Ericsson Volvo Ocean 70 project

Sharing offices with Atlant Ocean Racing headed by Rickard Brisius and Johan Salén, being the team behind (with Mange Olsson as well of course!) Volvo Ocean Race entries EF Education, Assa Abloy, Ericsson and organizers of Nokia Oops Cup and Archipelago Race obviously opens a wide spectrum of discussions and also the opportunity to meet intresting persons such as e.g. John Kostecki and Juan K (designer of ABN Amro entries in last race and now designer of new Ericsson entry ) who we discovered is a trimaran fan!

Today Stefan and I had the opportunity to meet the team working on the next Ericsson Volvo Ocean Race entry. It was good to share some experiences on light weight laminates, various preg and core issues. The workshop (actually in Ericsson facilities, virtually on shouting distance to Ericsson head office main reception!) is really impressive, amongst other with an oven three times our size! But apart from that - there are a lot of similarities on how we build our boats.

Thank you for the tour Andy and Calle!

Read more about the Ericsson VO70 project on http://www.ericssonracingteam.com/

/Jan

Geneva experience

Back from Geneva having helped Jacques to launch SUI 2 was an experience, especially seeing the new Max Jib in action. A beautiful sail (Well done Mats! I have been in opposition to this sail for a long time - but then again you always get smarter with age….), easy to control the leech by operating the traveller car on the roof top. A few glitches (amongst other – do not forget to attach the double geared mainsail and screacher halyards…there are more fun things then taking the mast up and down!) and time consuming administration (amongst other inspection by Geneva lake authorities) reduced the sailing hours. Anyhow the boat looked really nice in the water and I was very proud!
The only bad thing about the whole experience was the having to go back without a beer and a picture with myself, the “Old Mug” and Bertarelli! We actually launched from “Societe Nautique de Genève”, but the Americas Cup Trophy was already shipped to Valencia leaving only an empty stand and a disappointed Stefan. I was one week to late!

/Stefan

Grey metallic Seaon 96crb in Geneva!

So finally (dark metallic paint was more than painful for the production - but it looks very nice!) Jacques's grey metallic Seaon 96crb is launched in Lake Geneva! Stefan was there and assisted during the launch and managed to sail a few hours. More to come on that.

Picture is actually taken by Sebastian (thank you Sebastian!) who is waiting for his blue metallic Seaon 96crb with first stop Lausanne/Lake Geneva.

/Jan