An outstanding Figaro player
At 45 years old, Nicolas Troussel from Fouesnantais is one of the great figures of ocean racing. He built his reputation on a masterstroke in the 2006 Solitaire du Figaro. He won the race nearly 2 hours ahead of the second, a gap never seen before, due to a very different trajectory from that of his competitors. A strategic and tactical choice that we will call "the Kit."
He officiated on the Figaro circuit between 2000 and 2010 and won many victories. "I've won the Solitaire du Figaro three times, the Transat AG2R once and the Trophée Marie-Galante once."
Dreams of IMOCA, Class40 races
But what makes Nicolas dream is the Vendée Globe, in which he has always dreamed of participating. Failing to find budgets - despite a nice touch in 2008 - he devotes himself to other media. "I took part in several tours of France under sail as project manager until 2016, with 4 or 5 podiums at stake."
He continued in parallel with some Class40 races - finished 2 e of the 2010 Route du Rhum - and continues like that until 2015/2016.
The year 2017 will be the year of the break. The Vendée Globe still in the lead. "I took stock of what I wanted and got fully involved in finding partners to find a budget to do the Vendée Globe.
The meeting with Corum
This is how the first contacts with Corum were made. "From there was born the Class40 project in 2018 to race the Route du Rhum. That was the beginning of the story with Corum. 1 month ½ after my retirement from the Route du Rhum, at the end of 2019 we were looking for a partnership for the Vendée Globe, with the construction of a new boat. There were other possible choices such as buying a used boat. But we did find an architect, a shipyard and someone to manage the construction of the boat."
"It's fast, but everything's going well. We're not unhappy with the choices at the moment. Greg is very involved in the project, we work together for the success of this program." "Greg" is none other than Greg Evrard, former director of North Sails for nearly 15 years, now converted into Technical Director for Nicolas.
The same hull mold as Arkea-Paprec
The architect Juan Kouyoumdjian - father of Sébastien Simon's IMOCA Arkéa-Paprec - was chosen by the Corum project team. "The choice was made almost naturally. We had started discussions with Juan 1 year ago ½ before. Given the short time frame, we preferred to work with an architect who already had a mould for the construction. For us, it was a technically interesting opportunity. In our allotted time, we tried to put all the assets on our side for maximum reliability."
To supervise the construction of his IMOCA, Nicolas worked with Michel Desjoyeaux. "The collaboration with Michel as project manager is interesting, because he has built many boats. As a result, he also made some mistakes. He knows what can get stuck and what is best. Juan and Michel also wanted to work together.
A different deck layout
If the hull is the same as that of the brand new Arkea-Paprec, the team has chosen to build a deck with different characteristics.
"The bridge will be different. I don't know if it's going to be innovative, but there will be more volume to satisfy one of the rules of the gauge. By raising the centre of gravity and adding more hull volume, we obtain a lighter bulb and therefore a lighter boat as well."
The right choice of foils
The foils will be quite similar to Arkea's. "The shape of our foils is similar to the current foils while taking into account the lessons we have learned from the current foilers. Even if we don't overflow with images and videos on these new foilers."
To find the right compromise on these appendages, the architect works on daily simulations. "By changing a few parameters, we get different foils every day. The more time we have, the better our foils get."
And the choice of foils is crucial on these new flying boats. " Foils that go fast at certain wind and sea angles or off-road foils that can be fast all the time, but offer fewer spikes of vitesse??" That is the whole point.
While most of the new foilers are in the water and in the process of being made more reliable by the teams - it is on screen that Nicolas and his team discover their hydrofoil boat. Because in this small secret world of ocean racing, it is not easy to create synergy between teams. "When we launch our boat, the others will be under construction. Of course we're late. It will then be our turn to develop our IMOCA and make it more reliable."
Long-term reliability
Since then, six IMOCA foilers have been launched and it takes time to make these racing animals more reliable. "There's not much of a surprise. They go very fast. But we also see that they require a lot of maintenance. We still need to work on developments to improve and make these boats more reliable."
If we take the Charal case - launched one year before the others - it took a year for him to win. "As far as performance is concerned, we can see that Jérémie Beyou is leading his boat very well, launched a year ago. It alerts us to the time it will take us to make ours reliable when we launch. We will have to be effective in quickly solving the technical problems we will encounter."
If the Azimut 2019 Challenge made it possible to compare these new yachts, the following remains "still big strangers, including solo sailing . For the time being, it is therefore difficult to draw conclusions. "Some boats sail less than others and there have been few races."
Continue to navigate
While his boat is under construction, Nicolas and his team had the opportunity to get closer to Jean Le Cam for the 2019 season, with the Transat Jacques Vabre as the highlight. On board the IMOCA Finistère Mer et Vent in Corum's colours for the season," we're sailing at 20 knots and next year we'll be at 25 knots on my next boat" laughs Nicolas.
"It was interesting to have this Jacques Vabre project with Jean Le Cam. It allowed us to sail in IMOCA this year and to continue to support the Corum project in 2019 during the construction of the boat. The idea was to participate in the IMOCA circuit to get my bearings on this type of boat."
However, the boat is not unknown to him since he accompanied Armel le Cléac'h in 2007 and then in 2009. " I'm not out of touch with these boats."
If he sails in IMOCA, it is through photos and videos that Nicolas is immersed in hydrofoil flight. "The boat doesn't exist yet, but in our unconscious, it's already there. So I have to project myself."
A team of "old" sea wolves
Michel Desjoyeaux as prime contractor, Jean Le Cam as co-skipper... Nicolas has surrounded himself with great sailors to support him in his project. "These choices were interesting and win-win on both our projects. We are well surrounded, which allows us to gain experience by talking to them. It is also reassuring to have them at our side for these two projects."
Thanks to Jean Le Cam, Nicolas is sailing and has time to prepare for the Vendée Globe and build his new boat.
"I'm the skipper, but it's his boat and he knows it by heart. It's really nice. He knows very well where it can get stuck. We are also talking about the other boats and it is very interesting. Technically, everyone has found their place on board."
When Team Corum chose to sail aboard Jean Le Cam's IMOCA for the 2019 season, it did not even ask itself the question of Nicolas' coskipper. It made sense. However, the two men do not know each other any more than that. "He's an outstanding technician. I don't know who comes close to her when it comes to building a boat and managing the solo race, especially in a Vendée Globe and offshore. He has so much experience and it's great for my monde? tour project!"
The two sailors share the same vision of things on the regatta, the trajectories or the sail settings, which gives rise to many discussions. "We find our balance, it's going really well. It's great to have him on board and I'm happy to do this race with him."
No objective of success, but to achieve a good race
"My goal is to do a good race and get ready." It is true that in a fleet where more than half of the boats will have foils, it may be difficult to do well with a 2007 boat.
"We hope to get upwind at the start of the race to make the most of it and play with the drift boats and why not put a few foilers behind them. We don't have a goal of success, but we want to achieve the best result. It still seems complicated to be in the top five. But you never know. Our duo is good, we've done a lot of miles together since the beginning of the year, not especially in regattas, but on convoys. Sometimes you can be slower than the others, but if you pull the right edges you can play in this drifty category."
