The blunt shape of things to come in the next Volvo, seen on the foiling Imoca 60 Gitana (rather more blunt than you saw on the first renders of the new boat). Pushing things further, the Volvo 60s will add on rudder foils in pursuit of full offwind flight. Organisers are targeting a team budget of €12-14 million per race, which loosely translates to an annual spend of around €5-7 million for a two-race campaign


But it is disappointing given that we


complex, expensive to build and possibly unreliable right angle in them. However, the result of a seven-appendage ‘Swiss army knife’ would be an unwelcome weight penalty of around 200kg. Another solution to the upwind problem,


which seems to have been deliberately kept in the Imoca 60 rule hoping that someone, someday, will take advantage of it, is to go for a narrower boat with a fixed keel relying on a foil to leeward to provide more of its stability. This would involve the keel foil itself preventing leeway – a radical concept, eh? – while allowing a lateral foil the sole job of producing vertical lift, to compensate for lost righting moment due to the lack of canting keel and hull form stability, as well as helping this smaller, lighter (and poten- tially cheaper) boat to get fully airborne. An added benefit is that to assist upwind


ability on our 60ft cigar the Imoca 60 rule still allows a fixed-keel boat to have a trim tab. The only problem is that no one is likely to take this option now that new Imoca 60s are locked into having a one- design keel and mast. However, perhaps this might be a more


suitable solution for the new Volvo one- designs: a foiling boat that requires much better windward ability than an Imoca 60. The new Figaro, for example, gets around this by having a fixed keel. Guillaume Verdier is well aware of the


need for the new Volvo boat to have better upwind performance, but says ‘the second- generation foils from the last Vendée Globe were a huge jump on from the first genera- tion, so we should be able to do something fine for upwind.’ He adds that they will also look to redistribute the areas between the appendages and will have a deeper keel… and possibly even a trim tab. According to Verdier the only part of the


new Volvo one-design to have been fixed to date is the length, but it sounds like the new boat may be an Imoca 60 on steroids, with a bigger rig and keel. They are also still investi- gating rig options. For new Imoca 60s two one-design options are available – a conven- tional fixed spar or a wingmast with deck spreaders. Each has pros and cons but all the latest Imoca’s were fitted with a wingmast.


50 SEAHORSE Engineering of the new Volvo boat will


be done by Verdier working with Giovanni Belgrano’s company Pure Design & Engi- neering. For herein lies another problem that will affect both the new Figaro and the new Volvo one-designs: weight. While those creating one-designs are


often prepared to allow the diet to slip a little for the sake of improved reliability and longevity, this is entirely at odds with what is required for an effective foiling boat, where any excess weight kills perfor- mance and, for example, has a direct effect on take-off speed (ask any Moth sailor). Looking back at the weights of the rele-


vant boats, VO70s were 14-14.5 tonnes, VO65s 12.5 tonnes, whereas the last Vendée Globe-winning Imoca 60 was just 7.6 tonnes; and previous-generation Imo- cas, free from one-design masts and keels, were closer to seven. The displacement target for the new


Volvo 60 is eight tonnes and it will be inter- esting to see how close it ends up to this, given the boat has to last ‘at least six years’, with races every two and, if Mark Turner has his way, a much fuller race programme than Volvo or Imoca boats currently do in between. Plus the boat will be fully crewed (ie five to seven plus reporter) – so sailed closer to 100 per cent more of the time. Of course adopting a boat that isn’t one-


design seems to have not been on the table, which in our opinion is a shame. Tradition- ally the Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread before it were always thought to be the pin- nacle of the sport and their custom boats, built to box rules or before that IOR, added to this. They also provided another talking point for journalists and race followers and helped differentiate teams, adding to their own identity. A criticism often levelled at the present-day Volvo Ocean Race is that in going one-design it no longer feels like the grand prix event we grew up with. Yes, custom boats are more expensive


than one-designs but the difference is not as huge as is made out given that the savings made in bulk-buying, design fees and the absence of sail development are countered by the extra processes and policing needed to ensure all boats are built equal.


have this brand-new technology – foiling – that right now needs to flourish and develop. We should be aiming for new- generation offshore monohulls that will foil fully downwind in ever lighter condi- tions and are even fast enough to foil upwind. If human ingenuity is allowed to express itself then this will happen but it will do so much more slowly with so many classes/races now one-design. And why no offshore multihull? Accord-


ing to Mark Turner, the technology is too young. Also, as he puts it, ‘No sailor will look you in the eye and say “we will never capsize these things”, even if the safety margins built into the Ultim class are huge and the chance of capsize very low.’ With 100ft Ultims costing around 10-13


million euros (particularly if it includes seri- ous foil development to get them fully fly- ing), then this would punch quite a hole in a target 10-12 million euro Volvo Ocean Race budget. However, much less so if the cost of the boat is amortised over a cycle of six years or more, says Turner… ‘A big tri might cost 8.5-9 million, built in the numbers we would do, compared to 4.5-5 for a monohull – that divided by six years… So cost is a considera- tion, but not a reason not to go multihull.’ Another reason multihulls were not


chosen this time was that due to the race after next starting in 2019 they would not have time to get a fleet of eight boats built and ready in time, given that tooling is only due to begin in October this year with fin- ished boats due from January to June 2019. But Turner says the extensive multihull


vs monohull discussion for the 2019 off- shore boat means that Volvo is now recep- tive to the idea of using a multihull in the future. ‘The biggest uncertainty around the multihulls is development timing – when will they be able to fly most of the time off- shore in a safe way while still delivering very high performance? ‘In the Cup it is amazing what has


happened in just 18 months, to now be foiling the whole way round an inshore track upwind and down. As we know, it is challenging to do that offshore but the French brains looking to do that in devel- opment classes will get there and perhaps that would be a better time to join them.’ The only problem with this is that


Ultims do exist, today, and in 2019 a fleet of six to eight of these 100ft trimarans will be setting off to race around the world, non-stop and singlehanded in the ultimate of ultimate ocean races. And they in turn may well follow this up with a fully crewed contest of their own. q


CHRISTOPHE FAVREAU


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