An architectural genius
Architecturally, all his boats have always been ahead of their time:
Pen Duick II is made entirely of plywood, and is considerably lighter than all current designs.
The same goes for Pen Duick III, which has an aluminum hull and, above all, a streamlined keel ending in a bulb, the mother of today's designs.
Pen Duick IV will be the first true racing trimaran with a tubular aluminum structure and the first rotating wing mast.
Pen Duick V will be the first ultra-light boat with a very flat, planing hull, liquid ballast and a deep, streamlined keel. The same architecture is used today on Vendée Globe yachts.
Pen Duick VI is a maxi specially designed for ocean racing. To make it even more efficient, Eric Tabarly fitted it with a depleted uranium keel...
Paul Ricard will be the first foiling sailboat. And even if its weight, due to aluminum construction, penalizes it too much (carbon composite doesn't exist yet), all the ingredients of the flying sailboat are there.
The technical side
Eric Tabarly was responsible for many of the inventions we see today on our pleasure boats. Starting with the spinnaker sock, which enabled him to launch a spinnaker single-handed on Pen Duick VI, a ketch designed for a crew of 12 sailors!
Flying on water and freeing himself from the brakes of the sea remains a great passion for Tabarly. In 1976, he tinkered with a Tornado hull and transformed it into a foiling trimaran. Off the coast of La Rochelle, he flew several times, validating his concept.
On his Pen Duick, Tabarly installed a gimbal-mounted chart table, like a stove. The skipper had plenty of time to set the remaining course horizontally. He often fitted it with a Harley-Davidson saddle, which he would then straddle.
The boom rig on Pen Duick III allowed him to greatly increase the mainsail area. With this boat, he won all the major races.
