2012 and with the end of the skimming dish the boxier new hulls are now being refined along with a first real look at board shapes. The new team of VPLP and Verdier dominate the next two races starting with François Gabart’s 2012 win onboard Macif after a very close battle with Le Cléac’h’s similar Banque Populaire VIII
By 2016 the fat and powerful bows first seen in 2012 were pushed further with rounded stems on the new boats along with the first curved foils. Dali foils featured on all the new boats except Hugo Boss who opted for a long and flat DSS shape. All skippers avoided using their foils in heavy conditions
outboard 25cm. Everything combines to lessen wave impacts. This smooth sheer radius reduces the
overall hull and deck surface with the aim of bringing the weight down. The hull shape itself, beneath the chine, is consis- tent along its length, with a wide waterline and the minimal rocker we have described – all of which favour planing downwind but without gaining excessive wetted surface when more heeled. In 2016 Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss
reflects the image the skipper likes to project of himself: determined and bold. The complexity of the shapes also prove that a lot of thinking went into the design. What a hull. Carved out with a knife! There are similar hull sections – mostly
a rounded V beneath the water with slab sides above – running the length of the boat, truncated towards the front by a sheer line that dives down towards the bow. Also the forefoot is flattened to encourage early planing with a little con- cavity beneath the chine towards the bow to push the spray away. The hull is narrower than Armel’s and
‘maximum top speed’ has been prioritised without any doubt. Alex says so himself after the first outings – ‘this boat flies away out from under my feet!!!’ So now it is 2020 and it is still a little
early to know which of the four new quite different Imocas featured is the fastest: Hugo Boss, Apivia, Corumor L’Occitane. So many Imocas built since the first
Vendée Globe in 1989 – but still so much space for big differences in approach! Who could have said during the last
Vendée Globe that the next generation of boats will fly. Yes, there were new foils, but all the talk then was of using them for lightening the hull, of reducing drag. As a result, in 2016/17, while the first three boats were foilers they were displacement sailing with ‘foil-assist’. Then there was a second generation of foils tried following the 2016 event, but there were few compe- titions and the ones that took place did not deliver any conclusive results. Then two years ago the first to really
fly, Charal, gave us a great demonstration. End of discussion. Yes, she flies! And it’s off to a good start for them all to fly. So, we fly, but there’s something hold-
ing us back. They are balanced on their foil and their keel fin. The rudders are not permitted to have foils or elevators. Also the rule states, ‘All the points of the
[foil] leading and trailing edges must be in the same plane.’ Too bad, a twisted curva- ture on the foils would have suited the architects working on these sailboats which are trying to fly without a rear stabiliser. On the other hand, there is no limitation on the length or shape of the foils, some of which now feature small sec- ond planes that sprout from the main foil. But with no rudder foil the 2020
Vendée skipper flies with very precarious balance, his boat rearing up on the tran- som as it tries to find some sort of equilib-
rium and avoid crashing back down – when the cycle will begin all over again. It’s getting more and more difficult to
reconstruct Imoca hull shapes working from a photograph, as the angles are never right to obtain accurate lines of conver- gence. So the best time to read the lines of these boats is during the rollover test. The first two in this study, Hugo Boss
and Apivia, went into the water in August 2019. There are several reasons for this choice: Alex Thomson’s sailboat, a VPLP design, presents radical and original solu- tions; meanwhile, Apivia is Guillaume Verdier’s first modern design working separately from VPLP. The fact that Guillaume’s previous winners were signed VPLP/Guillaume Verdier seemed to me one more reason to analyse what share each of these architects had in the design of the boats that dominated the last two editions, or at least which characteristics came from each office. Obviously the preferences and general
choices of the skipper of each sailboat must also be taken into account. Charlie Dalin was trained as a naval architect and followed Verdier’s Apivia design down to the smallest detail. As he himself says, ‘I was at the heart of everything.’ For his part, with the experience that he
has from a number of previous Hugo Boss designs, from architects as varied as Marc Lombard, Juan Kouyoumdjian, Finot- Conq, Farr Yacht Design and the duo VPLP/Guillaume Verdier, Alex Thomson
SEAHORSE 45
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