What is the boat you have designed that you are most proud of?
There is not one boat, but many. And often for different reasons.
One of my first designs, the Ker Cadelac racing trimaran for technical reasons. It was innovative, with foils that went up and down. Today it is the norm.
There are some boats that I'm proud of because they have been a real success. The Figaro 2 for example. It was an excellent boat, and it's still a great boat today.
For human reasons, I am proud of the IMOCA Whirpool ( birth name The Penguin ) designed for Catherine Chabaud in 1998. She has just completed her 7th round the world voyage with Alexia Barrier under the colours of TSE 4MyPlanet. She is above all a well-born boat, which we built with a nice team, in a good mood.
There are also boats that fit something that others didn't, for example RMs. No one was building wooden boats anymore because it was expensive. We developed techniques to do it. Today, we know how to build wooden boats better, faster, and at lower economic costs.
In the end, it's specific reasons that are not all the same that make it so that there is not a boat in my life.
I also designed a wooden maxi monohull, built in Turkey 25 years ago. It was one of the largest moulded wooden constructions ever made, with a weight similar to the weight of carbon boats. Today, she doesn't have a single crack. She's in great shape. We built her abroad, with people I like, in a yard that did well.
Which boat would you have liked to draw?
Perhaps a large, very modern, high-performance monohull, 80 or 100 feet in carbon. For performance, not necessarily for racing. Comanche, a boat like that.
What is the project you would have liked to work on?
I would like to work on the development of sustainable transport. We had worked on a sailing cargo ship, but it didn't work out. We still have leads and people calling us for projects.
I would like to see something like that come to fruition, because it is interesting. One of the big issues is maritime transport, which is the dirtiest in the world in terms of pollution.
It is first and foremost a political response. We have to stop sending anything, anyhow. But it is also a technical response. If we are going to revalue transport, we have to find solutions that are less energy-intensive and more interesting. Today, we are doing the opposite of what we should be doing.
When I see the development of boats or hybrid cars, it makes me jump. It is very polluting. Today, there are other things to do.
