Anyone who makes an appointment with Guillaume Verdier learns two rather unusual things about him: he doesn't have a permanent office. And no permanent employees either. How does this work for the world's most successful designer?
"I work with a permanent circle of friends and colleagues, but they all work on their own projects too. After my first job at Finot-Conq for five years, I decided that I didn't want to have a boss any more, but I didn't want to be a boss myself either," says the Breton. "If you have people you trust, you can give them the freedom to do what they want. That's good for everyone involved - and the project."
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He tried out this unusual design on his first major project of his own in the early 2000s, Yves Parlier's innovative 60-foot cat with twin masts and hydroplane-like bow sections: "Hydraplaneur". It was there that the nucleus of a team was formed that still works closely together today: Romaric Neyhousser, Hervé Penfornis, Loic Goepfert and a few others. Everyone has their own strengths, but they all look at each other's work.
The skipper says of the designer: "Guillaume is a bit crazy, but also brilliant and he works incredibly hard."
"The project made us quite famous all of a sudden, even though the boat didn't go as well as we had hoped and after the cat capsized off the Canary Islands, the team didn't really get going again due to budget problems," says Verdier. The boat still managed to set a 24-hour record, but was something quite extraordinary, especially visually. The Breton is calm, soft-spoken and unpretentious - the 54-year-old is understatement personified.
The creative mind behind sailing masterpieces
And yet he has every reason to have at least a few rock star airs: As a designer with Team New Zealand, he won the America's Cup twice (2017 and 21), first with the foiling cat, then with the then sensationally innovative monohulls with swivelling foil arms. Charlie Dalin's Vendeé Globe-winning boat, the Open 60 "Macif Santé Prévoyance"was designed by him. He developed the two previous winning boats together with VPLP.
The list of victories and records of the 100-foot maxi racer "Comanche"which he developed for Jim Clark together with VPLP, reads like the dream of every sailing-obsessed billionaire: victories in the offshore classics Fastnet Race, Sydney Hobart, Middle Sea Race. Plus transatlantic and transpacific records. All with Ken Read as skipper. In an interview after the "Comanche" collaboration, the US icon once described Verdier as a man "who is a bit crazy, but also brilliant and works incredibly hard".
Especially when things get extreme or original, you can bet that Verdier has a finger in the pie. Together with the Gitana team, he developed the first foiling Ultim, the 33 metre long "Maxi Edmond de Rothschild Gitana 17"which went on to win the Monster Tris' first non-stop single-handed regatta. At the time, it was a tremendous gamble, especially in rough seas. Nobody had any experience, let alone data on such a boat. A tightrope walk, as Verdier still says today.
The list can be continued almost indefinitely; there is hardly a class in which Verdier has not left a lasting mark. Giovanni Soldini won 16 races alone with a Class 40 designed by him. He has designed minis as well as production boats such as Jeanneau's Sun Fast 3300 or the new Class 40 from Pogo.
Guillaume Verdier's sailing milestones
How does he explain his own success? For the answer, he has to expand a little. It starts with the fact that, as a Breton who grew up on the coast, he naturally became involved in the sailing world as a child. Little Guillaume had the typical dinghy sailing career: Opti, Laser, 420, skiffs, Tornado, which he still enjoys sailing today. One of his sailing instructors gave up his job and told him about his future plans at the age of eight: he wanted to study yacht design in Southampton, one of Europe's design hotspots. The little boy remembered it well. Later, when Guillaume was looking for a new direction after school and was talented in all things maths and physics, he followed the same path.
"After graduating, I worked for the University of Copenhagen for a while, then I joined Finot-Conq as an employee. At the time, the office was the leading one for the construction of Open 60s. I learnt an enormous amount from Pascal Conq. He taught me how to do all the calculations for a boat myself." Previously, it was often the case that one person designed the hull, another the rig and the next the appendages. This sometimes meant that the individual elements did not function optimally together. Here, he learns to keep an eye on the big picture, to harmonise everything perfectly and to keep an eye on everything.
After the separation from Finot-Conq, a collaboration with the VPLP design office in Vannes began: "They came from the multihull scene, I came more from the IMOCAs, which was exciting for both sides." Verdier still sees their first boat together as a milestone in his career: they designed the "Safran" for Marc Guillemot's well-financed team. The boat is still legendary among skippers today.
"I really appreciate Boris, he's one of the smartest skippers in the class. He does a lot of things right." Guillaume Verdier
"When it was launched back then, most boats weighed between 8.3 and 8.4 tonnes. Safran was only 7.3 tonnes." The ship is narrower than previous boats, light, fast and doesn't need a huge sail plan that would overwhelm the skipper. The boat immediately came second in the Transat Jacques Vabre and won the next edition. During the Vendée Globe 2008, it collided with a whale and later lost its keel shortly before the finish in the Azores. What remains unforgotten is how the skipper then sails the boat to the finish with only the water ballast and comes third. To this day, "Safran" remains one of Verdier's favourite designs.
Innovation leader in yacht design
Designing and calculating hull shapes and finding the most effective and lightest structures for them is one of his strengths, he says. "People don't pay me to design a copy of a winning boat that is just a little bit faster. It's about finding new ways. You have to take certain risks, but at the same time recognise and minimise the really dangerous ones."
Innovation was also a central theme of the Frenchman's last project on the megayacht scene: the 100-foot maxi "Magic Carpet e". Owner Lindsay Owen-Jones wanted a fast, lightweight boat for regattas, but also enough comfort below deck for cruising the Mediterranean with the family. All with electric propulsion instead of diesel. New territory again. Just the thing for Verdier. "It's a rare stroke of luck when you're offered a project like this, where you have so many options and can practically start with a blank sheet of paper."
Ten tonnes lighter than its predecessor of the same size, even though it had a fixed keel - that's something to be proud of. A tilting keel combined with a swivelling keel, a rotating and swivelling canard - plenty of high-tech on board.
"Our job is not just to draw the lines of the hull. We also work on the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic shapes as well as structural calculations and performance predictions. We use various computer programmes and develop numerous tests, such as tank tests for hydrodynamics or wind tunnel tests for aerodynamics. Adapting to the needs of our customers adds a fulfilling human dimension to our very scientific work." Guillaume Verdier
Verdier loves such technically complex projects. Like the America's Cup monohull with the two swivelling keel-foil arms. Completely new territory. "There I learnt to work with people from all kinds of industries. That was an impressive experience with Team New Zealand. There were aviation, automotive and aerospace engineers working together." Such interactions between specialists from different fields make the work particularly exciting for him.
Shifting the boundaries of the existing
Although the Breton is primarily a racing designer, he really enjoys designing maxi and performance cruising yachts. "If I had to choose one of my designs privately, it would probably be 'Eole', a collaboration between Axel de Beaufort and myself." The 60-foot ketch is a boat built using a combination of wooden mouldings and carbon structures with a classic wooden look on deck, but with modern features such as a retractable tilt keel and plenty of Open 60 expertise in the hull.
He has now said goodbye to the America's Cup circus. "I love the Cup, but four campaigns were simply enough. It takes up so much of your time and leaves very little room for manoeuvre," he says, explaining his withdrawal ahead of the 2024 race.
He is currently working on two other projects: He is working with the Gitana team on the Rothschild team's new Ultim-Tri. The new 105-foot giant is due to be launched in September. Verdier: "It's a stroke of luck in my life that I'm involved twice in such a fantastic project that pushes the boundaries of the existing. I think we have achieved a technical breakthrough with this boat."
What the team has already announced sounds extreme indeed: "Gitana 18", with all its technology, is more complex like an aeroplane than a yacht. The new boat is supposed to be 100 per cent foiling, whereas the old one only managed this from 12 to 14 knots of wind. An enormous amount of work has gone into achieving this: Gitana's design team alone comprises ten engineers, with Verdier and his colleagues adding to this. Around 50,000 hours of development work went into the design. By comparison, the previous model took 35,000.
Competition of ideas
The technical director of the Gitana team also commented on Verdier's work in a team video: "Guillaume's ideas are always a bit out of the box, but when you get involved and combine them with our experience and the vast amount of data the team has from the previous trimaran, it's unique. The two teams sometimes leave the table with the same problem, but then come back with completely different solutions."
Data is a keyword that Verdier jumps on: "Since the Cup in San Francisco, design has reached another level. Partly because of all the data that is constantly being collected through measurements. Load cells in foils, masts, stays, rudders and hulls constantly provide huge amounts of data.
We want to know what it's like for him when such a new boat sails its first race and has to prove itself. The risks are what give the Frenchman sleepless nights at every Vendée Globe, the Ocean Race or the Ultims. "I don't particularly like the time of the race. You keep your fingers crossed for the skippers the whole time that everything holds up and they come back safely. It's very stressful for me." You always dread that one phone call in the middle of the night.
The race is therefore a good opportunity to take a closer look at their own designs and those of the competition. The designers are constantly tracking the performance of the boats, talking to the teams and comparing data to get an impression of where the boat is performing well and where the competition is perhaps doing better. It is super exciting when many different designs come together in one class and you can compare data. The competition of ideas is what keeps him excited. "Of course, the skipper also plays a big role. We develop the boat around his needs. It has to suit him, not me!"
Near collaboration with Boris Herrmann
Meanwhile, the Frenchman is already in the middle of working on the next Vendée Globe, which has characterised his life for three decades. He also almost worked with Boris Herrmann. The team had also contacted him when it came to designing the last "Malizia Seaexplorer". But the German's ideas about the hull shape did not fit in perfectly with Verdier's philosophy. "I really appreciate Boris, he is one of the smartest skippers in the class. I had a lot of contact with him, especially during the last Vendée. He does a lot of things right."
But everything has to fit together in a project, otherwise it won't be good. The next edition of the 2028 race will probably feature three new designs from his pen, the most prominent of which is likely to be the new "Groupe Dubreuil" for Sébastien Simon. He was the shooting star of the last Vendée, finished third and was in contention for victory at one point before a broken foil set him back. However, the class rules currently contradict his ideal scenario.
"It's a shame that the IMOCAs are not allowed to have T-foils on their rudders. They are like a bird with a broken wing. The skippers complain about how tiring and dangerous it is for them to sail the boats with their abrupt movements in the swell. It would be much better if they foiled completely like the Ultims." This was impressively confirmed by "Gitana 17" skipper Charles Caudrelier after his victory in the Arkea Ultim Challenge. He said it was incredible how much better the quality of life was on a foiling Ultim compared to his IMOCA experience.
"People don't pay me to design a copy of a winning boat that is then a bit faster." Guillaume Verdier
But the class is a real democracy in which skippers decide the rules together, says Verdier. And if they don't want foils so as not to throw the old boats out of the race, he has to accept that. He is certain that he will see the day when the first Open 60s are foiling around the world. The probability that a Guillaume Verdier design will end up at the top of the podium is probably quite high.
