What lake is that? Looks a little cold with all that white stuff in the background!

Hi Tim

This is JR sailing on the lake of geneva.
The first time she gets wet.

It was f... cold! At the same time we had our last race of the season (lake of constance).
The temperatures were allways below zero, brr!
Keeps your dreams about Aruba alive :-).

Andi, we now have a trip from Atlanta to St. Maarten that lays over 24 hours, then returns. When is that Heineken Regatta down there?

You guys can bring that boat over here to my house, tune it all winter on the lake in my backyard. It's 25C and blowing 10 right now.

Then in Jan., you can race it at the Tradewinds Regatta in Key Largo, only a 3 hour drive south of here. The only white stuff we have is sand! Pretty boat, very pretty lake! How far is that from Zurich? (on the train)

Tim,

Geneva is at about 3 hours train from Zurich. We are in the French part of Switzerland.

On the back of the first picture you have Geneva, and on the back of the second you have the Mont-Blanc, which is between France and Italie (at about 80km).

Hope you will once enjoy sailing in the biggest lake of Europe.

Regards,
Jr

Hey, maybe I can get a job with Swiss Air? It looks very nice over there, I can't wait to go back.

Hi Tim

Thank you for the invitation, it must be a dream to live in Florida during the winter!

I think the Heineken regatta at St. Maarten is mostly sailed with monohulls. My preference would be Aruba in the early November.

The lake of geneva is a little bit less than 3 hours away from zurich airport. We will be having a 18HT race there in May.

Good sailing and winds!

Well, come on over and find out! Now that we have a US builder of A cats and F16's (Vectorworks Marine here in Titusville, Florida) maybe we could get some kind of sailor exchange, boat charter program going for you guys over here in the winter.

I know the Swiss Franc and the Euro is strong against the dollar right now and air fare is cheap to Orlando, which is only 30 minutes from Cocoa Beach or a little longer to Lake Eustis, Tampa, the Keys, etc. Check out www.1design.net for the Florida Cat racing calendar (there is one on this site as well) Quite a few races going on all winter. The hard part is living here with NO BOAT! But that will change.

Vectorworks marine went from being an unknow in the cataramaran scene to a household name in under 2 years. And impressive rise to fame if there ever was one. There has been alot of interest by many parties in the activities by VWM, but I have never seen any announcement of VWM doing a F18HT. An F16 indeed, several are sailing around the world as we speak, there was also an declaration of license building the Bim XJ A-cat, in the past there was even a intention of building the ultimate 20 foot distance racer but F18HT ? Please, direct me to any pubication that is validated by VWM officials. Either I totally missed something over the last months or this is one major unfounded rumour.

Personally I see VMW come out with a F18 before any other design. The US market for F18's is just heaps better. F18HT is a class that need full defribillation if boats are to be sold. That is not an economic attractive proposition.

Wouter

Lake Geneva : The lake has a surface area of 582.4 square km, is 72.3 km long, nearly 13.8 km wide and over 310 m deep.

Source : http://www.mysterra.org/webmag/lake-geneva.html

Lake ijsselmeer : Het IJsselmeer is het grootste meer van Nederland. Het heeft een oppervlakte van 1.100 km²

(translation The ijsselmeer is the biggest lake of The Netherlands. It has a surface area of 1100 square km)

Source : http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJsselmeer


Both source pages show a satelite pic of both lakes.

There is only two conclusions possible : The teaching of geography in Swiss school is not what it used to be or the Swiss don't regard the Netherlands as part of the Netherlands.

I also wonder wether Sweden doesn't have a lake or two that is bigger then Lake Geneva as well.

Stick to the fact guys !

Wouter

Wouter, you are correct about the HT's, I lost my head for a moment and crossed the Bim XJ with the Bim Jav2...it's hell getting old! Your memory is the first thing to go and the second thing is...is...Oh nevermind!

Sweden have Vättern, 1912km2 and Vänern, 5655km2..

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4nern, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4ttern



A very nice view in those pictures, but it's even better to have another catamaran builder on the forum! The view from lakes in sweden doesnt measure up at all (except during the bikini season).

I'm designed a new 18 from the ground up, stayed tuned the fastest boat has yet to arrive

I always thought that your hair and wife were the first things to go !

With your memory degrading being a blessing in disguise as then you won't remember ever having the first two !

Wouter

wouter thats nothing.. Lake Superior is the biggest lake.
LENGTH: 350 miles / 563 km.
BREADTH: 160 miles / 257 km.
AVERAGE DEPTH: 483 ft. / 147 m.
MAXIMUM DEPTH: 1,332 ft. / 406 m.
VOLUME: 2,900 cubic miles / 12,100 cubic km.
WATER SURFACE AREA: 31,700 sq. miles / 82,100 sq. km.

i.e. who cares which one is the biggest..

I would suggest that you still have a lot of research to do

Dermot, I think "Lowpuller" is pulling our chain.

He said it on 2 threads - you never know - he just might be serious Or on something

We have many large lakes in Australia as well, but the three biggest are the Pacific, the Indian, and the great southern, (opps sorry, I think you guys call them oceans, we call those "ponds")

Darryl, I was told those bodies of water belonged to the Kiwi's! (insert homage to Sir Peter Blake here)

Wouter,

You are right, I gave a wrong information. The Leman Lake is not the largest in terms of surface, but the biggest in terms of volume (89km3, which nobody care as we do not sails in cubes... this is true) in the Occidental Europe.

I had in my memory that this lake was the largest... but not all the details... Sorry about it.

Now it's amaizing how people get involved when we talk about "National" greatest. I'm pleased to see that it is creating "homework".

Regards to all of you and hope you have a nice scenery has we have.

Some more information about the Leman Lake. In french.

Le Lac Léman


Avec un volume de 89 km³, le lac Léman est le plus grand lac d’Europe occidentale. Son origine est liée au surcreusement d’une vaste cuvette dans le substrat rocheux lors des différents cycles glaciaires durant ces 300’000 dernières années. Plus de 60 sites préhistoriques immergés ont été identifiés, attestant de la présence de l’Homme sur les rives du Léman depuis env. 4000 avant J.-C. Aujourd’hui, ce sont plus de 900’000 personnes qui vivent dans le bassin lémanique et y exercent leurs activités agricoles et industrielles. Le lac fournit en eau potable la plupart des agglomérations riveraines et est un lieu de loisirs et de tourisme très apprécié.

Quelques chiffres: *
Superficie du plan d’eau: 580.1 km² (Suisse: 345.3 km², France: 234.8 km²)
Volume moyen: 89 km³ (= 89 milliards de m³)
Profondeur maximale: 309.7 m (entre Lausanne et Evian)
Profondeur moyenne: 152.7 m
Altitude moyenne du plan d’eau: 372.05 m
Longueur de son axe (Villeneuve-Genève): 72.3 km
Largeur maximale: 13.8 km (Ouchy-Evian)
Longueur des rives: 200.2 km (Suisse: 142.2 km, France: 58.0 km)
Débit moyen du Rhône à l’exutoire (Genève): 251 m³/s
Temps de séjour théorique des eaux (volume/débit moyen): 11.4 ans

Extracted from the web site: http://www.sieng.ch

Regards to all of you,
Jr