A first peek inside the toolbox
With the next planetary event on the Imoca calendar, the Barcelona World Race, leaving the Catalan capital in less than a year this is a good time to take a first look at the tools currently being shaped or sharpened.
Title holder Jean-Pierre Dick will be back to defend his crown, earned alongside Damian Foxall, but aboard a new 60-footer designed by the Jacques Vabre-conquering VPLP-Verdier tandem. After an eight-year relationship with Farr, the Lorient-based, Nice-born skipper – who was the first to commission an Imoca 60 from the American design office and who thus set a trend – has decided to move on. Few details have been released about the latest Paprec-Virbac, which will hit the water in May 2010, but Guillaume Verdier offers some clues: ‘While PRB (for Vincent Riou) will be an optimisation of the Safran concept, with the same hull shape but different rig and appendages, Virbac is a completely new boat, even though to the untrained eye it might not be all that obvious.
‘The overall philosophy remains the same, still focusing on a light displacement and a balance that aims to prevent nosediving. Stability under pilot is crucial too, and with the VPLP office we’ve worked hard on the keel/rudders interactions, as well as reliability.
‘Basically, our new structure is conceived in such a way that if damage does occur it’s still possible to carry on in a degraded mode, which is of the utmost importance for a non-stop round-the-world race as J-P unfortunately knows all too well.’
Dick will compete in the Route du Rhum before lining up for the Barcelona World Race, whose organisers have offered to ship the Imoca 60s back from Pointe-à-Pitre to the Catalan capital free of charge.
Hugo Boss and Alex Thomson were the second team to confirm their Barcelona Race entry, with a radical Imoca 60 that has not been seen previously on this course. The Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed beast formerly known as Pindar seemed like a logical next move to the British competitor, as he explained to Duo, the Barcelona World Race magazine: ‘Last time, there were a load of new boats and while we were building our own new Finot design no one knew what anybody else was doing until much later on. Now we know where the fleet is...
‘Then there are the new rules that limit power, so if you believe that you want righting moment, which I do, then it makes sense to buy the most powerful boat you can. The new boats have righting moment limited to 32 tonne-metres. Pindar has a bit more than that. We could have gone through the process of building a new boat but then you are looking at a lot more time. You’d also have to accept that you would not be ready until after the Barcelona World Race, which means you wouldn’t be able to sail the course in the boat you were going to use for the Vendée.’
As far as changes to the big Juan K 60 are concerned, Thomson says no final decisions have been taken yet...
The Farr contingent will be mostly under Spanish flags as things stand today, with title-holder Paprec-Virbac 2 now in the hands of Mini 6.5 star Alex Pella and sponsored by W Hotels. Pella and Volvo veteran Pepe Ribes just took a creditable fifth place in the Transat Jacques Vabre, and are now preparing for the next BWR, albeit maybe with a different title sponsor.
Another recent Farr design, Estrella Damm (Loïck Peyron’s former Gitana Eighty), was bought by the Spanish team last spring. As far as modifications are concerned, Pat Shaughnessy, president of Farr Yacht Design, says: ‘We are in vigorous discussion to get them to the start in the most competitive state possible. Stand by!’
Last time around Farr’s Open 60s were notable for innovations including trim tabs and bow strakes, so will there be more development... Bow strakes, all the rage in 2008, now seem to be drifting out of favour. ‘We have been continuing to develop the concept and some future developments do look pretty promising,’ says Pat.
‘The strakes are particularly interesting because they are passive control surfaces. Anything that makes a better performing boat with less sailor interaction must be beneficial for these boats.
‘That said, we recognise that things like strakes are extremely dependent on rule spaces, boat type, race type and sailor preference. So are they gone? No. Can we do them better? Yes.’ Another striking artefact was the trim tab, seen on Barcelona race winner Paprec-Virbac 2. Here, Shaughnessy feels new class rules make their future less certain: ‘We think the tabs are another very interesting area of development for high-speed planing boats. But the vast majority of development completed for strakes, and trim tabs, has been done in support of high-speed powerboat research.
‘Our task is much more difficult because sailing vessels need to operate at a range of speeds, and heel angles. Because of that we have a really interesting problem to solve! The Open 60 class used to be one of the few areas in our sport that embraced this sort of development, but recent rule changes have limited the number of appendages to five. Because of that restriction, the class probably won’t see any more trim tabs, or any other strikingly innovative appendage solutions.
‘On that basis the appendage limit seems to be a negative for the sport as a whole because it blocks a path to significant new development of sailing craft. Somewhere in our sport development still needs to be allowed to happen...’ Jocelyn Blériot
Below: Irish sailor Damian Foxall trots back to the office on the previous Farr-designed Paprec-Virbac 2 after the start of the first Barcelona World Race. Foxall has now signed with Frank Cammas for the next Volvo Race and so is unavailable to defend his Barcelona Race title with Jean-Pierre Dick
