All of the top Imoca teams are now so slick (and well resourced) that it surprised precisely no one when Charlie Dalin’s new Apivia went sailing as soon as she hit the water. Co-designed by Dalin and Guillaume Verdier, in terms of deck layout Apivia treads a path somewhere between the virtual flush deck of Hugo Boss 7 and previous-generation boats with their large open cockpits. A great deal of effort went into water dispersal on Apivia, as on HB7, with the proviso that Dalin could steer his boat from outside – something the 35-year-old Figaro star insisted upon. He also requested a less ‘tubular’ hull than on VPLP’s Charal to allow a gentler transition when coming on and off the foils. All the new Imoca foils are huge (right) and a pair of them will set you back about the same as a good 60-footer; not surprisingly, when not out working they lead a cosseted life with cosy padded covers and a variety of protective ‘contraptions’. Dalin twice won the Macif Figaro scholarship and Apivia is part of the giant Macif Group. So keep doing well, Charlie…


or La Fabrique [a new foil designed by Finot/Conq which flares out backwards towards the tip]. ‘On Arkea Paprec (a Juan K design) it is the same family as ours.


Our foils are very slender and very thin at the tip like the multihulls Gitana and the Team New Zealand AC50 [Verdier is part of TNZ]. It is quite heavy to be strong enough but it is useful weight which “disappears” once you are foiling. ‘Without elevators on the rudders [forbidden in Imoca] it is not


possible to fly. The goal with Imoca foils is to reduce wetted surface… to be sailing on a minimum surface at the back of the boat. Another aim is to be very stable longitudinally so you can push hard. When the bow rises it affects the foil and it will add power. Conversely, if the bow enters the water you take power away from your foil. This back and forth attitude is very harmful to the average performance so the hull must contribute to the longitudinal balance. ‘I think we will be using the foils 80 per cent of the time in the


next VG, from 8-9kt true wind sailing close-hauled to nearly everything else… We should easily achieve an average speed of 20kt. But the size of the swell and of the waves is still critical. For example, in the South Atlantic you can sail very fast (as Hugo Boss showed in the previous VG) because we often see an anticyclone with a flat sea. It all starts from there as then we try to stay in front of the low pressure to sail in favourable conditions for as long as possible.’ Compared to Charal, Charlie says, ‘Our hull is different. Charal’s


looks optimised for running VMG, less powerful than ours. The shape is round with less wetted surface. She has no advantage in heeling because her wetted surface has increased while we are reducing wetted surface with heel. Charal relies entirely on the foil for her righting moment… I’d rather have some extra hull power because when the boat slows down you don’t have to ease the sails so much to keep the boat upright. ‘Today with the foils when you lose speed you lose RM and when


the boat heels you have to go looking for speed to straighten it. I prefer that a more powerful hull takes over. That doesn’t mean we’re extreme – we still need to keep speed up in light weather.’ Charlie Dalin worked as a naval architect on the design of the


two 2008 Ericsson Volvo 70s with Juan K. ‘I was the link between his team from Valencia and the yard in Stockholm. Ericsson 4 won the Volvo. I then designed many of the parts for Yves Le Blévec’s Actualmultihull. During my studies in Southampton I did wind tunnel tests for the British AC team and also looked at rigid wing design. ‘Imoca is complex, there is a lot of interaction between


appendages – you have to make the effort to dive into the numbers of the VPP to understand how it works. These boats are made by the engineers. Changing the rake of the foil alters the drift and the keel action… It is essential to spend time on the Excel spreadsheets to soak that all up. And understand when you change a foil setting. ‘Today when you change keel angle it affects a lot of things: the


RM, the lift of the fin – that varies with the impact of the pivot angle. The results can look quite different on the water. We are all learning fast, but there will be some mistakes and some big successes.’


Charlie’s longest solo race to date was the Mini Transat 10 years


ago. Apart from several years spent at the top level in the Figaro circuit Dalin has a lot of experience of sailing Imocas, especially with Yann Eliès. ‘We sailed the TJV together in 2015 and I was his reserve for the last VG.’ He has also raced on PRB, won races onboard Poujoulat and Brit Air. But he remains a VG rookie.


Another successful invasion Once again the ‘bloody Froggies’ took hold of the Rolex Fastnet Race. They won every category except the overall title where the Mach 45 Bretagne Télécomhad to capitulate behind the Volvo 70 Wizard (which has quite a low IRC handicap). Nicolas Groleau, skipper of the 12-year-old 45-footer, a Sam Manuard canting-keel design, had already twice won his class in the race but has never been so close to winning overall. ‘Our rivals on the water are currently the bigger Cookson 50s but


we were always close to them. We lost a few miles with a short starboard tack against a very bad sea when the wind veered right for a while in the north of the Celtic Sea. After the Fastnet Rock we rushed down to the Scillies under Code 0 with just a few moments under the J1. After that it was full spinnaker till the end.’ Bretagne Télécom averaged nearly 15kt from the Rock to


Plymouth. It took her 17h 27m, only 17 minutes more than Rambler, seven minutes more than the 100ft Scallywag… and 40 minutes less than Wizard! Not bad for a 45-footer. But Nicolas Groleau keeps things in proportion when he adds that ‘the maxi boats had less favourable conditions… and we had a better wind angle. ‘Heading to the Rock I noticed that Privateer, the first Cookson


50, was flying three sails in the front while reaching: a jib top tacked on the bowsprit, a J2 behind and a third smaller sail. It looked curious but it worked well, probably better than our Code 0 which was too big to get close to the wind or the J1 which could not produce maximum speed.’ Actually in Plymouth Nicolas was talking to Sam Manuard about adding water ballast to his boat for next season. Unfortunately Bretagne Télécom has no close competitor in La


Trinité-sur-Mer, her home port, to work with to improve their perfor- mance; its skipper would very much like his Fastnet rivals to come further south in France during even years for some competition in the Gulf of Biscay. Why not?


The Jacques Valer Fastnet The designs of JPK have got a remarkable reputation. And once again they scored a fantastic set of results in the last Fastnet by winning all the IRC classes from 1 to 4! The goal for Jean-Pierre Kelbert, racing two-handed with Alexis


Loison on the new JPK 10.30, was to achieve a first in her Class 3, a first in the Two-Handed division –and why not to reach an overall win as Alexis had with his father on a JPK 10.10 four years ago? In fact, Alexis and Jean-Pierre did sail a fantastic race on Léon,


showing the world how good his new JPK 10.30 is reaching and running in tough conditions. They also cleared their way through


SEAHORSE 19 


MAXIME HORLAVILLE


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