When Franck Cammas launched his VPLP-designed overgrown Orma 60 Groupama 3 in 2006 no one expected her to still be winning big races 12 years later… In fact, after a float breakage and capsize on her first Jules Verne attempt, followed by structural issues that curtailed her second, you would have got long odds on her surviving this long at all. Not only did she survive but she has got better with age… especially after the substitution of a smaller, lighter mast in place of Cammas’s towering first spar. As Idec her current skipper Francis Joyon (left) declined to refit the big spar for his successful Jules Verne attempt, feeling the small rig was powerful enough and with the bonus of a substantial weight saving that could prove priceless during transitions between weather systems
‘Groupama 2 was clearly above the rest
in terms of performance and also proved reasonably versatile: for Franck that was where we should be starting from, rather than going for brute force and sheer infla- tion of length and freeboard. ‘So we decided to explore a lighter,
smaller solution to a maxi tri that would fully exploit the innovations that had proved efficient on Groupama 2.’ Which meant going for three rudders instead of just one as well as foils complementing the centreboard. ‘We upscaled our arsenal,’ says Vincent, ‘drawing on the extensive research carried out for Groupama 2.’ Same team, same approach and a direct
transfer of technology. By the time Franck commissioned his second Orma tri he had become very experienced and fully under- stood the wide range of parameters and options available to his next boat: ‘The result was he raised the whole Orma game. ‘He put together a proper design team for
Groupama 2, and we pressed ahead with serious CFD and VPP models, pushing the cursors to the max in terms of appendage and sailplan refinement. We simply wanted to launch the best Orma ever seen… and I think we achieved that,’ says Vincent. The results spoke for themselves, the
team was solid. Therefore, even if the options retained for Groupama 3 were original for a giant multi at the time, no one really doubted it would work. ‘Think- ing about pushing 15 tonnes upwards with foils was not common practice then, but it worked, and Idec’s feats have been accom- plished with that same set of appendages… In all that time the only change was when Francis added today’s 60cm curved tips.’ But the big questions, at the time of
Groupama 3’s launch, were: ‘Will a small boat cope with the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean? Isn’t the crew a bit too exposed considering the low freeboard?’ Vincent admits that a lot of serious
‘interrogations’ went on within the team: ‘Our reference then was Geronimo, a benchmark of a boat built for reliability, designed and with the dimensions to cope with anything that could be thrown at her, and created to sail with her central hull in the water at all times.’ Groupama 3 would be radically more
playful and agile, everyone realised that, but Franck Cammas had his sponsor’s full and unreserved support. He knew the boat was not made to tackle big lows head-on, and was banking on her speed to be able to stay just on the edge of weather systems,
‘choosing’ the wind range. ‘This was a bit new,’ recalls Vincent, ‘playing finely with accurate weather data and the boat’s pace to constantly optimise positioning was then not that common.’ As soon as she was launched Groupama
3 impressed the team who felt it was really easy to make her sail fast. And in conditions where it was suspected she would suffer against the much lighter and more reactive Groupama 2, she surprisingly held her own. ‘We did, however, experience a few issues at the structural level, with floats that were prone to heavy vibration,’ explains Vincent, ‘and that worried us a bit. ‘In heavy seas, plunging into and coming
out of waves, the floats would make the whole platform vibrate. It was a bit unprecedented, and the hull shapes that had worked well on Groupama 2 (ed: think of a sort of ‘8’ section, with volume at the top and bottom, and a narrow waist in the middle) were behaving differently at that increased length – so we had to put more reinforcements in place.’ Before going on standby for the Jules
Verne the green machine first broke Orange II’s Atlantic record in 2007, reach- ing a top speed of 42kt in the process. Fast and nimble, but requiring quite a bit of
SEAHORSE 37 w
JEAN-MARIE LIOT/DPPI
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