A return to competition is getting ever closer for the crew of Spindrift racing and her skipper Yann Guichard. Indeed, the first sports meet of the year, the inaugural Grand Prix of the TF35 Trophy 2021 is due to be hosted on Lake Geneva from Friday 30 April to Sunday 2 May.
Following its postponement due to the disruption associated with the health crisis, the eagerly awaited launch of the new TF35 Trophy circuit, initially scheduled for 2020, will finally take place in the spring of 2021 in Switzerland, at the Société Nautique de Genève.
Spindrift racing is set to compete against six other teams for this first fleet race of the season, which will herald the start of a new era that is less Archimedean and more airborne. Joining the racing stable in 2020, the TF35 is a high-tech one-design catamaran sailed by a crew of six, whose hulls measure 10.8 meters in length and are equipped with foils. She is designed to fly on inland waters. A revolutionary concept for both the sport and spectators.
Despite the context of 2020, the team benefited from a week-long training session aboard this new catamaran last February. The latter event was hosted on the Spanish lagoon of Mar Menor, to the north of Alicante. Several training sessions ensued in Quiberon Bay in Brittany, enabling Yann Guichard and his crew to hone their automatic reflexes on this particularly demanding multihull.
Next, two test events were hosted in Crans and then Geneva in September and October, with training races for the seven competing TF35s. Since then, the TF35 Spindrift racing has been at the team’s base in St Philibert, in the Morbihan department of Brittany. Here, the shore crew is working on the finishing touches, so the boat is all ready to go for the next training sessions, which are scheduled for March.
In 2021, the latest addition to the Spindrift racing stable will participate in the seven European events, which make up this inaugural season of the TF35 Trophy with Yann Guichard at the helm. The first five races will be held on Lake Geneva, integrating the legendary Genève-Rolle-Genève race and the Bol d’Or Mirabaud. The epilogue will be disputed in Italy in September, with two Grands Prix scheduled in Scarlino, Tuscany.
