Update
A GENIUS IS GONE – Patrice Carpentier Jean-Marie Finot, one of the greatest names in modern naval architecture, died on 2 April at the age of 86. Trained as an engineer and also a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he left a consid- erable mark on yachting and especially ocean racing. Jean-Marie devoted his life to designing innovative, high-per-
formance yachts. After working for Philippe Harlé (Muscadet, Arma- gnac, and so on), he set up on his own and in 1969 designed a hard-chine Quarter Tonner built in aluminium alloy, which finished fourth in the 1969 Quarter Ton Cup. The same year a round-bilge version of the design went into production in glass/polyester under the name Ecume de Mer and proved extremely popular. In 1970 and again in 1972 a flush-deck Ecume de Mer, skippered by Laurent Cordelle, twice won the Quarter Ton Cup. She became the first one-design used in the Tour de France and was voted Boat of the Year. Another of Jean-Marie’s famous boats is Révolution, designed
in 1972 for Jean-Louis Fabry, which finished as top individual boat in a fleet of 48 in the 1975 Admiral’s Cup. In his book on the history of naval architecture (Evolution of Ship Architecture in Offshore Racing) Jean Sans writes: ‘This boat, built in aluminium by Huisman, is typical of Finot’s radical but very skilful approach to yacht design.’ For a decade the generously-shaped pioneering red IOR design
with her clipper stem would rack up many more victories in RORC offshore races and subsequent Admiral’s Cups. Jean continues: ‘Although he was passionate about all areas of architecture Finot’s contribution to ocean racing is impressive in terms of its quality, originality and vision of performance. At the beginning of the 1970s he realised that within 10 years digital tools would become essential to successful naval architecture. He acquired a computer (an IBM 370 from memory) together with a plotter pro- grammed in Fortran IV. ‘During the 1970s programming was mostly still written on
punched cards, with one card for each line of code. Laurie Davidson, Doug Peterson and Olin Stephens led the way using programmable
14 SEAHORSE
machines, but these could only optimise IOR rating calculations. The real prize was to couple a computer to a pen and reproduce the shapes of the boat… I remember the Paris Boat Show in January 1971, where Jean-Marie presented all this equipment – including the first real plotter – on his stand to the astonishment of visitors.’ In 1981 Finot designed the Class 8 in collaboration with Jacques
Faroux for the Bénéteau shipyard. This 8m lifting-keel one-design enjoyed 25 years of explosive growth, helping train several gener- ations of racers who later found fame on the offshore circuit. Jean Sans: ‘In 1977 Finot’s eclecticism led him to publish a
book which he split into two parts: Eléments de Vitesses des Coques 2 and La Jauge IOR. With regard to the first part it may be claimed that there is nothing new, that everything has already been said and written. This is certainly true, but the author presents his demon- strations, and this is his genius, not with mathematical formulae, but with very simple freehand drawings in two colours (black and orange). In the second part the IOR Rule is dissected, again with drawings, to make the formulas accessible and above all compre- hensible to owners, skippers and other sailors and designers.’ During the late 1970s and early 1980s Jean-Marie was involved
in the design of many IOR Half Tonners also used in the Figaro Solitaire, the wooden Finot design Eglantine skippered by Patrick Eliès uniquely winning all four legs of the 1979 edition. In 1985 the architect joined forces with Pascal Conq. The two
continued to develop and design new boats before focusing more seriously on ocean racing, first finding great success in the Mini 6.50s. In 1991 the first Groupe Finot Figaro One Design appeared, followed by the studio’s first Imoca 60s. Those famous Finot 60-footers quickly became recognisable by
their wide beam, which increased power and therefore the ability to carry a big sail area. If it hadn’t been for his autopilot problems Alain Gautier could have won a podium on his aluminium ‘aircraft carrier’ in the first Vendée Globe. But he went on to win the second edition (1993) on his composite Groupe Finot ketch Bagages Superior. From there Finot-Conq designs were to collect a string of victories with Christophe Auguin and Giovanni Soldini in the BOC Challenge
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