Fingers crossed

Ubiquitous French composites engineer Hervé Devaux was closely involved in the engineering of Juan Kouyoumdjian' s second Volvo 70 for ABN Amro, the one that as we close for press (still) leads the 2005/6 Volvo Ocean Race... Patrice Carpentier visited Devaux' s offices at his HDS research consultancy while the Volvo fleet was approaching Melbourne

Hervé Devaux was born in 1953 in St Malo, northwest France. After studying engineering he took his PhD on the 'vibrations of composite structures' between 1975 and 1979. Initially he pursued a university career, taking up a position as senior lecturer until 1985. Between 1975 and 1978, in conjunction with his PhD, he designed and built a cold-moulded Quarter Tonner - so his first experience of composite construction was in wood. In 1982 he worked with Gilles Ollier on the design and engineering of the beams of the Pacific proa Rosières. In 1986 Hervé left higher education to work in the private sector.

At Maréchal Masts he developed the design study for the first carbon masts for ocean racing boats. In fact Devaux was responsible for the first carbon mast to sail around the world ­ on the Joubert-Nivelt Open 60 UAP Médecins Sans Frontières, skippered by Jean-Yves Terlain in the Boc Challenge. In 1989, at the start of the first Vendée Globe, nine yachts were equipped with second-generation carbon masts designed by Hervé Devaux, including that of the winner Titouan Lamazou.

In 1994 Hervé set up HDS, a research consultancy that now employs half a dozen engineers. He continues to lecture, mainly on Vibration of Finite Elements, at the University of Bretagne Occidentale .

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Below: Still with multiple spreaders but employing double-shrouds on her early Devaux-designed Maréchal composite spar, Fleury Michon VIII, drawn by Nigel Irens in 1985, was the distant but direct forerunner to Ellen MacArthur' s 2004 B&Q, the Irens design similarly designed from the 'rig down' , with hull length and reserve buoyancy added as required for seakeeping. Poupon and Fleury Michon won the storm ravaged 1986 Route du Rhum which cost the life of Loïc Caradec on his 26m cat Royale