Left: tough and light… built by Décision in 1984, the first all-carbon/Nomex IOR maxi was Pierre Fehlmann’s Farr-designed UBS which went on to take line honours in the 1985/86 Whitbread. Much lighter, still tough but above all stiff was the Alinghi team’s legendary lake racer Le Black (below), designed by a team that included Sébastien Schmidt and Jo Richards and built by Décision. Le Black was delivered to her base slung under a helicopter. She won the Bol d’Or four times, along with every other major trophy in her division
the bigger Carboman Group with Multi- plast in Vannes… ‘I finished my studies in 1981 at the Swiss Institute of Technology. After that I went with Pierre Fehlmann as watch captain on Disque d’Or 3 in the 1981/82 Whitbread. When I came back I campaigned a Flying Dutchman and went to the Olympic Games in 1984. ‘I had a good time between ’81 and ’84,
sailing all the time. So it wasn’t until I got back from Los Angeles that we decided to really get moving with Décision. That year we’d done Passion 2 and the first lake boats, but we were soon starting on a quite sophisticated new IOR Whitbread maxi for Fehlmann… ‘So now, more than 25 years later, I find
myself in Alicante sitting with the previous Volvo Race CEO Knut Frostad and proposing that we build him a fleet of new one-designs for the next race (in 2014)! ‘Knut agreed with my idea… at least in
were able to build them using a 50g laminate made up of two layers of 25g – and the final 50g laminate proved to be 100 per cent waterproof. ‘By contrast, if you use a standard,
heavier laminate of one layer of 100g this will not be completely waterproof. This was not something we anticipated.’ Back to Solar Impulse, and compared
with the airframe was the solar powertrain relatively plug and play? ‘No, not at all!’ ‘Here they had a very strong team who
worked hard over many years to deliver the final system that was used in the round-the-world flight. It was definitely not plug and play, it was a long and continuous development. For example, when the plane stopped in Hawaii midway through the trip they needed to do extra work to improve the heat management of the batteries. Many other issues appeared during the round-the-world flight and the development continued right up until the final leg of the trip.’ OK, so how light was the final air-
frame… ‘This I cannot tell you, Andrew, even now. But the laminates were lighter than those used on any of the latest Amer- ica’s Cup boats and wings. A lot lighter! ‘Nowhere on the AC catamarans will
you find laminate as light as we used to fly a man around the world. Of course the loads are much bigger when you are
40 SEAHORSE
working with water than they are with air… plus every time you go on the water you always gain a bit of weight.’ So where does all that learning from
Solar Impulse now go? ‘Décision is cur- rently working on a project where we want to use the technology developed for Solar Impulse for more commercial appli- cations like solar-powered stratospheric drones; for telecommunication, for earth observation, for analysis and so on. The idea is that these drones can do the job of some satellites but at a much cheaper price. They’re also easier to maintain and so running costs are also reduced. ‘Décision is not the only group working
in this field, but we feel that with the round-the-world flight of Solar Impulse we really learned a lot. We have a huge data- base of the flight conditions and the parallel mechanical performance of each part of the airframe. Plus of course the propulsion system itself which changed massively between the start and finish of the project.’ There are other spin-offs for the com-
pany, too, for example Décision is now working on projects with Airbus, with 9100 supply approval. ‘EN9100 is the key to being a successful sub-contractor to the aerospace industry,’ explains Cardis. ‘To reach this level of acceptance involved a big, big investment for the company.’ Décision is now of course also part of
part. He said, “OK, we can do it, but you cannot do the whole fleet for us in Switzer- land – you will be too expensive and you are way too small.” My solution was that we are close to Multiplast and so we will bring you a consortium. So we went to Persico in Italy, Multiplast in France and Green Marine in England and asked them if they also wanted to work with us – we needed an English boatyard too because of course a boat built for what began as the Whitbread Race must be launched in the Solent, nowhere else. ‘Somewhere, as the new consortium
came together so did the idea of Carbo- man. With Multiplast and ourselves already working together on the VO65s it was really a natural transition.’ And what about Bertrand Cardis now
that he is no longer creating amazing composite structures? ‘Last year I had my 60th birthday.
Décision has a new CEO and, though I continue to work on special projects, I am no longer in charge of the running of the company.’ So basically you get all the best bits
without the daily grind… ‘You could describe it that way, Andrew! But it has been good for me; after 30 years I needed to have new challenges. Doing the same thing for so long, even if it’s very interest- ing, I did need a bit of a change.’ It has been a long journey from Passion
2? ‘A long journey, yes, but a fascinating one. I was very lucky to be doing what I was doing at the time I did it.’ Bertrand Cardis was talking to the editor q
LORIS VON SIEBENTHAL
RICK TOMLINSON
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