Foils are the dominant theme of this Vendée: five boats of the latest generation are equipped with them ("Banque Populaire", "St Michel Virbac", "Edmond de Rothschild", "Safran", "Hugo Boss") and one older boat has been retrofitted ("Maitre Coq"). Progress with the foils has been rapid, especially in the last six or seven months, the boats have become faster and the skippers have found ways to use them more reliably. The breakages of 2015 seem to be over, the wings made of solid carbon fibre laminate as thick as a fist at the end of the hull seem more reliable. At the 2016 transatlantic regattas, the foilers were suddenly well ahead of the last generation of Open 60s, some of which were still able to keep the wing projectiles at bay in 2015. Vincent Riou's "PRB" was one of the boats that seemed to be on a par for a long time and therefore did without foils. But the learning curve for skippers and designers is steep.
"The movements with foils are brutal, the noise is enormous"
Designer Guillaume Verdier, who designed all six new boats in the class together with the designers from VPLP, summarises the problems: "Above all, the skippers have to stay cool if they want to sail around the world. The boats are very stressful to sail, the movements are even more brutal with the foils, the noise from the foils is huge. I don't think the guys will be foiling at 27 knots for days on end." The skippers need to learn when it's time to push and when it's better to take their foot off the gas."
That has always been the tightrope walk with the Vendée, but with this edition it is even more difficult than ever before. For many normal sailors, the question of how to sail a keel yacht in offshore conditions as if it were on wings seems difficult to understand anyway. The whole thing is a delicate interplay of forces: when the ship comes into position, the slightly sickle-shaped or L-shaped centreboard kicks in and pushes the boat out of the water with the curve at the end. The effect starts to work at around 11 to 13 knots of wind and becomes stronger the faster the boat sails. Together with the lift generated by the swivelled keel, the boat is lifted far out of the water until the hull only glides on a small area behind the keel and the windward rudder. The advantage over non-foiling boats is immense; depending on the course, wind force and team, there is talk of five to ten per cent more speed.
How exactly the interaction works, how great the loads on the hull and centreboards are and how tricky the ride is for the skippers can be read in the current issue of YACHT No. 23. For the article on the Vendée Globe, we sailed with Alex Thomson on the new foiler "Hugo Boss" and spoke to the designers at VPLP about the physics of the centreboards.
The teams explain how their boats work in videos. Impressive pictures prove that the technology is now reliable.
This video from Team Banque Populaire shows that piloting the flying speed machines is a real thrill. More action is not possible!
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
