Hidden talent

The current situation arising from the Golden Gate Yacht Club's lawsuit against the Société Nautique de Genève has changed many things in the America's Cup, one being the shift in focus to 90ft monster multihulls. While this is clearly a new experience for the Cup and for the Defender Alinghi, the Swiss team are returning to their Lake Geneva roots and drawing on a rich multihull history. Pierre-Yves Jorand has been with the Swiss America's Cup team since its inception in 2000 and his multihull background is perfectly suited to the current situation. He thrives on speed so his choice of discipline is not a surprise; Jorand represented Switzerland in the 1992 Olympic Games in downhill skiing, retiring in 1993 just after setting a downhill speed mark of 225kmh... Today Jorand races a Décision 35 on Lake Geneva and as one of the instigators of the class he throws some light on its origins and on its relevance to preparations for the 33rd America's Cup Match...

At right..: guess who gets the chockies when Alinghi hit the slopes… see text for details!

Below: Alinghi was among the first into the D35s; note the central ‘hull’ and giant foils. Now for 90ft...

Seahorse: What is the history behind the D35 class?
Pierre-Yves Jorand: The idea started in 2003 when the Formula 40s and the giant multihull lake racers were still sailing. A group of owners looking to the future were debating what they were going to do with their big boats. There were only four left competing on the lake at that stage and Alinghi 41 'Le Black' was extremely quick and clearly much more powerful than the others. Basically the group, including Ernesto [Bertarelli], decided that they really wanted a one-design circuit with the competition being about crew work rather than an arms race; this was the beginning of the class.

SH: Who were the main drivers of the movement?
PYJ: Philippe Cardis and Nicolas Grange; Philippe Cardis was steering Happycalopse at that time. Nicolas Grange owned and steered Bedat, a trimaran, and Ernesto was also involved as the owner-driver of Le Black. We put together a group of designers to create a new class, which included Sébastien Schmidt, Gerard Gautier, Bertrand Cardis and others.

SH: And the design concept...
PYJ: The boat is designed totally for lake racing. The lake is tricky because you have to be fast in all conditions in terms of windspeed, angle and direction; the boat needed to be quick generally and particularly in light airs from 0 to 14kt. After a couple of years of sailing on a D35, I would say the goal has been achieved. This is a fantastic lake racer – super-quick in all windspeeds and angles.

SH: How did you arrive at the basic design?
PYJ: First of all we wanted the crew to make the difference between winning and losing. We also wanted a boat where the sailors could sail standing up if necessary and not have to crawl around as on a Hobie cat or a 26-footer. Then we wanted a 35-footer to deal with the waves on the lake; 35ft is a pretty good size to manage our strong northeasterly chop (in fact, Julius Baer, skippered by Philippe Cardis, just broke the outright Ruban Bleu record from Geneva to Le Bouveret and back). We also wanted a boat that could tack fast, to make the racing more interesting.

SH: How fast?
PYJ: For a D35 in 10kt of breeze – flying the solent – the optimum from one tack to target speed on the other tack is 18 seconds, which is quite quick for a multihull.

SH: And compared to an Extreme X40?
PYJ: We have been training on the X40s here in Valencia over the past few months and it is more like 22 seconds from tack to tack in the same conditions. The difference is that the D35 has got more sail area than the X40 for approximately the same weight. The D35 weighs 1,200kg and the Volvo X40 is 1,250kg; the main on the D35 is 81.6m2 versus 70m2 on the X40, the D35's drifter is 70m2 and the solent 40.7m2 versus just a 23.5m2 jib on an X40! The mast on a D35 is 19.5m and on the X40 it's 19m. Gennaker area on the D35 is 150m2 – again on the X40 it is 'only' 106m2!

Finally, the upwind sail area-to-weight ratio is for the D35 152/1.2 = 126m2/tonne, which is very powerful indeed, compared to 75m2/tonne for the X40... which is no slouch. And downwind the difference is even more dramatic. Also, on the D35 the crew weigh in at 462kg, while the crew on a X40 consists of four people plus a guest, which varies a lot. The crew weight is an enormous factor; that's why you see some teams ahead in the light on X40s and others faster in heavier air.

Because of the light air situation on the lake it is quite important that we have a high aspect ratio; so the mast versus the hull length ratio is high. It's fine up to 14kt TWS, but it's a very technical boat above that – there is so much power to keep under control.

SH: How does the approach change when the wind increases?
PYJ: Above 14kt the first thing you need to do is reduce power by flattening the main and opening the top, also by reducing daggerboard – which is big for the size of boat – so you need to adjust your board as you would adjust your cunningham or your mainsheet tension. This is all part of the concept because you definitely need the boards when the wind is light and you definitely need to lift them when the breeze is above 14kt! If you look back at some windy races there is some pretty amazing footage and images of the boat being right on the edge, over-powered and just about to lose control completely.

It's a little like Formula 1. You set up for a nice sunny, warm track and suddenly a storm hits and your only goal is to stay on track, ride it out and give it more gas when it's passed through. It's about the same on the D35s!

SH: How does the platform compare with the X40?
PYJ: The basic structural concept is for a narrow boat, in order to fly a hull early, which is very important on the lake. To compensate for that and to increase the righting moment we added racks – which work well for stability. Crew positioning is critical on the D35.

Also we have a central hull, above the water at rest. The thinking behind that is to have stiff load 'loops', meaning when you sheet the mainsail on, it actually tightens the sails rather than just bending the boat! The same applies to sheeting the solent or the drifter on hard; you want the headstay as tight as possible, keeping the sails flat which is vital on a multihull.

And this centre 'hull' has a secondary use, providing extra buoyancy if the boat pitchpoles – which has helped on several occasions... Having the volume of two hulls, plus the centre one, helps you bounce back up before you go all the way. It also makes the boat very stiff which means you can control the sailplan more accurately. Finally it improves the hydrodynamics in a chop.

In terms of stiffness, while being a cat, the D35 is more like a trimaran. Interestingly, while the configuration has not yet been widely picked up, VPLP did base their proposed new World Sailing League boat around a big version of the D35 concept.

SH: Does this design concept influence the racing itself?
PYJ: In the very early days we saw strong teams jump out ahead and initially it was tough to understand why exactly. But with a stiffer structure there is much more to be gained through understanding more precisely things like the sail crossovers, sailing modes, twist, sheeting angles and the sail shapes themselves.

But today, as well as the crews evening up, the boats are closer; they weigh within a couple of kilos, masts are identical, hardware is identical, the sailplan is restricted but you can play around with deniers per inch (dpi), yarn layout, depth, sail shape, all within the bounds of a minimum and maximum size. You have the crew weight limit and you are only allowed two or three new sails per year.

SH: Is the D35 hardware Swiss made?
PYJ: After the 2003 Bol d'Or the future owners got together and decided they wanted to have eight boats on the startline for the following Bol d'Or in June 2004, so not even a year later. We had to do the design, the concept, create a championship (first the Challenge Ferrier Lullin and now Julius Baer) and build some boats.

Somehow the class builder Décision SA managed to do it on time. The first D35 was launched in May 2004, then every two weeks another one was launched! Favre Structure were involved in the construction and the rigs were built in France at Lorima. The hardware is from Bucher & Walt, another well-known Swiss company.

The D35 is a great success and the one-design aspect has proved to be a big step in the right direction. Right now some of our other classes are going the same way, the M2 for instance; it is a smaller D35 and is fast gaining in popularity here.

SH: And campaign costs...
PYJ: The D35 is a full carbon boat: mast, beam, centre hull, floats, the hardware is high quality, there are carbon appendages, the sheets and halyards are all high end, but I wouldn't rate it as an expensive boat for what it is. It's 480,000CHF (approximately 320,000 euros), plus 100,000CHF for sails, electronics and so on. To campaign is about another 200,000CHF a year. We try to keep the price down as much as we can.

But the racing is amazingly competitive; if you look back over 2007, I think every boat won at least one race.

SH: Is there room to develop the D35, should the owners agree?
PYJ: The mood among the owners is good, and there is an ongoing conversation about the next step and what can be done to make the boat better, safer, quicker. If you want to make a major modification then you need unanimous consent from all the owners. Last year we added racks further aft to aid heavy air performance. That was a good step forward and we are considering some further modifications for the future. I think we will wait a year before we do anything, however, as there are a lot of developments coming up with the flying boats on the lake and of course the America's Cup on multihulls in 2009... But all the owners have multihull history, they are aware of what is going on with projects like the Hydroptère, so I am sure the class will evolve.

SH: And your own multihull background?
PYJ: I started in the mid-1980s on a boat called ASL, which was probably the first lake foiler. It was not supposed to fly but the lift coefficient was nearly 40 per cent of the total displacement! Bertrand Cardis from Décision SA and Jean François Burkhalter built the boat, designed by Grégoire Dolto and Patrick Dubois. It was a great boat, very powerful in light air. I like speed – on snow, on water, on a motorcycle – so a multihull was an obvious choice.

I have sailed multihulls from 1986 up until today, both on the lake and on the sea. On the lake we mainly sailed foilers and Formula 40s and later the 'monsters' like Poseidon. Then the first Alinghi trimaran (a Gino Morelli design, built in 1995), Alinghi's Le Black cat and finally the D35. I have been very fortunate to win the Bol d'Or five times and the Geneva-Rolle-Geneva seven times.

My biggest achievement on a monohull was winning the 1988 Europeans in the Surprise one-design! I did a stint on monohulls, including the Maxi circuit, Fastnet, One Ton Cup. I started sailing multihulls with Ernesto in 1995; one of our first races was the Bol d'Or and the breeze was up, we hit a wave approaching the finish and pitchpoled. That was my first and only capsize on a 40-footer but it was the beginning of an exciting relationship!

SH: And the idea of an America's Cup in multihulls?
PYJ: In terms of design it's a great opportunity, from a blank sheet of paper we have one goal: designing and then building the fastest possible sailing boat ever to compete on an up-and-down or triangular course. The challenge is huge. When you design such a powerful boat you need to be on the very edge... but on the right side of it.

In terms of R&D we are studying every single aspect of hull design, appendage design, rig design, aerodynamics. These boats are going to sail fast so we'll need to be able to manage very tight apparent wind angles and probably very tight sheeting angles. We are expecting a very high level of performance both up and downwind.

SH: And the broader future for multihulls?
PYJ: My view is that perhaps a couple of years from now most of the fast racing boats out there will fly. We saw an enormous step forward in small dinghies like the Moth and this is now extending to the 18-footer class. We have started to see some multihulls flying as well – there will be a 32-footer on the lake this summer, for example. I really think the next three to five years will be amazing in terms of progress; the biggest jump being boats flying up and downwind looking for the best VMG.

SH: For the 32nd Cup you were Alinghi's coach... and now?
PYJ: When we got the decision that the Deed of Gift match was going to happen, suddenly we had to put together a different programme completely... sailing, sail development, design and so on. I took the job of somehow pulling all these areas together while trying also to keep our learning envelope as broad as possible.

We made the choice to use the X40s to learn about multihull racing and boat behaviour above 15kt. We decided to use the D35 to learn about light airs and the more technical sail development side and also Foncia, the Orma 60, to learn about and improve our crew work, onboard communication, load measurement and so on. There is so much to do, but it is a fantastic job!