Consensus: there was none

James Boyd looks at the remarkable variety of rigs at the front of the Vendée Globe fleet

It is perhaps unprecedented in the history of box rules to find a class where after more than 25 years there is so much variation between boats and yet, as the Vendée Globe is proving, such tight competition. While the Imoca Open 60 rule may no longer be as open as when it was simply ‘60ft LOA’, and there are distinct trends towards more beamy and powerful boats, with monstrous rigs and water ballast capacity, one area where the jury stubbornly remains out is rig configuration.

Back in the mid-1990s Yves Parlier broke the mould when his Finot-designed Aquitaine Innovations was launched with what was effectively an Orma 60 rotating wing mast planted on a monohull. And to reduce the compression loads Aquitaine Innovations’ shrouds terminated at the end of long deck spreaders, effectively booms angled back and out from the mast step, pushing out the shroud base...

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