Busy Lake Geneva!

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Lake Geneva’s paddlesteamers and swimmers are not a good mix, a point that the police and CGN boat company would like to put across strongly as summer begins. “This year, we’ll be stricter,” says Claude-Alain Bart of the Vaud Brigade du Lac. New legislation went into effect in January 2009 and police say they will be tougher this summer with lawbreakers who swim in areas where the large boats dock or who go closer than 100 metres to the large craft, either swimming or in smaller boats.

Police and the Compagnie Générale de Navigation (CGN) are starting a public awareness campaign to educate lake-goers on the new safety rules, which are designed to reduce incidents involving swimmers, especially young swimmers, who approach CGN boats near landing docks and potentially put their lives at risk.

Lake Geneva is Europe’s second largest lake, shared by France and Switzerland. Major accidents are rare, but one person died in a boating accident last year after speeding too close to shore. Most years the number of deaths is 5-6. The number of incidents, however, has been increasing, in particular young swimmers who try to climb onto the large boats’ wheels or who dive into the foam churned up by the boat, often with little understanding of the mechanics involved and the risks they run.

The CGN is the only company that provides regular boat traffic from one end of the lake to the other, and between ports on both sides of the border. Olivier Chenaux, first captain, noted at a press conference 10 June that some ports such as Ouchy cause few problems because of their open configuration as well as the limited number of swimmers. Others, such as Morges and Villeneuve are a constant worry to the boat captains. “For us, it’s a huge worry, but few people are aware of the problem.” If there is an incident, such as the one that sent a young swimmer to hospital in the summer of 2008 after he was injured by a wheel, it can take the boat a long time to stop, for mechanical reasons, but also, the boats often carry several hundred people and the captain cannot stop abruptly and risk injuring them.

The small, new Navibuses, 25 metres long and weighing 50 tons, are relatively easy to maneuver, with an ability to make a half-turn in place. Going 50 kph it can stop in 28 metres. By comparison, boats like La Suisse, which is 78 metres long and weighs 600 tons, needs a 300-metre diameter area to make that same half turn. Going 25 kph it needs 200 metres to stop.

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