Your Class40 is tailor-made, can you present it to us?
Two years ago, we had the opportunity to build a new boat. We had the choice to do the same as the others - a Mach 40.3 which was the most high-tech and high-performance boat at the time. But my logic when building a new boat is to do something different. The Class40 is a prototype race with a well defined frame: length, width, materials... but it allows to make different shapes. We wanted to make developments to make things happen.
I went to see the Lombard firm, which was the architect of my old boat, to see if they had any ideas to make all this evolve. I wasn't looking for a boat that was going as fast as the Match, I wanted something different.
The Lombard group was extremely motivated to develop a boat. They worked on all this: studied the gauge to see what could be done. See if any evolutions were possible. They spun software, ideas and brains and found that the front shapes could still be increased despite the width restriction at a certain distance from the bow. This would allow you to make a scow shape while staying in the gauge, increasing the power of the boat. They turned 40 drawings to make this hull.
To reduce costs and save time in construction, the Halvard Mabire class40 bridge mould was used.
We worked on the bilges and the structure. As the boat is more powerful, it needs to be structured a little more. As you can see inside, there are many longitudinal couples. Most of the other boats are very compartmentalized laterally, we stiffened the boat with a longitudinal structure. All the monitors are L-shaped. It's very steep, but it takes longer to build.
Finally, a lot of work has been done on the rigging. In recent years, the Class40s have been moving down the centres of gravity. Gradually, the spreaders came down. At one point I thought to myself, "Can't we remove this spreader almost at bridge level?" Éric Levet, who works at Lombard, has worked on this point and has changed the profile of the mast. By keeping the old profile and removing a spreader bar, you would have had to add weight to the tube, which would no longer have made sense. However, by slightly increasing the mast rope a little bit, you could remove a spreader level. We pushed the builders into this. At first they didn't want to, then they recalculated and found that there was an interest. We found a solution with Axxon so that the mast does not cost more than the others. They have studied to develop this new mast profile with a single spreader bar stage. Then it was taken over on all the boats that came out after us.
These are the two big evolutions of my boat. We also worked on a lot of little things, including the electrical energy on board. We have thought about being the most efficient in terms of weight while satisfying the gauge constraints. We have solar power that powers our boat all day long, and a very large alternator that is 220 A, which doesn't exist on the other boats. As a result, we only use 30 minutes of engine time a day to recharge our batteries. It's very low. With an original alternator, it is necessary to run 4 hours of engine per day.
The boat was released at the beginning of July 2017, a year ago, raw from drawing. It had to be debugged and optimized. We realized that we had big strengths at reaching, but that we had big gaps in other speeds due to the shapes and lots of small things. We have worked to reduce deficits and increase overall performance.
We continued to work on the sails. 3 spis were drawn. Every time the sailboat makes an evolution on a sail, we look, measure, redraw and compare to see what we can improve. The same goes for the mainsail. We had put a lot of volume into it thinking that we needed a lot of power on the boat, but we realized that it was rather harmful.
On deck, we have a furler that goes around the boat. The advantage is that we always use the winch in the wind to drive, it allows us to manage the sheet at the same time as storing it. It goes fast and always in the right direction.
We also have a tormentine forestay planned. The others use their staysail forestays to set the storm. We did like a J3, we put a padeye forward to put the staysail in place and add the storm after. It is safety, we consider that the storm is a used sail.
We also worked on the mast adjustments. We had problems with loading, we wanted to put a lot of quest to limit that, but by putting some quest we were planting the boat elsewhere.
This winter we have moved the weights back a lot compared to the original ones. But that was not enough. So we moved the bulb back six inches. It transformed the boat. By backing up the heaviest thing on the boat a little bit, you keep a correct pitch movement.
We have a pump attached to the motor to fill the ballasts. It allows ballasts to be emptied downwind and transferred from one to the other. Small transfer pipes were chosen between the ballasts (diameter 50) because the gauge says that 1.5 tonnes of ballast distributed on both sides, including piping, is allowed. So if you have a big transfer pipe, you have less water in the ballasts. As the boat is stiff to the canvas, in small conditions up to 10-15 knots no ballast is used. On the other hand, offshore, you can draw all the power from the boat. But the other side is that it takes longer to transfer from one side to the other.
The ballasts are very far back. They have been split in two this year to increase versatility.
Is the boat 100% optimized?
You're never 100% optimized. I always have lots of little ideas. Good or bad, but we don't know that until after. But today we know that we have a versatile boat in all conditions with big strengths.
What is the objective for you on this Route du Rhum?
We did this whole project with a new boat that came out early to make it evolve and sail on it. Obviously today what we want to do is win the race. But we are not alone. There are at least 5 boats that can really win and 10 others that can make second or third, or even win. That's 15 really cool boats. So the objective is to win, but we can quickly finish 8 e .
Can you tell us a little bit about your history with the Route du Rhum?
I was 7-8 years old in 1994, it was the first race that made me want to follow ocean racing. I quickly became passionate about all this. At 8 years old I took pictures of all the boats, I studied all the evolutions. I was passionate about boat development. I was looking at the wing masts, wondering why we didn't do the same thing on monohulls and it happened a few years later.
In 1994, Halvard Mabire was running and it turns out he learned to sail with my grandfather. I came to visit his boat and followed him. Unfortunately he lost his keel in the Bay of Biscay. He helped me a lot afterwards when I quit school to work. He took me under his wing to place me in shipyards. Today we are competitors.
Do you have any fond memories with this boat?
There are a few of them. Three weeks ago we went to play dumb in the breeze. We went up to 30 knots!
Could you describe the Route du Rhum in two words?
In short, it's difficult. It is a "great challenge", it is an "extraordinary adventure". We're here to win, but the goal is to get to the other side first. The worst thing for me would be not to arrive on the other side. That's what happened four years ago.
What will be the program after the Rum?
I'd like to keep the boat for another year or two. We've worked a lot on it to optimize it and there's still work to do. It hasn't always been easy. I would like to continue to have a lot of fun with it. We spend moments of worry, moments of doubt, but also moments when we have fun because we can see that it's not working. I would like to have a serene year ahead of me where I would be there only for performance.
