Reality check
Seahorse: Are you surprised by the result of this edition of the Vendée Globe? Juan K: Yes and no. I am surprised that the foilers have not been better, but the Vendée Globe does not surprise me at all. On the one hand, there are your expecta- tions, on the other, this round-the-world regatta is more than just a race, it is an adventure in which anything can happen. And in this edition as usual some of the
one-in-a-million possibilities happened. The variables that come into play in this regatta are so big and out of your control, where the human skipper and the boats are pushed to such great limits that any- thing can happen; just thinking of the mul- tiple collisions, whether with mammals or solid flotsam, or the state in which most of the boats have arrived back in Les Sables.
56 SEAHORSE
All the boats finished the race in perhaps ‘half’ their peak condition, with many breakages and failures big and small. Hon- estly, we did not think the human factor would have such an influence on the per- formance of the boats this time, we knew it was an important factor, but not so much. SH:What do you think of the performance of the non-foiler boats? JK: I was a bit surprised, yes. But this reminds us that in the context of the Vendée Globe the human factor is much more important than the technical aspects. When you talk to the skippers to design a boat they tell you that they sail full throttle, but you realise that their full throttle is 60 or 70 per cent full throttle compared to a Volvo race, it is very differ- ent. In these circumstances, where the speed capabilities of the foilers cannot be exploited as they can when sailing with a crew or even double-handed, it is normal for things to be equalised between well- sailed old boats with ultra-modern foilers. Jean Le Cam showed it – in the first half
of the regatta he was always in the leading group, even leading the regatta. The foilers were moving ahead at the beginning until they started to have problems. First it was Charal which returned to port, then our own design Corum L’Epargne dismasted, then Hugo Boss broke. They were pulling ahead but it did not matter because they were slowly being eliminated and so things were levelling up.
Then at the Cape of Good Hope,
usually a very decisive moment in racing terms, the whole fleet regrouped. Also, the weather they’d experienced meant differ- ences between foilers and traditional boats were minimal. The foilers could not use their full potential – in other conditions the foilers would still have had difficulties, but they would have been less severe. SH: What do you think of the differences between first and second-generation foilers? JK: Actually, they can’t be compared accu- rately. The latest-generation boats were suffering. Hugo Boss, Arkea Paprec, Corum L’Epargne and Charal were out of the regatta. Both Apivia and LinkedOut were racing on but very damaged, with their performance greatly reduced. So it is very difficult to make an assessment of the new foilers because none of them could navigate really well; we cannot compare them with any precision. SH: Tell us a bit about your two boats, what were the differences between Corum L’Epargne and Arkea Virbac? JK: The two hulls were the same but the foils, the internal ballast system and the deck were quite different. Corum was a bit lighter. Arkea was more designed for VMG sailing. Corumis a more all-round boat and she did very well in reaching and upwind, sacrificing her speed a bit in VMG. The designers of these new Imocas face a
dilemma. You can create one type of boat oriented towards VMG performance in
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