News Around the World
One of the most eagerly anticipated Imoca launchings for the next Vendée Globe, this is two-time Class40 Route du Rhum winner Yoann Richomme’s new Arkéa Paprec coming out of the Multiplast factory. Richomme was intimately involved in the design of his new boat alongside Antoine Koch and Pascal Conq of Groupe Finot. The boat is distinct from the rest of the scow-driven class of 2024 with a narrower, more penetrating bow to ease the passage through waves and allow for more consistent speeds with less of the ‘on-off’ that characterises a more typical foiler. The new design is narrow – like Charal 2 – with heavy emphasis on good performance in displacement mode. The attention to detail in terms of aero on this boat is spectacular with not one single line in evidence on deck
FRANCE Finot is back at the top level Yoann Richomme, two-time Route du Rhum winner in the Class40, launched his first new Imoca Paprec Arkéa in Lorient in February. We took the opportunity to talk to David de Prémorel of the Finot Conq office, who led the design of this boat alongside Antoine Koch, and Gsea, a company that specialises in the sizing and calculation of advanced composite structures. For several years Jean-Marie Finot and his light and ultra-powerful
sailboats dominated the ocean scene. The last delivery from the Vannes firm, now headed by Pascal Conq, dates from the 2008 Vendée Globe with the four 60-footers Generali, Hugo Boss, Britair (which finished second in the hands of Armel Le Cléac’h) and DCNS. Since then Pascal and his collaborators, notably David de Prémorel, have only updated their existing Imoca designs – they had to wait until the end of 2021 before starting work on two brand new Imocas: Paprec Arkéa and Advens-LinkedOut, skippered by two ocean-racing champions, respectively Yoann Richomme and Thomas Ruyant. Seahorse: How did the get-together between Richomme and your office come about? David de Prémorel: The story began, in fact, between Antoine Koch and Thomas Ruyant. They had been ‘plotting’ to create a new Imoca to replace Thomas’s 2020 Verdier (LinkedOut) design. Meanwhile, Antoine was looking for design partners to help him make his own ideas a reality; he called us because we have a longstanding rela- tionship with Antoine. He did a long internship at Groupe Finot 20 years ago, and later he skippered the former Fila (a Finot design) which he took over from [Giovanni] Soldini. More recently Yoann and his team invited several architects to
pitch for the design of the new Arkéa Paprec. They liked our proposal. It also turns out that Erwan Gourdon from our firm is good friends with Yoann: they went to university in Southampton together and are godfathers to each other’s children… SH: Are your two new Imocas identical?
DdP: They have the same hull shape but for timing reasons two sets of tooling had to be manufactured. The foils are also very close but produced by two different companies. Where the boats differ is primarily in the deck plan, cockpit and coachroof arrangement; and changes in these areas require different structural solutions. Arkéa has a very enclosed cockpit but still with good visibility all around. Thomas’s boat has a more classic cockpit, set back and open to the stern, something closer to his current LinkedOut. SH: The boats are defined as ‘Vendée Globe types’. What does that mean? DdP : It is a boat that is not required to win the Azimut! (A 24-hour sprint sailed in Biscay in September). We are not looking to break speed records off Lorient. The boats are not made to go fast reaching on flat water but to go fast running in big, open seas: the prevailing conditions in the deep south. And the numbers say that if you gain 1kt of speed in the south in the Vendée you win the race. Much has been done to ensure that the hull goes well into the
waves in both directions. Because when the bow crashes into a wave while running, or it slams into a wave going upwind, actually the physical consequence is more or less identical. Our foils lift up very high so they are above the water when fully
retracted. The boat is thus designed so that she can sail fast without her foils while running if necessary [in the last Vendée, while the new boats were designed around the foils, those foils were rarely used in rough weather when the yachts sailed in displacement mode). In addition, the hull has a low wetted surface, she goes well through the waves and generates little drag downwind. But we have kept a wide bilge for dynamic stability in displacement mode. The upper bow of the boat is clearly scow-influenced, but closer
to the water the shape is more conventional – although the forefoot still sits 40cm above the water when the boat is at rest. The power of the hull is not ‘maxed out’ but is designed to be smoother and less violent sailing through waves. And to be fast off the foils. Moving aft the hull bottom quickly evolves into a tulip shape, the concavity
SEAHORSE 23
ELOI STICHELBAUT
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