Business Wire

IBSA

1.7.2024 19:11:33 CEST | Business Wire | Press release

Share
Transat Québec Saint-Malo: Alberto Bona and the Class40 IBSA Protagonists Along the St. Lawrence River

For the Class40 IBSA it’s time to return to Europe: sailing the boat during the wonderful Transat Québec Saint-Malo is skipper Alberto Bona, together with Pablo Santurde del Arco and Luca Rosetti, in a regatta that turns out to be a real conundrum, due to the expected weather conditions.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240701084720/en/

Started after the storm, at 2:15 pm local time (8:15 pm Italian time), as expected the 10th edition of the Transat Québec Saint-Malo immediately proved to be very complicated. The St. Lawrence River, in fact, features currents, very unstable winds that change with the passage of a single cloud, and many variables to dominate.

A few minutes before the start, there was in fact a violent and rapid increase in the average wind speed (squall) with rain and hail, followed by a gusty and sustained wind up to 15 knots, which allowed the crafts to set off running with the wind, offering a great show as part of a very tactical first leg of the race.

Immediately after the start, Bona and the Class40 IBSA chose to keep to the right side of the race course, starting around mid-fleet and choosing to be very sparing with their manoeuvers, thus obtaining a good advantage. Indeed, those who gybed several times lost contact with the leaders of the fleet, accumulating a bit of delay.

The crew of the Class40 IBSA continued to keep to the right side of the river throughout the first hour of navigation, always remaining in the top ten positions, and even leading the fleet for a stretch off Luzon. One hour and 45 minutes after the start, Alberto and the Class40 IBSA were in third position in a race which will however see, during the river navigation, continuous changes at the top, variable wind with strong gusts and moments of very little wind. Great resilience will therefore be necessary.

We saw a great start”, commented Antonio Melli, Vice President of IBSA Group. This very important regatta started well and will lead us to Saint-Malo, where it all began, three seasons ago, between IBSA and Alberto Bona. Sailing has given us great satisfaction, involving many colleagues in Europe and the United States in a story of sport and values”.

With increasingly unstable weather conditions, but with expected winds up to 20 knots, the passage along the St. Lawrence is still strategic. According to Bona, the first 140 miles will be the most complicated, due to conditions and variables, and with well-defined shifts for the team: Alberto will continue to take care of navigation, keeping an eye on the instruments to define the correct tactical choices based on the orography of the river and the wind, while Pablo and Luca will have the task to sail the boat and manage the manoeuvers, keeping an eye on potential whale encounters.

For the first three days of navigation, the great river will be the protagonist; then the fleet of 25 Class40s will tackle the mouth and Newfoundland, before finding themselves in the Atlantic Ocean, where they will look for the best way to “land” in the English Channel, to then reach the finish line in Saint-Malo.

Navigation is expected to last approximately 11-12 days.

THE PROJECT: The three-year project Sailing into the Future. Together was launched in January 2022. The partnership between IBSA and skipper Alberto Bona was born on common bases and values, and aims to use sailing as a corporate communication vehicle towards the market and the nautical world. Ingenuity, courage, innovation, responsibility are elements that unites IBSA and Alberto, and the oceanic challenge, in addition to the sporting competition, also metaphorically represents the company’s history, philosophy and vision, which are always oriented towards and are part of a path that brings IBSA increasingly closer to the topic of environmental and social sustainability, with a particular focus on inclusive sailing projects for people with disabilities. In November 2022, the Route du Rhum was the first sporting stage of the project Sailing into the Future. Together. In 2023, Bona and the Class40 IBSA participated in six regattas, including the Rolex Fastnet Race and the Transat Jacques Vabre. With two victories and three podiums, the record for the highest number of miles covered in 24 hours and over 15,000 miles sailed, Bona won first place overall in the Class40 International Championship. In 2024, between April and July, he will face two of the toughest transatlantic races on the international scene: the Transat CIC from Lorient (France) to New York and the Quebec Saint-Malo (from Canada to France).

 

THE SKIPPER: Alberto Bona is from Turin, and has a degree in philosophy. As a university student, he won the Panerai trophy aboard Stormvogel, fast ULDB and historic boat with which he crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, winning the ARC with a New Zealand crew. In 2012 he took part in the Minitransat, finishing 5th, one of the best Italian results ever in this category. In 2015, he switched to the prototype category Mini 6.50 with Promostudi La Spezia: he won the Italian championship and finished second in the ocean crossing Les Sables-Azores. In 2017 he discovered the Class40: on Giovanni Soldini’s former Telecom Italia, he participated in the Transat Jacques Vabre, where he was forced to withdraw when he was in sixth place. In 2019 he was aboard the Maserati Multi 70 trimaran, one of the world’s fastest boats, where he practiced on the foils before moving on to the Figaro Beneteau 3, aboard which he participated in the Solitaire; the only Italian registered, in 2020 he finished 7th among the rookies in the first year and 16th overall. In 2021 he won the Italian offshore team title and the Europeans in mixed doubles aboard the Figaro 3. In 2022 he started the new project in partnership with IBSA: after an eighth place in the Route du Rhum 2022, in 2023 Alberto won the Class40 International Championship, closing a season with three podiums and over 15,000 miles covered.

 

THE BOAT: Designed by French naval architect Sam Manuard and built by the JPS Production shipyard, Alberto Bona’s boat is a Class40 Mach 5 model. Its main characteristics are: scow bow – rounded and with a wider and flatter shape than standard bows – designed to stay high above the water and avoid being submerged; all-round hull, particularly performing in conditions of strong tailwinds; and a large, shielded cockpit, to face extreme conditions of navigation in as comfortable and safe as possible positions.

 

IBSA: IBSA (Institut Biochimique SA) is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical Company, founded in 1945 in Lugano. Today, its products are present in over 90 countries on 5 continents, through the Company’s 18 subsidiaries located in Europe, China, and the United States. The company has a consolidated turnover of 900 million CHF, and employs over 2,200 people between headquarters, subsidiaries and production sites. IBSA holds 90 families of approved patents, plus others under development, as well as a vast portfolio of products, covering 10 therapeutic areas: reproductive medicine, endocrinology, pain and inflammation, osteoarticular, aesthetic medicine, dermatology, uro-gynaecology, cardiometabolic, respiratory, consumer health. It is also one of the largest operators worldwide in the area of reproductive medicine, and one of the world’s leaders in hyaluronic acid-based products. IBSA has based its philosophy on four pillars: Person, Innovation, Quality and Responsibility.

To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240701084720/en/

About Business Wire

Business Wire
Business Wire
101 California Street, 20th Floor
CA 94111 San Francisco

http://businesswire.com
DK

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Hitachi and Google Cloud Expand Strategic Alliance to Accelerate Real-world Deployment of Physical AI Through FDE and Advanced Cybersecurity Solutions9.6.2026 02:20:00 CEST | Press release

Hitachi and Google Cloud will bolster FDE capabilities to accelerate physical AI globally by combining Hitachi’s co-creation approach and digital engineering capabilities cultivated through Lumada with Google Cloud’s advanced AI. Through the development of these FDE capabilities, Hitachi and Google Cloud will enhance HMAX using Gemini Enterprise, helping solve frontline worker challenges through autonomous operations in complex environments. By scaling FDE knowledge, Hitachi will deliver value to a wider range of customers. Expanding the collaboration, Hitachi and Google Cloud will enable customers to bolster their cyber defense capabilities against AI-driven cyber threats. Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501, "Hitachi") today announced the expansion of its strategic alliance*1 with Google Cloud to support customers by accelerating the real-world deployment of physical AI and cybersecurity solutions to protect against AI generated threats. Garnering increasing attention, physical AI is a technolog

VeriSilicon Drives Commercial Adoption of AV2 Across Next-Generation Video and Streaming Applications9.6.2026 02:00:00 CEST | Press release

VC9800D delivers configurable multi-format video processing for AI multimedia, mobile, and smart edge devices VeriSilicon (688521.SH) today announced that its VC9800D Video Processing Unit (VPU) IP supports AV2 decoding, further expanding the company’s advanced video codec portfolio for next-generation video and streaming applications. The VC9800D enables flexible deployment of next-generation video technologies across a broad range of intelligent consumer and multimedia devices. VeriSilicon has released VC9800D with AV2 to multiple global customers and is updating the IP based on the AV2 V1.0 specification. AV2 is the next-generation video coding specification from the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). Building on the foundation of AV1, AV2 is engineered to provide superior compression efficiency, enabling high-quality video delivery at significantly lower bitrates. It is optimized for the evolving demands of streaming, broadcasting, and real-time video conferencing. VeriSilicon’s VC

ClickHouse Appoints New Leader for Asia Pacific and Expands Global Go-To-Market Leadership Team9.6.2026 00:45:00 CEST | Press release

Veteran enterprise leaders join across APJ, public sector, financial services, solutions architecture, and revenue operations as the company scales its global organization ClickHouse, a leader in real-time analytics, data warehousing, observability, and AI/ML, today announced a significant expansion of its global go-to-market (GTM) leadership team, headlined by the appointment of Ed Lenta as Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ). The additions build on the momentum established last year with the appointment of Kevin Egan as Chief Revenue Officer, and reflect ClickHouse's strategic investment in scaling its global organization to meet surging customer demand. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260608754768/en/ Ed Lenta, Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), ClickHouse Lenta joins ClickHouse to lead the company's go-to-market efforts across the APJ region. He brings deep experience scaling cloud and

Money20/20 Europe Celebrates Ten Years of Industry Leadership as AI, Digital Assets and Financial Sovereignty Take Centre Stage8.6.2026 17:37:00 CEST | Press release

Money20/20, the world's leading fintech show and the place where money does business, celebrated a major milestone with its 10th Europe edition, convening more than 7,500 attendees, one in three at C-suite level, and over 2,300 companies from over 105 countries in Amsterdam, for three days of industry-defining announcements, strategic partnerships, and dealmaking that set the agenda for the future of financial services. Featuring more than 450 speakers across six stages, Money20/20 Europe welcomed leaders from banking, fintech, payments, policy, technology and digital assets to explore the forces reshaping the future of money. “This year’s show demonstrated that financial services have entered a new phase of transformation,” said Bryony Naylor, Vice President of Money20/20 Europe. “Across the show floor and on stage, we saw leaders move beyond discussing what’s next to actively building it. From AI and digital identity to financial sovereignty and digital assets, the conversations and

Liberty Latin America Selects BTS as Exclusive A2P Messaging Managed Services Partner Across All Its Markets8.6.2026 17:36:00 CEST | Press release

BTS announced today that it has been chosen as the exclusive provider of managed A2P SMS services for Liberty Latin America (LLA), supporting the company’s efforts to strengthen revenue protection, fraud mitigation, traffic intelligence, and operational visibility across its markets. The agreement reinforces LLA’s A2P messaging strategy throughout a broad regional footprint and establishes a coordinated operating model to improve control, visibility, and monetization of A2P traffic across its markets. The partnership will support revenue maximization, stronger fraud protection and grey-route mitigation, enhanced real-time traffic visibility, operational reporting and analytics, revenue assurance, and 24x7x365 managed services support. The agreement spans 25 markets and reflects a high level of operational trust in BTS’ ability to deliver consistent performance across diverse regulatory, technical, and commercial environments. “This agreement gives us a stronger and more consistent oper

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye