Mini, Figaro and above all Class40: it was in this last series that Louis made his name with the general public, building the lift 40, the first Class40 with a scow bow and a mast with a single spreader.
Before that, the man who trained with Halvard Mabire in the early 2000s, scoured the construction sites and built up a solid experience in composite construction. Louis builds, innovates and learns to stand on his own two feet. As on this stage of the Mini, where he dismasted, but managed to put his spar back in place in the middle of the Atlantic, all alone on a small 6.50 m hull.
For this first Vendée Globe, he has set his sights on a 60-foot daggerboard boat that suffered a fire at the start of the 2019 Jacques Vabre, then in the hands of Clément Giraud.
Louis, tell us about the refit of your IMOCA, which was far from ready for a round-the-world race when you picked it up.
The boat was at the V1D2 yard in Caen. I often sailed past it, and started to build a scenario that would allow me to enter the Vendée Globe. I contacted the owner, who was Clément's former sponsor, and we recovered the wreck for the value of the insurance excess.
After the fire, the boat was dismasted and transported to Caen, where it had remained. The fire had started in the battery park, so it was the central part of the hull that suffered. The roof was collapsed and the interior fittings destroyed, foreshadowing further damage to the hull and structure.
But after analysis, we realized that the Nomex had saved part of the composite. The inner skins were out of order, but could be replaced. The exterior of the hull had been saved, and the varangue and structural knots were sound. We cut out everything that was damaged, and then started rebuilding.
What changes were made to this daggerboard boat in 2006?
With the Lombard team, we wanted to make a V2 of the hull, which had the same hull as Jean Le Cam's previous boat. We had to rebuild the boat and take advantage of the opportunity to improve its performance. I wanted to move backwards and reduce the weight. The first thing we did was to modify the boat's ballast system. We resized them and changed their location. The batteries and hydraulic power plant were moved back, as was the engine, whose chassis was moved back three meters.
After listing all the modifications to be made, the total budget was very high. So we planned and spread the work over four years, to be ready for the start.
After a fine Jacques Vabre with Marie Tabarly, you dismasted on the return trip. Did you take the opportunity to make any other changes?
We used Gabart's shorter mast, the one that won the 2004 Vendée. This enabled us to save 500 kg in the bulb. The J2 tack was brought forward, and we put 9° of search in the mast, to be downwind.
The original daggerboards, designed for upwind sailing, have been replaced, as have the shafts. I used the molds from the old PRB daggerboards to make new profiles, more suited to downwind sailing. They are now more inclined outwards, with a little incidence.
What about your sail plan?
We're changing the sails over two seasons, 2023 and 2024. With Remi Aubrun from Incidences, we reworked the sails to fit our budget. We've really redesigned the sail plan, compared with the original design. And I have to be the only one to take two spinnakers of different sizes on board.
At the start of the project, you had no financial backing. How did you manage to find the necessary funds?
The aim was to put together a financially coherent project. It would have been pointless to rebuild a boat if the total cost of the project was higher than the boat's value on the second-hand market, estimated at around ?500,000. The initial budget was made up of what I had received from the insurance company after the loss of my Class40, once all the loans had been repaid.
We set up a crow lending platform, then took out a bond loan. Lantana was the first to follow us, followed by Groupe Fives. But basically, all this was made possible because we started this project with a strong, close-knit team that had already proved itself on other projects. We set out with 10 years of Class40 experience, with the 65 and especially the 150 in 2017.
What's your ranking prediction?
This is my first Vendée Globe. There are five of us who want to fight it out on the daggerboard boats. Most of us are rookies, and we're extraordinarily lucky, but we're all competitors. Above all, I want to finish the race, and if there's a good performance in it, that would be great!
