News Around the World
The winner of the 2018 Figaro Sébastien Simon’s new Juan K-design Arkea made a good stab at this year’s Fastnet Race immediately after launching but it was a big ask and after rounding the Rock she headed directly to France with ‘very many technical issues!!!’ to quote her skipper. Juan K opts for a conventional cockpit and also stayed with foils that extend out not down, as on the more radical Apivia – opposing philosophies. October’s Transat Jacques Vabre will offer some good pointers (more good for some than others)
the whole of IRC 2 but had to be happy with sixth overall behind Géry Trentesaux on his JPK 11.80 Courrier Recommandé, the first of the ‘small’ boats, and in front of another Jacques Valer design (but not a JPK), the one-off IRC 1 L’Ange de Milon, built a few years ago in La Trinité-sur-Mer by Charlie Capelle. In IRC 4 the JPK 10.10 is always there and adds a new victory
in her class with the indomitableFoggy Dew. All four of these winners are designed by Jacques Valer, a very private naval architect who has enjoyed a superb career and deserves a few words. The son and grandson of fishermen from Etel (south Brittany),
now in his 60s, Valer started navigating at a young age. Initially in the merchant navy, he later joined a shipyard as a designer until the age of 40 when the yard shut down, at which point he decided to try designing boats for himself and his friends…and even building his own. He is self-taught. Apart from a brief stint at the School of Architecture in Nantes, he learned by browsing through yachting magazines. He kept all the boat tests made by Pierre Gutelle from the magazine Bateauxand all the drawings that accompanied them. The first ‘real’ boat designed and built by Valer is the Alado 18,
an F-18 type catamaran that was later to become the Hobie Tiger. Moreover, it is another catamaran, the Mystery, that was the origin of his encounter with Jean-Pierre Kelbert. A Canadian customer was looking for a yard to build the tooling and Jacques stumbled upon a ‘guy from Larmor-Plage (near Lorient)’ who was then making models. ‘So we became friends with Jean-Pierre. He told me that he would
like to build a fast cruising boat. He added: “There is a boat that goes super well in Lorient. She is called Matamouf.” I told him that I was the designer of that boat [still a winner in IRC regattas].’ So was born the famous JPK 9.60 (nicely promoted in the RORC
races by Noël Racine racing the original Foggy Dew). ‘He wanted something like a Pogo 8.50. I told him that it was necessary to do something more conventional better suited to the IRC rule.’ A narrower and heavier boat was needed. Jacques works quite
differently from his colleagues: on his drawing table he has a pencil, eraser, drawing paper and a traditional set of curves to create the shapes. ‘Jean-Pierre gave me plenty of time to design the 9.60. I took my bike [Jacques is a very good cyclist] and went to study the boats at La Trinité. The architecture had hardly changed in more than 12 years, so I told myself I should stay with my own philosophy.’ Jacques does not frequent the architects’ community. At home
20 SEAHORSE
in Etel he thinks about boats, compares, uses his hand calculator and gives free rein to his intuition. He is an artist! As a child he did well in drawing. As an adult he became interested in manufacturing techniques. Finally, he is sharp-eyed and also a music lover. Music has an influence on his drawings. ‘I have a predilection for baroque music, Bach, Handel and the music of the 18th century in general, Mozart, Haydn, Italian operas like those of Puccini…’ For the gestation of the FC 38, a successful cruiser from JPK
that was named Boat of the Year, he rocked his head to the first movement of a Handel opera – ‘a nice perky gavotte from which the behaviour on the water of the latest JPK boat [at that time] was inspired!’ The joyous Frenchman (Jacques is a happy man), recog- nisable by his perennial blue canvas trousers, now enjoys the respect he deserves for his creative work. At first critical about the IRC, he acknowledges that today this
rule gives birth to super boats. ‘Relatively heavy, not too heavily charged in sail area, a boat going fast upwind and downwind. Balanced, safe, reliable offshore… perhaps a little under-canvassed in light air,’ he concedes. And when asked about the differences between a JPK and another competing boat, he shouts: ‘They are all the same boats.’ But then adds, ‘Mine, I find them a little more harmonious.’ Maybe the pencil drawing? The question is now what will the next racing Jacques Valer design
be? Somebody shouts ‘a Class 0’. Why not? There is still more to win at the Rolex Fastnet and in other famous offshore races. Patrice Carpentier
AUSTRALIA Venom I once called Carl Ryves the oldest teenager I know, and nothing has changed. Sitting on his veranda overlooking the Lane Cove River in Sydney recently, the conversation roamed the sailing world; from his early exploits ‘borrowing’ sheets of roofing tin from building sites as a kid, from which he and his friends would fashion simple canoes, scooping up hot tar from the roads to seal the joins then hiding them in the bushes before other kids could pinch them, and then on weekends and holidays, drifting downwind with bedsheets spread out on skinny arms or broomsticks… until these corrugated canoes capsized as the human ballast shifted – unable to keep still the way kids are, laughing as the primitive boats slowly settled
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 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104
