Massif (in every way)
Charlie Dalin did not win the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe; he did take line honours, though. In now creating his next quite different kind of Imoca 60 with Guillaume Verdier, no stone however tiny was left unturned. As he demonstrated to Patrice Carpentier on its first big day...
On Saturday 24 June, in the late afternoon, the new Macif Santé Prévoyance Imoca was launched by Charlie Dalin – an innov- ative one-off whose architectural and ergonomic choices are intimately linked to Dalin’s experience after four years of great success on this circuit. A new cycle is now starting for this Imoca team with the 2024 Vendée Globe and the 2026 Route du Rhum firmly in the sights. Dalin’s new boat – launched in its home
port of Concarneau, near the MerConcept shed, François Gabart’s company that worked on the construction of the boat, most of which was undertaken by the famous CDK Technologies yard in Port-la- Forêt – demanded no fewer than 60,000 man-hours to complete, involving 50 people over 22 months. Charlie said, ‘We drew the outline of the boat in the winter of 2021-2022.
44 SEAHORSE
Guillaume Verdier and his team, in consul- tation with the MerConcept design office, did a great job. This new Imoca is a logical follow-on from the previous one: a versatile boat but with many improvements based on my own experiences in the 2020 Vendée Globe and other solo sailing. ‘We made no performance compromises
but we did work very hard also on ergonomics and reliability – ever bigger factors in managing the extreme side of these flying monohulls.’ But Macif’s hull shape also displays
important innovations. At the finish of the 2020 Vendée Globe, which Charlie was the first to complete, the skippers agreed that it had been extremely difficult to harness the power of these demanding boats offshore. To reduce charging into each wave the hulls have seen considerable changes in approach in the bow area. A spatulated bow plus the addition of double spray strakes (powerboat style) are there to minimise the deceleration coming off the foils and sailing into waves. To make the boat more ‘easy’ to control
and have less water on deck freeboard is also higher than on Apivia (now renamed L’Occitane and raced by Clarisse Crémer). The gains from these architectural choices should be significant in the Southern Seas. Charlie also found that these 60ft foilers
are both difficult to live on, with regular violent shocks, and very demanding in terms
of manoeuvres. The brief to Verdier was therefore clear: to limit displacement, facili- tate life onboard and reduce and be less dep - endent upon the ‘matossage’ inside (move- able items below deck, such as sails, food, tools and so on) which are exhausting to move whenever sailing conditions change. It was therefore necessary to condense
and reduce the size of the interior space of the boat. Thus the cockpit is smaller, but higher, than on the old boat and the living space has been reversed. This small studio, as it is called, is now located at the back of the boat. Thus everything will always be close to the skipper in order to limit unnec- essary movements at sea. In this living area everything is now
fixed down; the interior layout is also more open than on Charlie’s previous boat. The skipper has a fixed chart table, with a seat arranged to facilitate the minimum six to eight hours he spends daily in front of his computer analysing the weather. Finally, these smaller spaces, ventilated when hot through vents with water traps, will allow the inside of the boat to be dry while limit- ing heat loss in the cold Southern Ocean.
Talking to Charlie onboard Macif Eight days before the launch of the boat, and a week after his return from the transat- lantic stage of The Ocean Race aboard 11th Hour, we were able to talk to this top skipper of the Imoca circuit who, usefully,
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