Ultim Challenge: "Changing sails is a nightmare, you're completely exhausted afterwards!"
Andreas Fritsch
· 07.01.2024
On 7 January, a historic race around the world starts, comparable to the first Vendée Globe: six skippers will sail the huge 105-foot Ultim trimarans around the world for the first time. Single-handed. Non-stop. A Herculean task with boats that can easily sail at 35 to 40 knots and reach top speeds of just under 50 knots and on which everything is simply huge. Anyone who has experienced these boats in the flesh on the jetty, where they seem so incredibly huge that you feel small and lost, will wonder how a single person can tame such a beast in rough seas at a speed of 35 knots.
Only four skippers in the world have ever managed to do this single-handed: Francis Joyon, Ellen MacArthur, Thomas Coville and Fracois Gabart - but in record-breaking races. A race is something completely different: more pressure, the opponents breathing down your neck or getting ahead of you - all stress factors that will probably make the race that much tougher and tempt the skippers to take more risks. Before the start, YACHT had the exclusive opportunity to speak to Charles Caudrelier, the skipper of the Gitana team, who is considered the top favourite to win with his "Edmond de Rothschild".
You have won the Volvo Race, Transat Jacques Vabre, Route du Rhum - is the single-handed race around the world the highlight of your career?
When I started sailing, my ultimate dream was to sail a single-handed non-stop race around the world. Back then, of course, I was thinking about the Vendée Globe. Nobody could have imagined that the world's most fascinating offshore boats could sail around the world on the fly. In my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined it. So: yes!
Now it is the first race of the flying Ultims, what is the biggest challenge as a skipper?
Finishing the race. We started three Jules Verne record attempts with the boat and had to abort all of them due to damage. The boats are so extremely fast, so technically complex, that reliability is a big challenge. I've never travelled such long distances in a boat, either with a crew or single-handed. Some of my opponents have already sailed the Vendée Globe or even around the world with a big tri, like Thomas Coville. They know what to expect. On a multihull, you always have the possibility of capsizing in the back of your mind. We sail very, very fast all the time, 90 per cent of the time we are travelling at 20 to 30 knots, which is extremely exhausting. You're nervous and tense, and that for maybe 45 days. That exhausts you. But the Vendée Globe takes much longer, so it's doable!
The boats have safety systems to prevent capsizing, what do they look like on board the "Edmond de Rothschild"?
The most important features are the smart autopilots. In the past, you could only set the wind angle and speed as parameters, now we can programme overlays that limit the position or acceleration, for example. But of course humans can still do this better, a helmsman can see the gust, the cloud coming from further away, the autopilot can't do that. But now there is also a safety overlay, which is a big step forward. For example, you can set a certain degree of attitude as a limit value. These boats are sailed very upright. If you exceed this angle, the autopilot reacts and either raises or drops, depending on the course you are currently on. From high on the wind to a wind angle of 100 degrees, the boat will tack; if you are lower than 100 degrees, the boat will drop. This is one safety level. If that's not enough, the second level comes into play: the mainsheet is automatically furled if there is too much pressure. This is relatively simple, as it is hydraulic in our case. If the pressure exceeds a threshold, the valve opens. There is also a safety device for the headsail sheet. This is often more reliable than a co-sailor. Computers don't get tired.
Does the high speed achieved with the foils increase the risk?
On the contrary, the boats are much safer with the foils. Before, you constantly had to worry about the bow getting caught in a wave and the boat rolling over. With "Edmond de Rothschild" I have never sailed a single plug! You're simply higher above the swell because of the foils and because the boats are so big. In the past, you were always afraid of capsizing after a plug when there was a lot of wind. Today, the biggest risk is having problems with the rudder or hitting something in the water. At the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre, we had the former. The rudder failed for some reason, the boat practically luffed at right angles in seconds and made a U-turn. The autopilot couldn't do anything, we couldn't react. Then you're really in trouble with a boat like that. That's one of the big risks of the Ultims. But the enormous speed of the boats is also a safety factor: you can actually always avoid bad weather.
When does the boat actually start foiling, does the 15-tonne hull lift?
From around 12 to 14 knots of wind, our boat starts foiling, which the other teams sometimes don't manage.
How is the boat actually held on the foils, is the rudder and the angle of attack of the main foils constantly adjusted via the T-foils?
We can adjust the angle of attack on the T-foils relatively easily using a hand wheel in the cockpit, but this is only something we do when we have a full crew on board. It would be far too time-consuming single-handed. When the boat starts foiling, you set about 2 to 4 degrees of angle of attack on the foil, and then as it gets higher and faster, you reduce that again. You then set an average angle for foils and rudder that suits the sea state. And of course the sails have to be adjusted to the increasing speed. But it's a game: you can adjust the foil so that the boat is super stable, but then it's slow. So you try to sail the foil with as little angle of attack or rake as possible. Otherwise you'll quickly have cavitation problems at the ends of the foils. Our first foils had cavitation from 37 knots boat speed. We now have new ones, where it only starts at 45 knots. An enormous leap! And there's more to come. In flat water, I can easily go over 40 knots for hours.
How big are the leaps in boat development? At SailGP, there was recently a 15 per cent improvement in performance in tests with a new T-foil instead of an L-foil on the hulls. Will the Ultims soon have T-foils instead of L-foils as the next evolution?
This is not possible with the current boats. All teams have built the boats as wide as the class allows, i.e. 23 metres. A T-foil would protrude over the side of the boat and thus violate the class rules. Of course, you could build a narrower boat, but so far all teams have built their boats as wide as possible for fear of capsizing. But more importantly, T-Foils are not self-adjusting. Our foils can do that: if our boat pushes itself further out of the water at high speed, there is less foil surface area in the water and the boat comes down a little further, slows down a little until there is more surface area in the water again. Then it lifts up again. That happens by itself. On America's Cup boats or at SailGP, the T-foil has to be constantly regulated by motors, otherwise the boats can suddenly fall off the foils.
François Gabart once said that a foiling Ultim is much more comfortable to sail than a foiling Imoca. The foils would work like shock absorbers on a car.
Yes, that's the case. When we're foiling, the hulls don't even touch the water in waves of up to about two metres. There are hardly any bumps. Of course, you mustn't forget that an Open 60 has an almost flat hull so that it planes quickly, but can take a huge beating in swell. Our hulls are extremely narrow and deep, like knives. Compared to our Ultims, an Imoca simply sails terribly, which is hard to bear as a skipper.
What if the swell is higher than two metres?
It becomes more difficult from a height of around three metres. And of course it depends on the course. Upwind and on reach courses, even more waves are no problem, you can do 28 knots in three to four metre waves. Downwind is more difficult. If you start to overtake the waves, the foils often come out of the water and you fall off them. However, our boats generally don't need much wind. With just under 20 knots of wind, we can easily reach top speed; from around 23 knots of true wind, the wave quickly becomes too high. It is also important how steep it is. If the wave is long and five metres high, we don't mind. If the swell is flat, we can easily reach 30 knots upwind and over 40 downwind. If the wave is very steep, even two or three metres can be a nightmare. Then it makes tactical sense to take longer detours just to avoid too much swell. But clearly, this is the area where we can and must develop the most in the future: foiling even earlier and longer in higher swell.
What are the new boats actually capable of, will we perhaps see a time under the record of 42 days, perhaps under 40?
I think that's very unlikely. As we have a fixed launch date, the weather will not be ideal for getting across the equator and to the Southern Ocean as quickly as possible. On our last Jules Verne attempt, we waited all winter for a good weather window to set a record! You first need a North Atlantic that's not too stormy, then a phase in which the band of Doldrums is as narrow as possible and, last but not least, a low-pressure area off Brazil when you get there. To be honest, I think the chances of that are almost zero. Our router Marcel from Trieste said last winter that the water off Brazil was so warm, almost five degrees warmer than usual, that the areas of low pressure simply didn't develop properly there because the cold air from the south didn't move far enough northwards. Not once in three months did this happen there! But we need these lows to sail quickly from Brazil towards the Cape of Good Hope.
Outside weather routing from land is permitted in the race, and almost every team has two or three specialists on duty. In contrast to the Vendée Globe, where this is completely forbidden. How much do you rely on them as a skipper?
There is a simple reason why two or three people are responsible for this on land. Being available around the clock for 45 days and constantly analysing data is a tough job. Nobody wants to do it alone for that long (laughs). I do rely on the routers, but not blindly, we discuss a lot. I have to understand what the plan is and keep an eye on the tactics of the opponents around me. But it's true: in the Vendée, the skipper has to do the routing all by himself. There are always phases in the race where this takes so much time that you realise that the boat is not being sailed to its optimum performance potential. It's different with us: we also try to get 95 per cent out of the boat single-handed, which also takes time. So it's not easier with a router, the weighting of the tasks just changes, I spend much more time on the performance of the boat than a Vendée skipper.
How difficult are the manoeuvres on such a huge Ultim? What are the most difficult manoeuvres and how long do they take?
Grinding is hard. That means half an hour of hard work on the grinder. And changing the large headsails, such as the Code Zero. Pull out the huge furled sail, hoist it, then pull it up into the masthead. Then turn it round. Then set the new sail and furl, retrieve and stow the old one. It all takes at least an hour. It's a nightmare, after that you're completely exhausted. Everything on these boats is huge and requires an enormous amount of strength. Organising your own strength properly, taking breaks and eating at the right time is extremely important. That's exactly the point of Ultims: it's no good having the fastest boat if you can only perform at 85 per cent because you're exhausted or your manoeuvres are poor. The forces on the boats are so enormous that I can't trim the headsails at full speed, for example. If there is full pressure in the sail and the sheet of the J2 (Genoa 2) needs to be tightened by two centimetres, this can only be done by briefly putting the boat into the wind, otherwise it is impossible. The mainsail is easier over the traveller.
How important are good manoeuvre sequences for performance?
Hugely important! When I won the Route du Rhum in 2022, I made up almost 20 miles on my pursuers with a few good gybes while I was in the lead because they were making really bad manoeuvres. The tacks are also sometimes critical. They are sometimes just as bad with a foiling Ultim multihull as with a beach cat. If you don't manoeuvre them properly, you'll stop in the turn or even go backwards! Then you have to release the traveller, open the sheets and then, of course, close hauled again. You can easily lose half an hour or ten miles! That's what happened to "Sodebo" at the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre. They lost ten miles on the way to the first mark.
After you and your boat dominated the class for a few years, the gap seemed to have narrowed towards the end. How do you rate your opponents?
Every boat has its strengths and weaknesses. We also trained together in the summer, so we know roughly where we stand. Sodebo" seems to be a little slower in strong winds. "Banque Populaire", on the other hand, was very fast during the Transat, especially downwind in heavy seas. Which makes sense, because the boat has foils that are not designed for high speed, but for a lot of stability. This means that they are somewhat weaker in light wind and swell, but strong in high winds. With "SVR Lazartigue" it is exactly the opposite. Its foils are designed for extreme speed, which is why the boat is very fast in light winds and upwind. If the swell increases, it is then more difficult to stay in foil mode. However, the boat suffered a break at the front beam during the Transat, which naturally raises the question of stability. Our boat is also very fast, especially in light winds. I would say "Banque Populaire", "SVR Lazartigue" and we are three boats that are in contention for the win in terms of pure performance. "Sodebo" has a small performance disadvantage. But Thomas (Coville) is the only skipper who has successfully sailed around the world single-handed several times with such a large tri. Maybe that will make the difference. We'll see.
