 a.m. He finished ahead of two other Psaros 33s: Luc Munier on Carpediem Cube, by 3 minutes and 43 seconds, and Nicolas Baudu on Eole 7, by 9 minutes and 34 seconds.
“I’m very happy—it was a fantastic race,” said the winner. “The downwind leg toward Le Bouveret was really intense; I had winds of up to 25 knots and got caught in gusts several times. As I approached Le Bouveret, I saw gusts coming down from Montreux; I went after them, and that allowed me to catch up to Katana. On the way back, I kept Eole 7 under control. But at the end of the race, I really got a scare when Luc Munier suddenly appeared right along the coast. He almost passed me, but I just barely crossed the finish line ahead of him.”
Finishing second for the second year in a row, Munier was very pleased with the little tactical move that allowed him to snatch second place from Nicolas Baudu, right in front of his house in La Belotte. “It’s true that I know the area well,” he confirmed. But the most exhilarating moment of the race was clearly the descent toward Le Bouveret. “It was spectacular, and really ‘intense.’” At one point, the wind was blowing at 25 knots and I decided to lower the spinnaker; I realized I wasn’t twenty anymore… Then the passage through Le Bouveret turned out to be business as usual—that is, totally unpredictable.”
Yet that was precisely where the race was decided, as Alexander de Weck (Katana) remained stuck there for several long minutes, watching his opponents pass him one after another, before beginning a long tack in single file toward Yvoire.
As Nicolas Groux, who was a little frustrated with his fourth-place finish, put it: “Then there was a bit of a scramble all the way to the finish line. But for me, it was too late.”
Behind them, the race continues, with steady nighttime breezes that should allow most of the fleet to cross the finish line before daybreak.