John Bacon, Terry Wetton and James Mayjor recently competed at the 2023 Joran Cup, hosted by Cercle de la voile de Grandson on Lac de Neuchâtel, Switzerland in their 5.5m under sail number AUS66. They secured a 5th in the Swiss National 5.5 championships and 4th in the Joran Cup.

Following report submitted by John Bacon:

Conditions at yacht club Cercle de la Voile de Grandson were simply hot and light. With a massive high pressure system over Europe daily temperatures hit 34 deg and the forecast was basically a week of glass out. However the Grandson (southern) end of the lake has a very reliable but very light NEer that gently kicks in around 1300 everyday due to very unique thermal activity.

The PRO AP’ed us every day until the club flags started moving and out we went with the gentlest of breezes. The first regatta was the two day Swiss National Championships followed immediately by the Jura Cup also over two days. 3 races a day and a PRO that set us off no matter what breeze pressure. Certainly the conditions favored a couple of the local boats, one light air specialist in particular who was called by my Swiss mates as the winner of both regattas the night before we started. Good call. They were amazingly fast in those conditions and unbeatable by most of us with “all rounder” boats.

The other challenge was the amount of weed in the water. Most boats had races deep in the fleet due to chunks of weed including us. But mainly we stayed out of trouble and learnt the conditions over the event and were delighted to come away with a 5th and 4th.

Great to sail in a beautiful fresh water Swiss lake surrounded by castles and vineyards in a strong fleet. Excellent practice ahead of the worlds in Sardinia in 4 weeks where we will have 4 Australian teams.

View highlights from the 5.5m 2023 Joran Cup, Grandson, Lac de Neuchatel HERE