Sam Goodchild
The 2023 TJV may prove an unusually significant indicator for the outcome of the next Vendée Globe. With Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière taking the win on Ruyant’s new Finot-Koch design, ahead of sistership Arkéa Paprec, and Goodchild/ Koch (seen here) finishing third on Ruyant’s previous Imoca, Ruyant’s team is in a formidable position. Smart sail development after the 2020-2021 VG saw Ruyant develop today’s ‘B-boat’ to be faster downwind than Charlie Dalin’s Apivia – the previous benchmark Imoca design. With Ruyant’s much improved previous Verdier design as trial-horse, both these excellent Imocas are only going to get faster between now and the VG start in November. Dalin’s new Verdier design Macif is very quick, but might that lack of a well-matched in-house tune-up boat make the critical difference?
Un rosbif très rapide
So here we go for my first Seahorse column and what an exciting time to start it, both in terms of my sailing career and the racing calendar. The Vendée Globe has been a goal driving the direc- tion of my sailing since I went down the famous Les Sables d’Olonne channel as Mike Golding’s 18-year-old nipper 16 years ago. If all goes to
plan I will be on the startline myself this November. I’m driven by competition, wanting to pit myself against the best
in offshore sailing. But I am also constantly aware of the truth in the old saying ‘to finish first, first you have to finish’. As I write, we are in mid-winter refit, where with this in mind the number one focus for the whole team is reliability. The Imoca class is a development class and we are ever aware
that if you’re not improving you are, in relative performance terms, going backwards. Set this in the context of also achieving maximum reliability and it’s easy to see why boat development is a permanent balancing act… one that starts in the shed this winter with the choices we make on where to invest our time, energy and money. It is also one of my biggest concerns for the racing itself. Finding the right amount to push to ultimately get the best results… without breaking the boat… or crew. The boats have steadily become ‘bigger’, more powerful beasts.
The foils turbo-charging the process. This means that when the wind and, most importantly, the sea-state build the boats are capable of much more than the sailor and sometimes the boat’s structure can take. Finding the right limit at the right time is now a primary driver of sailing performance. Throughout a Vendée Globe cycle we have different events to help us find this right balance. A 2/3-day Fastnet-style race is a
36 SEAHORSE
sprint with relatively little importance in the grand scheme of things – instead we use a race like this to push hard and crash test. The transatlantic races are generally broken down into two to four-day sections, where possible in rough conditions and normally with a bit of respite in between to regroup. However, for the Vendée Globe we could find ourselves in
full-on Southern Ocean conditions for weeks on end. I was fortunate enough to have a test run on Leg 3 of The Ocean Race last year onboard Holcim-PRB. However, that was fully crewed, so going back down there singlehanded, and to do the whole lap of the planet in one go, will be going into the unknown for me. Which is fortunately what drives me! I’ve been talking about this desire to do the Vendée Globe for
a long time… And I’m happy to feel like the patience has paid off. Today I am sailing the reference Imoca of the last four years. With Thomas Ruyant (its previous skipper) the same boat won the Transat Jacques Vabre 2021 and the Route du Rhum 2022. Even better than just having his boat, I am working in-house with
Thomas and the team that has sailed and managed the boat since it was launched in 2019. With the complexity of running a campaign, creating a solid team and finding a good boat these days, I couldn’t really imagine better conditions to prepare for my first Vendée Globe. And from time to time there are a few reminders of the fortunate
position I find myself in, most recently with the Corum campaign when the sponsor pulled the plug a year from the VG start after one too many setbacks. The outfit I am part of is called Thomas Ruyant Racing. We are
about 30 people working full-time, counting the management, logistics and technical teams that support the two boats. Our second boat is the Koch/Finot-Conq designed Imoca,
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