News Around the World
NEW ZEALAND When Covid-19 brought Belgian entrepreneur Thierry Verstraete’s world cruise to a halt in French Polynesia he was not content to sit idly sunning himself on the foredeck of his custom 60ft sailing catamaran and savouring the fruits of his business success. Instead, he seized on the enforced lockdown to completely reappraise his cruising objectives and set about building a new boat. The inspiration came from a fleeting glimpse in Tahiti of one of
Steve Dashew’s long, lean, bare aluminium expedition-style Fast Powerboats (FPBs). ‘I was interested in this type of boat, because I was already thinking of making a change along these lines,’ he says. ‘I planned to talk to the owner but he left before I could do so.’ At these major ocean crossroads these encounters are often fleeting as passagemakers come and go. The boat in question, a 70-footer, was on its way to Hawaii and the opportunity was lost. However, Thierry set about researching the vessel online. His
search soon brought him to Circa Marine in Whangarei, north of Auckland, and a conversation began. ‘After two weeks of commu- nicating by email and Zoom I signed a contract without ever setting foot in New Zealand.’ The Deo Juvante project was underway. ‘It was the fastest contract we ever had,’ laughs Peter Barnard,
Circa’s development manager. ‘But it all went very smoothly.’ One quickly gets the sense that speed is Thierry’s default mode.
In an earlier life the 63-year-old raced Porsche and Lamborghini GT3s and Formula Renault cars on the European circuit. He also owned a superbike team. Now he commutes once a week to Whangarei in a Ford F150 Shelby Supersnake truck, capable of 0-100km/hr in 3.8 seconds. An experienced yachtsman, he has owned six yachts and
completed numerous Atlantic crossings, including a west-to-east solo crossing. Having made a high-speed decision to commission a new powerboat he decided he could not abandon sailing alto- gether. He has added a kite system to his new venture, so he still has a sheet and a sail to keep him occupied. And, far beyond its amusement factor, preliminary studies indicate that the 25m2 Seakite, developed by French sailing ace Yves Parlier’s company Beyond the Sea, will provide an impressive boost to Deo Juvante’s ocean passagemaking efficiency and cruising range. Thierry’s arrival in Tahiti was as part of an ARC round-the-world
rally, for which he commissioned a new Sunreef 60 catamaran, built in Poland. In keeping with his drive for performance, he sought assistance from his friend Alessandro di Benedetto, best known for a solo non-stop circumnavigation in a 6.5m sail boat, Atlantic and Pacific solo crossings on a beach catamaran and an 11th place finish in the 2012 Vendée Globe. They optimised the catamaran with narrower hulls to reduce drag
and a carbon-fibre rig and custom sailplan to boost power. It was launched in 2018. Sailing with his pre-teen son and daughter and a South African husband-and-wife crew, Thierry skippered the boat to a series of first or second line-honours finishes on the ARC World Passage legs… until it all came to a screeching halt last March. With his children – son Clement and daughter Mazarine – happily
enrolled in a local school and the South African couple moving on, Thierry found the enforced idleness of the Tahiti lockdown excru- ciating. ‘Days were long and boring,’ he says, ‘everything at a standstill. So I kept my mind busy thinking about what I wanted to do in the coming years. I knew I wanted to continue to sail the world, sharing this experience with my kids, having them for a while at school in different countries, learning about different cultures and languages.’ These musings led to an idea for a fast, rugged, fuel- efficient passagemaker capable of voyaging to remote places includ- ing high latitudes, something he and his children could handle alone. The idea is to complete the long passages without professional
crew – Thierry is a qualified ship master (STCW500 tonnage unlim- ited) – and then hire locals in various cruising areas who are familiar with the locations, culture and formalities. For longer land-based sojourns the children would enrol at local schools, something they are already adept at. On passages Thierry home-schools the children, who are also encouraged to share watches and take onboard
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responsibilities. Thierry’s wife, Lydivine, does not enjoy ocean pas- sages, but instead flies in to join the boat at cruising destinations. As he was refining his ideas for a replacement boat Thierry spied
the Circa 70 FPB and recognised a concept that met most of his requirements. With Steve Dashew now retired and unable to under- take his hallmark close personal supervision of every project, he has ordered a halt on any further builds to his designs. Accordingly, Circa engaged Auckland-based LomOcean Marine to come up with new designs with similar objectives for rugged, ocean-capable passage making. LomOcean are no strangers in this area, having designed the futuristic 24m Earthrace trimaran, which Kiwi eco- warrior Pete Bethune piloted to a round-the-world record in 2008, and the equally groundbreaking 31m PlanetSolar, the first entirely solar-powered vessel to complete a circumnavigation in 2012. ‘We have always been about efficiency,’ says LomOcean director
Craig Loomes. We have done long-range passagemakers before, so it is not as if these concepts are new to us. Long, lean, easily driven hulls have been a feature of several of our designs. The Circa project is a development of that work, though the shapes we have produced are different from their earlier models. We have put more volume in the ends, designing the bow wave to be out of phase with the stern wave which is more efficient. The styling is also distinct.’ When Thierry began his enquiries Circa were busy completing
the first of the new LomOcean-designed vessels, a 25m version for an Australian client. That provided a basis for their email and Zoom discussions as a back-and-forth process of interior and exterior customisation resulted in a variant tailored to Thierry’s specification. Two weeks later, in May 2020, the Whangarei team swung into action while Thierry made plans to relocate to New Zealand. With New Zealand ports closed to visiting yachts, Thierry engaged
a broker to sell his catamaran (to an Australian yachtsman also stranded in Tahiti) and made arrangements to fly to New Zealand with his family as soon as immigration authorities allowed it. By the time they had completed their two-week isolation and estab- lished themselves the Circa team were about a year into his build. The first time Thierry saw his project in the flesh it was already
fully framed, with much of the hull plating in place and fabrication of the interior joinery well advanced. The custom interior by Belgian designer Kurt Wallaeys is reminiscent of a Manhattan apartment, with high-gloss finishes in black, grey and gold. The schedule is to launch by the end of the year. Thierry’s arrival also coincided with the launch and sea trials of
Mollymawk, the first of the new LomOcean designs, providing real- time, real-life proof of concept. Results, which included a rough sea passage during a late-May weather bomb that hit the North Island, significantly outstripped anything Circa had seen before. To comply with European classification Thierry’s boat will be
equipped with MAN engines with double Mollymawk’s horsepower, providing a higher top speed and, if anything, a more efficient cruising consumption. At 10.3kt Deo Juvante will consume just 2.04 litres/nm with the two MAN diesels ticking over at 1,200rpm. ‘But that is not all down to hull form,’ says Loomes. ‘A designer’s job is to make sure all the components work
together for the best possible result. We use large-diameter, slow- revving propellors with engines that are economical. We have optimised the hull, propeller size, custom high-aspect blade geometry, the whole drivetrain all the way to the gearbox. Hull, propeller-speed, engines all add up to a very efficient unit.’ Add the Seakite in typical trade wind conditions (20kt at 120°)
and, with the engines still at 1,200rpm, the fuel consumption almost halves to 1.21 litres/nm. Turn the engines off altogether and in similar conditions the boat will achieve speeds in excess of 7kt under kite alone, according to Loomes’ calculations. Parlier explains that the Seakite comprises an inflatable frame,
like a kitesurfer wing, which is deployed from a short mast on the foredeck. It can soar to heights of 100m and once trimmed to the conditions can be set on auto mode to tend to itself. Its operating range is from 10kt to 40kt. To retrieve the kite simply depower it by flying it directly overhead and winch it down.
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