Simon is a structural and composites engineer who trained at


the respected École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie et de Physique de Bordeaux. He worked as an engineer for Vendée Globe veteran Yves Parlier before concentrating on the Figaro circuit where he delivered a steady string of nice results: second newcomer in 2014 at the French championship, winner of a Figaro leg in 2015 and fourth overall in the Figaro in 2017 with two podiums. He also raced with Vincent on his Imoca PRB and he loved that…’ Vincent is going to manage the project and the team, work on


the design of the boat and monitor the construction at CDK. ‘He was already intending to apply his huge experience somewhere and I was ready and keen to go!’ said Simon, who spent time with three designers, Verdier, VPLP and Juan K, before making his choice. Juan K also knows Vincent quite well. He worked on the option


of putting foils on the existing PRB before the start of the last VG (they didn’t go ahead in the end), plus he designed some experimental new rudders with bumps (tubercles) on the leading edges. But Simon said that he himself selected Juan K for this project: ‘I have a good feeling about him. He is a brilliant thinker and a very engaging person. Also he is very motivated because he believes that Imoca is one of the last places to experiment with innovative design.’ From the start Sébastien Simon and Vincent Riou laid out a few


conditions, in particular they wanted their chosen designer to stay on-site through the first weeks of testing and tuning. ‘That is some- thing I am looking forward to. An architect’s work doesn’t – shouldn’t – end with the design phase, there are so many opportunities to improve the boat right after it is launched,’ says the 27-year-old skipper, who was born in Les Sables d’Olonne, city of the Vendée Globe. ‘Sometimes a designer moves onto another project straight after the launch, leaving the team to develop the boat alone. Then for the next race he comes back and says, “OK, now we’ll do this”… but by then it is too late!’ After trying to launch a challenge in the Ultim Class, based on


the purchase of Thomas Coville’s current Sodebo, Vincent Riou is now back in the Imoca business, firstly with Sébastien Simon but also racing his own PRB which is finally to be equipped with foils in time for this year’s Route du Rhum. ‘The rule change made at the start of January opens up the possibility of adjusting the angle of incidence of the foils and therefore controlling their power,’ says Vincent. ‘For our older boat this makes a big difference. ‘Now we can use the foils more than before and with better


precision. With this change the foil is definitely now the better option for the Imoca – previously the advantage depended a lot on the weather conditions,’ explains Vincent. A month after Sébastien Simon’s entry, Charlie Dalin, another


frontrunner on the Figaro scene, announced his Vendée Globe challenge also with a new boat. Charlie won the Transat AG2R with Gildas Morvan in 2012 and the French offshore singlehanded title in 2014 and 2016, and has finished in the top three in the Figaro race on three occasions – he was also third in the TJV with Yann Eliès on an Imoca in 2015. His sponsor, Apivia, is a division of our old friend Groupe Macif – who happen to sponsor the 34-year-old sailor from Normandy on the Figaro circuit. Charlie studied naval architecture at Southampton and then the


‘academy’ in Port La Forêt. He chose Guillaume Verdier for the design of his Imoca and the project will be managed by Mer Concept, the company of François Gabart, who is of course also sponsored by Macif for his Ultim (a new Macif Ultim will be launched in two years’ time…). The two Imoca newcomers are staying close to the ‘old’ guys for


their debut, just as happened for François Gabart himself with Michel Desjoyeaux, and now too for Sébastien Simon with Vincent Riou. Charlie thinks Verdier’s huge experience in Imoca, as well in the foiling AC boats (Guillaume has been working with Team New Zealand for many years), will be a great help. Somehow we can’t help feeling that Charlie’s new Imoca will be


influenced by the design Guillaume created for the next Volvo race – before the race organisers changed their plans. ‘The work done for Volvo involved many months of R&D, the results of which are now very useful to us,’ says Charlie. ‘To evolve that work will be a nice process, as we have the advantage of a lot of validated data


JPK’s bête noire Alexandre Ozon is no longer bothered about sail trim – evidently – after crossing the line in Martinique to win the Transquadra solo division overall. Ozon’s relatively light displacement production Bepox 990 was designed back in 2000 but is still an IRC weapon – especially racing shorthanded when it is easier to sail fast than some of the more powerful designs


produced for the dual-purpose 60-footer conceived for the Volvo.’ The launch of Apivia is scheduled for June 2019 also at the


famous CDK shipyard in Brittany. ‘That is ideal timing,’ reckons Charlie, ‘because the Vendée Globe it is not too early and not too late.’ No time to lose if he wants to be ready and competitive for the solo round-the-world race.


The Globe Series is born After the Imoca class’s general meeting class president Antoine Mermod announced: ‘We fully understand that the Vendée Globe is our biggest event for the public and media. Now for more continuity in our programme we need to create links between the big races as we move towards our pinnacle event. ‘That is why we have decided to reorganise our championship,


which will be renamed the Globe Series, to be scored over a four- year period. In 2018 the two big events will be a new race organised in Monaco in June, then the Route du Rhum in November. ‘In 2019 there will be the Barcelona World Race and the Transat


Jacques Vabre. Then in 2020, a Vendée Globe year, the Imoca skippers will first take part in The Transat and the New York-Vendée. It is not impossible that other races will be added, but now we have a solid foundation that allows sponsors and skippers to be in the media right through the four-year build-up to the Vendée itself.’ Actually, with the introduction of the race in Monaco you may see


the Imocas a lot more this year as the new schedule deliberately allows the boats to compete in events like the Giraglia Rolex Cup, which takes place straight after the Monaco leg of the Globe Series. A fleet of Imocas racing the Maxis and Wallys in the Giraglia – now that will be something! Patrice Carpentier


NEW ZEALAND Andrew Fagan is a hard man to pigeonhole. Recording artist. Yachtsman. Combine those and a stereotype immediately emerges of wild parties on superyachts in St Tropez. Fagan’s version is quite the opposite. The former lead singer of


The Mockers goes to sea in a tiny 5.4m plywood boat called Swirly World and blithely takes on solo voyages in wild, sometimes savage places. He has completed a solo two-way crossing of the Tasman Sea and a full circumnavigation of New Zealand including a side trip to the Auckland Islands, deep into the Southern Ocean. So add adventurer to the list. As this is written, he is crewing on a freighter on the supply run


to the Pitcairn Islands, chased by a deep low out of the Southern Ocean which is joining forces with the remnants of a tropical storm. So add watch-keeper/seaman. In his crew quarters is a laptop on which he continues to write


new songs and poems. He has written two highly entertaining books SEAHORSE 19


w


FRANCOIS VAN MALLEGHEM


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