Opposite: clearly the bowman on Richard Cohen’s Marcelo Botín-designed TP52 Phoenix is less than thrilled with what he’s just heard from the afterguard back there in fantasy land… Cohen has put together a strong team led by Paul Cayard and Peter Holmberg – Phoenix raced the TP Worlds in Menorca with mixed results but the programme proper begins at Key West. Left: first sail for the Ofcet 32, Marc Lombard’s new IRC design targeted at shorthanded offshore racing. The boat is certainly aggressively styled but it follows on from Lombard’s MC34 that was nothing less than an IRC weapon – especially in a breeze
keep up high speeds hour after hour. It is a big technical challenge.’ Banque Populaire IX is still lighter than BPVII (ex-Groupama) despite having more beam and an equivalent righting moment. Co-designer Vincent Lauriot-Prévost adds: ‘Our main target is to make the boat fly earlier and as smoothly as possible.’ The team expect that in the future they will be able to remove the central rudder and control the boat mostly with the foils. But for that you need automatic foil controls, which for now is forbidden by the Ultim rule. Note, though, that BPIX will start with three rudders all equipped with T-foils.
On the build side, the main hull was made by Green Marine under the supervision of CDK. At time of writing the starboard float, made by CDK in Port La Forêt, has been delivered to the team’s giant shed at Lorient, with the port float well advanced. The cross beams are under construction, also the complex mainsheet beam which is being built by Gepeto in Lorient. The big assembly puzzle should happen in the first half of 2017, with launch planned for August. Her first big race will be the two-handed Jacques Vabre next autumn. One hundred feet and two men, we get quite used to that.
Gitanais also on schedule
Banque Populaire VII. After this voyage the Macif skipper will sail his boat back to Marsaudon shipyard in Lorient. There the VPLP design will undergo a complete check before starting her 2017 programme culminating in his own solo attempt round the world next winter.
François carefully followed the presentation of the new Banque Populaire IX(see below): ‘We knew there was nothing revolutionary with the boat itself because we talk about it a lot with Armel! But we also know the Banq Pop team will push hard to improve all the little details… Actually, it is rather exciting to have some competition.’
On the startline The Maxi trimarans are going to challenge the Queen Mary 2across the Atlantic next year. That’s the central idea of The Bridge, an insane project first revealed a year ago by Damien Grimont, organiser of big events including the Solidaire du Chocolat for the Class40. The prestigious ‘liner’ will be on the startline on Sunday 25 June 2017 along with the Ultims for a pursuit race between the bridges of Saint-Nazaire at the mouth of the Loire and New York…
… or in construction
Compared with the existing 100ft Macif, the new Banque Populaire VII Ultim, also designed by VPLP, is ‘a bit more everywhere’, as team director Ronan Lucas describes it. She is conceived specially for singlehanded use yet sits at the very top of the Ultim Rule: 32m long x 23m wide compared with 30m x 21m for Gabart’s Macif. BPIXalso carries a bigger mast, 38m to Macif’s 35m, has much more sail area (610m2 upwind against 430) and yet is just 500kg heavier (15 tonnes against 14.5). All this means more righting moment than Macif, around 160 tonne-metres against 145. The foils will be longer and bigger: ‘The idea is to increase lift and reduce drag,’ says Ronan. But he cautions: ‘The difficulty is making it possible for a solo sailor to manage so much power and
Sébastien Josse is a happy skipper. At the end of September he was playing in St-Tropez at Les Voiles on his GC 32 under the colours of Gitana. A few weeks later he will be in Les Sables d’Olonne to start the Vendée Globe with his foiled Imoca Edmond De Rothschild. But before leaving for Les Sables he went to Multiplast where his next weapon, the 33m Ultim Gitana Maxidesigned by Guillaume Verdier (this time not in partnership with VPLP), is under construction. The main hull is complete, as is the aft beam. All the big carbon pieces will soon be finished and the ‘soldering’ of the platform to the mast will happen during the winter while Sébastien is surfing around Antarctica. ‘I feel very lucky,’ says the (lucky!) French skipper.
‘It gives me strong motivation to finish the Vendée Globe as soon as possible.’
Armel Le Cléac’h from Banque Populaire could have spoken the same words, with the extra edge of having finished second in the last two editions. No official communication has been made about Gitana Maxi but, knowing the talent of both the Gitana Team and the famous Guillaume Verdier, we predict an Ultim at least as sophisticated as Banque Populaire IX. She too will launch next summer. PS: François Gabart is the best. He enters the VG for the first time, he wins it. He enters the Route du Rhum for the first time, he wins it (both times he has Armel just behind!). And l’homme presséis first to have a real ‘Ultim’, the first 100ft trimaran specially made for solo ocean racing. The story goes on! Patrice Carpentier
NEW ZEALAND
As the America’s Cup teams hone their boats and techniques down to fine tolerances in preparation for Bermuda next year, it is clear that, perhaps more than ever before, accurate weather predictions will play a key part. Races are going to be won and lost on decisions made ashore, hours before the start signal. On-the-water testing is revealing how sensitive these boats are to matching foil selection and set-up with the conditions. Getting that equation even slightly wrong on any one day will almost certainly destroy any chance of success. The sailing instructions stipulate that racing will start in winds of 6-25kt. Within those limits teams will have to determine a series of performance bands and boat settings. Foil selection and set-up, much of it determined on the dock, will be crucial to the outcome. The days of each syndicate posting weather boats all over the racecourse have been banished as a token to cost saving and each
SEAHORSE 13
YAN DUBE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92