News Around the World
Sixty-footers look different these days. King Marine (left) launch the radical Mark Mills-designed coastal-foiler Cetila for ballsy Italian skipper Roberto Lacorte, and Kevin Escoffier’s new Imoca PRB 4 goes afloat in Lorient. Escoffier’s Guillaume Verdier design had a protracted gestation, starting as a fully crewed Ocean Race entry for the optimistic Switchback team… the build began at Carrington Boats UK but it was not long before the team ran out of money and work stopped. Months later the half-built design was sold to PRB, now urgently in need of a replacement for the previous PRB which sank spectacularly in the last Vendée Globe. Verdier then modified his design for a singlehanded Vendée campaign while the part-finished hull was being transported to Brittany to be completed at CDK
wisdom I have received over the years from Tom Whidden, Iain Percy, Anthony Nossiter, Chris Nicholson, Marcel Van Trieste, Tom Slingsby, Roger Badham and a multitude of others. What I have learnt through all of this is that the flickering film
of life seems to be speeding up. Those languid summers of my youth, which seemed to stretch out endlessly before me, where my body seemed to know neither fatigue nor friction, running on the magic fuels of youth, which if I could bottle and sell now would make me richer than Croesus, are no longer. I seem to be saying goodbye to friends more often now, lost through Covid or cancer or accident, and sadly a few by their own hand. Reflecting as I write, the lessons I have taken from all of this are
of course to cherish the adventures while we can, both on and off the water, to laugh, smile and take the time to understand that life slips by rather quickly, and so to have fun. Blue Robinson
FRANCE Bravo, Paul! Paul Meilhat – a great and under-rated offshore talent – has at last found a backer for his new Imoca 60 in the form of skincare company Biotherm. The new Verdier design is well advanced at Persico in Italy and is a hull sister to LinkedOut, a Guillaume Verdier design that led much of the last Vendée Globe in the hands of Thomas Ruyant, but had to settle for a sixth place overall. Paul is one of our best French ocean racers. He won the last
edition (2018) of the Route du Rhum on SMA before losing his sponsor. Last year he was crowned Imoca champion, finishing second in the Transat Jacques Vabre on Apivia with Charlie Dalin not long after their victory in the Fastnet. ‘We are building the new boat in the moulds of LinkedOut 1, but
the Verdier design will have several developments – especially concerning the shape of the bow and the foils. In any case it was unthinkable to start building a boat from a blank page. ‘I secured the agreement with Biotherm shortly before the start
of the Transat Jacques Vabre [October 2021] and it was necessary to launch the project very quickly if I wanted to be at the start of the Route du Rhum 2022. By using existing drawings and working with the shipyard that has already built the same boat we saved an enormous amount of time. We have reduced the construction to nine months, when it currently takes nearly two years for a team that starts from zero.’ A highlight of Paul Meilhat’s commitment is his participation in
the crewed Ocean Race from Alicante in January 2023, two months after his participation in the solo Route du Rhum. He is well known for his ability competing shorthanded but he also has experience racing in a crewed format. He says the two disciplines complement each other: ‘From a sporting standpoint it’s great to have the
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opportunity to race around the world, to test our boats and to compete with the best with a full crew onboard. ‘It’s a different culture with a lot of engagement onboard between
the sailors. The crew brings a real dynamic. On The Ocean Race Europe (sailed last year) we clearly saw that there was good energy on the boats and notable progress over the rest of the season. Racing with a crew also allows us to sail more than we do alone. During The Ocean Race we will sail almost more than on the entire Imoca solo and double-handed programme over the next three years, while having stopovers also allows for continuous development. ‘The new format of The Ocean Race matches perfectly with our
current Imoca programme. It’s one of the great races and has the advantage of taking us to the Southern Ocean, sailing in difficult and challenging conditions, which helps us develop both our boats and ourselves as sailors.’ Paul’s Verdier design is the third official entry for The Ocean Race
in the Imoca class. Paul joins German skipper Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia and US skipper Charlie Enright’s 11th Hour Racing Team. A fourth ‘international’ team sailing an Imoca should be announced shortly, and we expect further entries will appear over the next year, if only because there are now so many Imocas sailing… and encouraged by the entry of Paul Meilhat.
The complex Imoca Responsible for the design office of the Paprec Arkéa team, engineer Gautier Levisse is now busy orchestrating the construction of Yoann Richomme’s new Imoca, the ninth built by the Multiplast shipyard. This new Imoca is in a way the fake twin of Thomas Ruyant’s future LinkedOut 2. The designs are signed off by the same group of designers, a collaboration between Antoine Koch and Finot-Conq… ‘But because of the shortage of time to be ready for the next Vendée Globe we had to build our own set of tooling,’ says Gautier. ‘Meanwhile, the excellent relations we all have with Multi plast
guarantee that the boat is well built and also well born… ‘With the previous generation of 60s the much bigger foils meant
much stronger accelerations which, combined with the straight forms of the hulls, led to very big crash loads landing back in the waves. In my opinion for the next Vendée Globe all the designers will have increased the structural strength of the hulls. With more spatulated boats (scow fashion) we have also tried to raise the bow downwind with more volume forward. ‘At Paprec Arkéa we invest a lot in life onboard, on the principle
that it is a shame to build a Formula 1 but to forget the helmet and visor. We started on the basis that Yoann will be able to better exploit the potential of the boat with a well-protected cockpit, allowing the skipper to adjust and manoeuvre from a centralised living pod – we accepted the small weight gain against the extra speed of a healthier, happier skipper!’
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