Lacustre
| Notation | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Boat dimensions | |
| Length above : | 9.5 m |
| Length WL : | 6.5 m |
| Width above sea level : | 1.81 m |
| Draft : | 1.2 m |
| Mast height : | 11.3 m |
| Weight (ready to sail): | 1,730 kg |
| Weight (ballast, keel): | 910 kg |
| Sail area | |
| Mainsail : | 20 m² |
| Genoa : | 22 m² |
| Spinnaker : | 65 m² |
| Others | |
| Rigging type: | Sloop |
| Yardstick number : | 96 |
The Lacustre is a classically elegant racing sailing yacht.
history
At the beginning of the 20th century, sailing was a fashionable leisure activity on Lake Geneva , where the rich people stayed to themselves. Especially the Lac Leman at the western end, where between Versoix and Geneva the villas of the well-heeled line the shore, it was very chic, a 6 meter racing yacht or an extra from Sweden introduced, 30 square Schärenkreuzer - actually designed for the coastal area in Scandinavia - to sail.
Henri Copponex, born in 1907, also moved in this elegant setting. He, who later studied mathematics and engineering in Zurich , constructed bridges and then accepted a professorship in Geneva, evidently had a particular fondness for sailing from an early age . Barely 20, as a skipper , he drove the racing machines of several gentlemen from the Société Nautique de Genève .
In the following decades he became known in the international sailing scene as the designer of several regatta yachts (6mR and 5.5mR yachts). And Copponex remained a successful sailor himself into old age. In 1960, at the age of 53, he won a bronze medal for Switzerland at the Summer Olympics in Rome on a "5.5" he designed himself.
The most famous boat he designed is the Lacustre. This was originally commissioned by a wealthy Geneva dentist who wanted a yacht similar to the archipelago cruiser , albeit a little smaller and better tailored to the special conditions on Lake Geneva. With the new boat, the doctor wanted to win the Bol d'Or , even then the most prestigious long-distance regatta on Lake Geneva.
What Copponex presented in 1938 was a nine and a half meter long and only 1.81 meter wide racing yacht with a calculated sail area of 25 square meters upwind. The sails here was composed of a sleek, high-cut mainsail and huge, wide one after aft reaching Genoa that with increasing wind through smaller headsail could be replaced. Still a modern construction today.
From the beginning, the Lacustre has become the epitome of “classic, sporty elegance”. And the sailing characteristics turned out to be perfectly tailored for inland lakes, which the name promises: Lacustre means nothing else in German than "native to land lakes". Fast in moderate winds, seaworthy in harder winds, handy and captivatingly beautiful, properties that hardly any other yacht combines.
In addition, the boat, with its narrow - spartan but functional - cabin was "habitable" to a limited extent. No wonder that eight more orders to build such boats followed in the first year (1938). Shortly after the war, the “Lacustre spark” jumped over to Lake Constance , where the boat found the largest following in the decades that followed.
Of the around 265 Lacustre registered today, around 170 are on Lake Constance (most of them on the German shore), 70 on other lakes in German-speaking Switzerland, Austria and Germany. At its "birthplace", Lake Geneva, the Lacustre is currently only represented by 25 boats.
Thanks to the precise building regulations and their meticulous monitoring, the boats of this standard class are still so “ compatible ” today that the Lacustre built in the 1930s can still keep up with new boats. Above all, the shape of the hull , the superstructure and, above all, the weight remained unchanged . Nevertheless, the Lacustre is anything but a classic car .
Thanks to constant improvements in detail and the approval of the most modern materials and technologies in terms of mast , rigging , fittings and type of sails, the Lacustre has today become a perfect symbiosis of traditional yacht and high-tech racer. So it is only logical that the Lacustre sailors form an extremely competitive class.
Over 20 regattas take place annually on the Swiss lakes, those on Lake Constance with a highly international field of participants. This makes the Lacustre one of the most active yacht classes in Switzerland. The highlight is the International Swiss Championship, which takes place every two years.
Anyone who observes the boats here, as they pull their course , preferably with wind strengths between 2 and 5, with mostly strong heeling (leaning sideways) and perfectly standing cloths high on the wind , or setting their mighty spinnakers on the space course , can also be a spectator easy to understand what makes the fascination of Lacustre sailing.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erdman Braschos: "Yves, Yves and the rustling nylon in front of Nyon", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, No. 18 of May 3, 2009, p. V9