"Malizia - Seaexplorer": "After the Route du Rhum, we know exactly where we stand"
Andreas Fritsch
· 01.11.2022
The jetties in St Malo resemble a beehive: at the top of the pier, tens of thousands of spectators push past the unique regatta field every day, while team members, journalists, guests and VIPs from the sailing scene bustle about below. You see a famous face every ten minutes. Kevin Escoffier gives a TV crew a tour of his new boat, Charlie Dalin looks at the new boats in the field with his team, Jérémie Beyou sits with a technician in the cockpit of his new "Charal" and looks through data on a screen.
The team is also bustling around on Boris Herrmann's "Malizia - Seaexplorer", with work being carried out, tinkered with and the technology checked one last time. We meet Will Harris, co-skipper for the Ocean Race in January, who calmly gives us an update on the status of the ship's development. After all, a new Open 60 is a constant work in progress for the first one and a half to two years.
Will, just under six weeks have passed since the boat was christened in Hamburg. What has happened since then?
It may not look like it from the outside, but a lot has changed. There are more and more details that we learn and change with every test sail. Especially in more wind we still have to learn. One of the problems was the rudders. They vibrated a lot, and the hooking system sometimes triggered for no reason while we were sailing, so that we had a few sunshots in stronger winds. The rudders are designed so that they can and should be folded up, for example if they touch something floating in the water. It's a kind of safety device. A hook snaps onto a carbon fibre edge and a piece of metal that slowly gives way is the safety catch. Of course, if you're sailing really fast, this has to withstand great forces, but it also has to release under sudden loads. It didn't work perfectly, the laminate near the fuse cracked. There's about 1.5 tonnes of pressure on it, so it's a fine balance that we've now found.
Has the boat now also proved its worth in stronger winds?
Yes, we had really good winds on the delivery from Lorient to St Malo and sailed at well over 30 knots for a long time. Top speed was 34 knots, which was of course very nice.
Have you been able to assess whether the plan to be able to sail at higher average speeds in stronger winds during the development of the boat will work? That's what the high bow with the many keel jumps was planned for.
We are very strong in such conditions, that's for sure. The boat loves waves and lots of wind. What we have to learn are the foils. As a regatta sailor, you naturally always want to be as fast as possible, so it makes sense to always go out with 100 per cent foil. But the foils are also oversized so that they work well in light winds. However, we are gradually learning that the boat prefers to sail with less foil in windy conditions than we expected. You have to find the mode in which the boat practically only just goes over the swell instead of coming out a long way and then dropping a long way again. That's how we achieve much higher average speeds. With the old boat, you always got stuck with the bow in the crests of the waves in such conditions, which was slow. As the new boat has practically no resistance due to the shape of the bow, it skims over the waves. That's really really good.
What we still have to learn now is how to trim the boat in terms of weight. Due to the round hull shape, the boat reacts much more sensitively to trim changes than the old "Malizia - Seaexplorer" or other Imocas, which have a much flatter, wider underwater hull. If we stow the weight far aft in rough seas, i.e. sails and equipment plus tanks, the bow comes up very high. And vice versa, we can trim the boat very stably downwind with the weight far forward in front of the foils, then it lies very well. Above 20 knots, the boat is really impressive. At medium speeds, we still need to find the fastest way round. In very light winds, on the other hand, we are really impressed with how well the boat handles. The round shape also seems to work surprisingly well. We actually thought that would be a bit of a weakness, but that's not the case at all. According to the VPPs, we should have been slower.
As co-skipper, do you keep a close eye on the weather forecast for the Route du Rhum a week before the start?
Not really. You can look at the trend and the jet stream. They'll give you a pretty good idea if a low is heading towards Europe with upwind conditions that will bring a lot of wind for the start. This week it looks like some lows are coming in for the start. The unusual warmth here at the moment is nice, but it also means there could be some pretty powerful storms.
When you built the boat, you fitted it with hundreds of sensors, partly to make the boat faster and safer, also because the autopilot can learn more from this. Is this already paying off?
We have already learnt a lot about the mast. We had alarms going off quite often because we had already pushed the mast to its limit. That's important for us, of course.
In which conditions is it particularly dangerous for the rig?
High-speed reaching is often borderline, especially between 15 and 20 knots boat speed. Then we often have a big sail up and just start foiling properly. When it's windier, we have less sail area up, then it gets better. We are currently analysing the data and will probably have the results in time for Boris' start on Sunday so that we can draw some conclusions. In any case, the Route du Rhum will also provide us with further insights that will then flow into the Global Race. That is important.
Are there any other things where you have a steep learning curve?
Plenty. Because the foils reach so deep into the water, the boat sometimes sails fully upwind on them, but is travelling at 34 knots. This is quite confusing for the autopilot. It then sometimes reacts incorrectly and wants to tack in order to sail more upright. But that is counterproductive at the moment. Now the autopilot has to learn that it has to react not only to position, but also to its relationship to speed. It's all pretty complex.
How important is the Route du Rhum for you as a team for the Ocean Race?
Oh, we can later draw very important conclusions from the analysis of the data at the finish, as we have never sailed the boat single-handed for 14 days in one go. We can draw so many conclusions from this about how fast the boat needs to be sailed in which conditions. I think it will be a steep learning curve.
Have the test drives already made it clear to you what the optimum distribution of tasks on board will be?
My area remains the electronic side, making sure that everything works, that the autopilot works well. Nico Lunven is mainly involved in weather analysis and routing. We are all learning a lot from his expertise. And Rosie is a great sailor, she will take over many of the tasks on the foredeck. She also takes care of spare parts and making sure that the systems on board work well. As skipper, Boris is of course always responsible for everything, but he is also super experienced in all areas.
What happens after the Route du Rhum?
The boat is then sailed directly to Alicante and comes out of the water, we remove the mast, keel and rudder and check everything: the wiring in the mast, the keel bearings, the running rigging for overloads. We put together quite a long list over the summer. If you overlook one little thing, it can end your race later. But you're never finished with a boat like this anyway, it's always "work in progress".
What's it like for you here in St Malo, where almost all the Imocas are next to each other on the pier?
That's super interesting! You're constantly walking past the stern of every boat here, you can look into the cockpit, so you're already making a pretty long neck! (laughs) There are just so many details to see. Five years ago, when I wasn't so deeply involved in the Imoca scene, I wouldn't have seen so much, but now that we've been running a boat for years and have completely built one, it's something completely different. There is no one way to build a boat like this, each one is different, but comparing the details with ours is very, very exciting. But "Malizia - Seaexplorer" looks completely different from the rest of the fleet. That has advantages and disadvantages. We'll see how that pays off later or not. But after the Route du Rhum we definitely know where we stand at the moment!
