Technology
When only the best (really) is enough
When Armel le Cléac’h won the 2016-2017 Vendée Globe race he did so wearing all-Musto technical clothing. Time to go for the back-to-back win then in 2020...
For Musto, the Vendée Globe has always been the ultimate proving ground for its offshore gear. Armel Le Cléac'h wore Musto on his way to victory four years ago in the last edition of this non-stop solo circumnavigation. The French veteran will be wearing his Musto clothing in more comfortable circumstances this time as he follows the race intently from the shore. A year ago he raced with Clarisse Crémer in the Transat Jacques Vabre, when together they sailed Banque Populaire X across the finish line as first non-foiling Imoca 60 and sixth overall. Since then he has continued his mentorship of the 30-year-old Frenchwoman about to embark on her round-the-world debut. Crémer will be one of many sailors wearing Musto in this edition of the Vendée. ‘I feel both anxious and excited! Which I believe is a normal way to feel when you're about to race the Vendée Globe for the first time,’ Crémer comments. ‘My kit bag is almost ready, my new Musto clothes are being branded with my sponsor's name, the next step is to pack them neatly. I was lucky to have a look at Armel's clothes list for the VDG 2016 to make my own list.’ While Crémer is sailing with old-school straight foils,
Sam Davies has taken a similar generation boat - around 10 years old - and fitted it with hydrofoils that could put the 45-year-old
Englishwoman within striking distance of the podium. There is no doubt that the hydrofoils have lifted the Imoca 60 fleet to previously unimaginable levels of performance. It’s widely expected that this edition will see the winning time driven below the 70 day mark, compared with Le Cléac’h’s winning time of four years ago – 74 days, 3 hours, 35 minutes. But with the added speed has come a whole new level of discomfort, as Davies explains: ‘You are scrabbling on your knees a lot of the time because you just can’t stand up safely. So one of the early bits of feedback I gave to the designers at Musto was “more padding in the knees, please!”’ There are times when Davies has been obliged to use other
manufacturers’ products when she’s been part of fully-crewed teams. But for as long as she can remember, whenever the choice has been hers, Davies always comes back to Musto for her offshore adventures. ‘We spend money on sails, foils, we do a whole heap of development, and when you’re going offshore in an
The Vendée Globe is the ultimate
ocean racing challenge for singlehanded sailors – and also the most rigorous way to develop and test new designs for technical clothing.
Mustoʼs HPX Pro Race Dry Smock, worn by Jérémie Beyou above, is one of the few garments that will keep your torso dry on the foredeck of an Imoca at 25kts while allowing full freedom of movement
extreme boat, there’s a big human element. If the human isn’t optimised, warm, dry, comfortable, if you’re not achieving those basic human needs, you’re failing in your performance. That’s one of the reasons why I choose to work with Musto, because it’s about performance and making sure my boat goes faster.’ Davies is taking nothing for granted, not least friends and family who are helping out with child care arrangements seeing as she will be lining up against her husband, Romain Attanasio [skipper of Pure, Best Western], on the Vendée start line in November. Ellen MacArthur is another British skipper who made her mark on the race 20 years ago when the then 24- year-old sailed Kingfisher to second place behind Michel Desjoyeaux. MacArthur was wearing Musto then, and Musto’s latest signing, Spanish sailor Didac Costa, will be wearing their kit when he sets sail on the ex-Kingfisher, now called One Planet- One Ocean. Costa will be looking to better his 14th place in the previous Vendée, an incredible achievement considering his boat was hit by lightning, forcing him to turn around to repair the damage in Les Sables
SEAHORSE 81
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GAUTHIER LEBEC/CHARAL
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