New Boats Table Maturing
The current 2023 Mini Transat features a number of competing approaches to foiling design, including two contrasting Minis from previous winning designer and skipper Sam Manuard
Manuard’s Mini 650 for polymath* Polish-French skipper Caroline Boule is perhaps the most interesting new design in this year’s Mini Transat. While the yacht’s light-air performance is improving, but still very much a work in progress, whenever the wind blows this boat has proved capable of obliterating its rivals. That said, Boule is first to admit to relative inexperience in solo – as opposed to two-handed – sailing and she is playing down her chances. During recent Mini Transats the scow formula has become
universal and this year a third of the Protos, half of them designed by David Raison and half the Series Division, are all fat noses.
The return of Sam Manuard Caroline Boule launched her Mini No1067 on 13 May 2022 after only four and a half months of construction at Multiplast in Vannes. A successful engineer and excellent Moth racer, she created a team with Benoît Marie, winner of the 2015 Mini, and trusted Sam Manuard to design her Proto Nicomatic. With five podiums including two wins to date, Boule has had a reasonable time to acclimatise to her quite complicated boat. Even in a radical fleet Nicomatic stands out. She features two
chines each side above the waterline, a maximum beam from transom to mast of 3m and from there forward, viewed on plan, the deck is a perfect semi-circle. The heavily convex deck sits quite high allowing a relatively shallow coachroof. The mast sits on a ball joint and the mainsail scrapes the roof, like a big 49er. Vertical topsides wrap around this sailboat as on Raison’s Max-
imum, leading into a very shallow bow. The hull below the second chine is very round, with a narrow waterline for low wetted surface. Waterline length is short compared to the Raison designs of
– length is irrelevant when foiling and this boat is intended to foil more than most. So light-air performance is based upon the hollowed-out narrow lower hull; heavy-air speed hangs on those deep foils. The latter
Custom builds BOAT
Flax 27
Chase Zero 5.5 Metre TF35 Fly40 AC40
Musa 40 Raison 40 VPLP 40
Lift40-V2/3 Mach40.5 MaX 40 V2
Pogo 40S4 V2 LOA DESIGNER BUILDER
8.2m Robin Zinkmann/Judel Vrolijk Greenboats 10m Team New Zealand 10.1m Dave Hollom
are of the open U-shaped type facing out, like those found on Sam Manuard’s L’Occitane Imoca, quite narrow but long and deep. Manuard’s other new Mini is a live ‘experiment’, No1081 sailed
by Spanish skipper Carlos Manera Pascual. Equipping it with curved lift-foils and straight daggerboards, Manuard revisits the debate between full-foiling and skimming the water, the latter to avoid costly crashes and violent decelerations. The racing advantage of this skimming configuration is that the
boat becomes more efficient under pilot, leaving the skipper more time (and energy) to trim and navigate. Let’s see. * Caroline Boule holds a Master’s in nuclear physics and materials science from Imperial College, London and a PhD from the famous Ecole Polytechnique in localised valleytronics in quasi-Janus materials. She is now engaged in the study of ‘very thin’ materials which in this case means anything up to two atomic layers thick… ‘So today,’ says Boule, ‘I am really working in
only two dimensions!’ Perhaps one to watch. François Chevalier
LAUNCH COMMENTS
Sangiorgio/Persico/McConaghy 2022 onwards Composite Craft
McConaghy, China
Sangiorgio Marine, Genoa Gepeto Composites Multiplast
Gepeto Composites JPS Productions JPS Productions
Lyman Morse 46 13.95m Kevin Dibley TP52 RP 52
Infiniti DSS 52 IRC 52 IRC 54
M&M 55 Imoca 60 Imoca 60 Imoca 60 Imoca 60 AC75s
Wally 145 Project 404
Structures Shipyard Lyman Morse
16.35m Carkeek Design Partners 16.7m Morrelli & Melvin 18.28m David Raison 18.28m VPLP
18.28m Sam Manuard
18.28m Farr/Bertrand/Dupont 22.73m Various 44.2m Frers
59.7m Malcolm McKeon
King Marine, Valencia Sail GP Technologies McConaghy Boats Sail GP Technologies Carrington Boats
Schooner Creek Boat Works Persico
Airbus and friends Black Pepper Yachts Alva Yachts
2023 2023
Feb 2020 onwards Plants, cork and recyclable Sicomin GreenPoxy resin. A good effort but more interest needed Every AC syndicate must buy or build one… Design royalties?
10.6m Redondo/Kramers/May/Dubois Heol/Multiplast/Lorima/Decision August 2019 onwards 15m by 11m, massive foils and rig and just 1,250kg. And complex systems working a treat 11.8m Caponnetto Hueber/Pure Design Persico 12.12m Team New Zealand 12.18m Gianluca Guelfi 12.18m David Raison 12.18m VPLP
2023 onwards 2023
Oct 2023
12.18m Marc Lombard 12.18m Sam Manuard 12.18m David Raison
12.18m Guillaume Verdier
15.85m Botín Partners 15.85m Reichel/Pugh 15.85m Hugh Welbourn 15.85m Botín Partners
Class manager Luca Rizzotti is keen to hear from ballsy, well-resourced customers Three launched and more Class40 Pirellis sold… Did not win the 2023 Fastnet, though One-off Class40 for deeply talented Crédit Mutuel skipper Ian Lipinski
Autumn 2021 onwards A pause while we build a few more Imocas. Four sold
Autumn 2021 onwards No199 came out with a modified V-section lower bow. Marc leaves big shoes to fill June 2022 onwards Manuard’s second Class40 scow is no beauty but selling like hot cakes 2023
Mr Scow’s latest series-built offering
2023 onwards 2022 onwards 2024 2023 2024 2023 2024 2023 2023 2023 2023 2024
Decision, Multiplast, Persico etc 2024 Persico, Italy Royal Huisman
2023 2024
The Figaristes love them. 13 spoken for. And did win the 2023 Fastnet
A sailor’s yacht. Cold-moulded Douglas fir/Western red cedar. Yacht design is back to art The new Alegre and Platoon will share much of the same tooling… though definitely not all of it All-carbon high-performance push-button racer-cruiser from the Core Composites team Debut Transpac podium puts this 52-footer back on track… And now with a serious builder Full-on no-compromise IRC racer. Looks like a TP52 with the sharp edges rounded out A French owner has ordered this finessed ‘blend’ of Ino Noir and Rán 8… We shall see Large-capacity commercial charter catamaran for Maui… 149-person large capacity! First one launched. Two left-field non-foiling VG Imocas for Eric Bellion and Jean Le Cam Armel Tripon’s new Imoca is using ‘carbon offcuts’ from Airbus (but gone very quiet) Black Pepper are ripping through this green-power Manuard design for Phil Sharp Jörg Riechers’ project with a German luxury electric yacht brand (gone even quieter) The time for talking is over, decisions are made and the easy bits are finished The biggest yet from Persico. Very light at 171 tonnes. Hybrid power means silent running Aluminium hull, carbon superstructure… and a sloop (what else could it be?)
World champion Jean Genie’s replacement design is even faster… and now in pre-preg One-design mini AC75… For those for whom the RC44 became, well, a bit of a yawn really
q
DECKVEST 6D
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