tacks… Such tight regatta racing at 35kt is quite something! We flew well upwind and for long distances. We knew we could do that in theory but at sea it’s always about compromise. You don’t know whether it works or not, so you must only use that mode at the right time, not too early, not too late. I felt that Banque Populaire was very good at that… and very early on in their development. ‘They certainly shouldn’t have any hang-ups about speed, which
means that they’ve made a lot of progress since last year. They’ve definitely erased all the teething issues they had with appendages. As a result they’re quick now, really quick! ‘So this time there were just two boats slugging it out, but I hope
there will be more of us. The moment that most stands out for me in this race is rounding Lanzarote, where we were both next to one another. We were neck and neck at 45kt in the middle of the night, in between the rocks, where you could just see their shadows slip by a few hundred metres away and with Banque Populaire always hot on our heels. Crazy sailing! You will not be surprised that every- one was on deck during that period… looking ahead!’ Banque Pop skipper Armel Le Cléac’h said: ‘There is a bit of
disappointment because we came to win, but we are super happy because we saw that we had progressed so well, and we still have a lot of potential. The boat is fabulous. The balance is super positive. As a crew we are now more on top of this special boat. ‘We knew that we had made good progress during this winter
when we made our round trip to Guadeloupe as a preparation for the season. She is still a very recent boat, barely a year and a half old. By comparison Gitana is a well-tested machine and very well known by her crew. ‘We had incredible days of gliding and flying. But of course our eyes are now on the Route du Rhum, the main objective of the year.’
Narrower and more efficient in 2018 Charal 1 foreshadowed a new era by being the first Imoca to fly off the latest large foils. Four years and nine podiums later, rich with experience, the team went further to gain more performance with their new Charal 2, launched at the beginning of July. ‘The main goal, the one that drives everything, is the Vendée
Globe,’ explains Jérémie Beyou. ‘For this race the skipper’s condition is critical, so we try particularly to avoid the boat digging into the water as much as possible and decelerating so violently as before, especially when the conditions are harsh.’ Charal Sailing Team, in close collaboration with designer Sam
Manuard and many others, therefore concentrated their research on this goal. Their focus on emerging more quickly from the waves, to gain stability and increase average speeds, drove many of the big decisions for the team. What strikes you immediately is the narrowness of the hull, the
narrowest of all the existing Imocas. Charal 2 has a scow bow, ‘a rounded shape that also allows you to keep on the power’, said Jérémie. The centre of gravity and mass distribution have also been optimised and pushed back as far as possible for the same reason. The new V-shaped foils are more subtle and less dramatic than
on Charal 1, contributing to making Jérémie’s new Imoca easier to manage whatever the state of the sea. The aim is to be able to exploit more of the boat’s potential for more of the time and focus always on higher averages. A lot of work has also been done on the rudders to make sure
that ‘the boat tracks as well as possible’ and ‘holds the road!’ In addition, everything has been done to clean up the aerodynamic shape (the flow of water over the deck must also create as little drag as possible.) This explains why the surface of the deck is extremely flat, the coachroof is minimal and the topside chamfer exceptionally severe. There are about 15 engineers, five of them in the Charal Sailing
Team, who managed the structural aspects of Charal2. Then more than 100 specialists were busy building the boat (made at the CDK shipyard), drawing and machining all the parts, almost all prototypes. ‘We have approached 35,000 design hours and 40,000 construc- tion hours,’ says technical director Pierre-François Dargnies. Charal 2 will be at the start of the Route du Rhum of course.
Jérémie reckons, ‘Four months to prepare a new boat is never enough, but I am convinced that we will have a competitive package.
‘We also had the chance to keep Charal 1until the last moment,
which allowed us to have two teams operating, one dedicated to the construction of the second boat and the other who continued to operate number one… We never stopped. ‘Now we are ready and for the switch to Charal 2 there will not
be the big transition that we experienced four years ago, we will waste much less time… and time is the biggest factor.’
A new era Within just three months the two most famous racing boatbuilders in south Brittany (each with around 100 employees) changed hands: Inspiring Sport Capital became the majority shareholder of CDK Technologies at the end of March, while the Carboman Group, owner of Multiplast, was officially acquired on 28 June by the HBH Group. Investment fund Inspiring Sport Capital, launched by Lucien
Boyer, former president of Havas Sport, and Laurent Damiani, also involved for years in sports marketing, announced the acquisition of CDK Technologies at the same time as the departure of Philippe Facque, who had been managing the yard for almost 30 years. ‘We had already worked with Lucien on the Orma circuit as Havas
Sports was in charge of communication, and he had since taken a small share in the company,’ said Philippe. ‘When I made the decision to step aside I started looking for buyers, with one priority:
High achievers all. Seen at the christening of the French ACC challenger in 2002 are (left to right): Gilles Ollier, founder of Multiplast and designer of some of the greatest giant multihulls of the 1980s and 1990s, including Jet Services V, which as the very lightly modified Commodore Explorer later made it around the world to achieve the first sub-80 day circumnavigation; Luc Gellusseau has been the technical mastermind behind so many grand prix programmes in every type of boat, also a formidable navigator and tactician; and Yann Penfornis who, clinging on next to the editor, survived racing on the often inverted Orma 60 Spirit of Apricot during the late 1980s before going on to lead Multiplast through three decades to a position of pre-eminence in aviation and wind power as well as marine-related industries
preserving CDK’s image and reputation. It happens that Lucien had just set up his investment fund around sports, so I naturally came to him first.’ Inspiring Sport Capital thus became the majority shareholder of
CDK, with Philippe Facque and the daughters of Hubert Desjoyeaux, co-founder of the shipyard, keeping some shares. Philippe was replaced in his management role by Cyril Abiteboul, former boss of the Renault F1 team, working with the two deputy general managers already in situ, Yann Dollo and Stéphane Digard. ‘We went looking for Cyril first for his reputation as an engineer,
then because he has the experience of very high-level international competition. This can help CDK present itself in a more international world, beyond its traditional environment,’ explains Boyer. At Vannes, a few dozen miles from Lorient, the Multiplast ship-
yard, like the other companies of the Carboman group (Plastinov, Plasteol), was officially acquired by the holding company HBH Group, headed by Jean-Denis Bargibant and Damien Harlé (the great- nephew of the famed naval architect Philippe Harlé), which will now take the name Carboman Group.
SEAHORSE 21
JEAN-MARIE LIOT/DPPI
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