Frostbiting in the Swiss Alps

In a thrilling final race against the long-time participating club, Royal Swedish Yacht Club who made its way up all the way from the Repachage, the Gstaad Yacht Club One team with Ben Worbs, Philippe Jann and Timothy Müller had a home-run and after 13 years won back the prestigious Interclub Ski Yachting event (Mar 4-6) in Gstaad, Switzerland.

The 2016 edition, which was held in the world famous mountain resort, brought together teams representing yacht clubs and sailing teams from all over the world. Past winners include the Royal Yacht Squadron, Société Nautique de Genève, Bayerischer Yacht Club and Yacht Club de Monaco.

The invitation-only event, which consist of giant slalom Friday night ski races, followed by match racing with remote control carbon fibre yachts in Gstaad’s semi-Olympic indoor pool, powered by state-of-the-art wind machines on Saturday, welcomed again a huge number of 22 teams from all over the world, including the Royal Hong Kong YC and Yacht Club Argentino.

Given that one of the club’s objectives is to promote youth sailing, an identical event was organized also for the under 16, which was won by team Optimist Thunersee with Anja von Allmen, Linus Leibundgut and Laurent Stadler.

The prize giving ceremony for the Interclubs was held with over 120 guests in the beautiful clubhouse, during which Karin Jaggi, female world speed record holder with 66.31 knots in windsurfing, gave a short but very inspirational presentation of her speed record activities and has been nominated Honorary member of the GYC.

On Sunday, a similar competition took place for the three sailing classes – 5.5, Star and Dragon – who had their real boat competition on Lake Thun in autumn 2015. Winning teams are: SUI 226 with Rolf Kellenberger, Andreas Kindlimann and Hans von Werdt for the 5.5. class; GER 530 with Markus Dick, Michael Reinert and Thomas Kube in the Dragon Class; and SUI 7969 with Kurt and Markus Scheidegger in the Star class.

The next Ski Yachting will take place from 3 to 5 March 2017.

Results: Interclub – Juniors – Classes

The Gstaad Yacht Club was founded in 1998 by a group of sailor enthusiasts with the vision to “create a unique global yacht club away from the waters, instead of another local club by the waters”. Today. The GYC was regarded with astonishment in the beginning as a club in the mountains without water and meanwhile developed to a club with about 400 members from over 20 different countries. With sailing projects on all levels from juniors to professional sailors and the launch of the Centenary Trophy regatta in 2011 it has become a solid force on the Swiss sailing scene and for classic boats.

Report by Gstaad Yacht Club. Photos: © GYC Sebastian Devenish.