In the South Pacific, The Ocean Race is showing just how similar extremely different constructions can actually be. Of course, this also has a lot to do with the weather. An area of high pressure brought the four Imocas together at the weekend like a flotilla. And even today, there are still just five nautical miles between the boats. So little, in fact, that Malizia skipper Boris Herrmann commented with some surprise:
We are closer together after 8,000 nautical miles than we were 45 minutes after the start."
In fact, some things about this race are reminiscent of a one-design regatta. The boats vary considerably in some cases - apart from the limit dimensions stipulated by the class rules: sometimes they are flat and light like "Biotherm" or high-sided and voluminous like "Malizia - Seaexplorer", sometimes they have a long waterline like "11th Hour Racing", sometimes they carry their scow bow high like "Holcim - PRB".
The latest incarnations of the class, "Paprec - Arkea" and "For People", look different again, especially in the forecastle.
They are designed for two strong skippers: Yoann Richomme, who dominates the Class 40 and created his own monument by winning the Route du Rhum, and Thomas Ruyant, also a Route du Rhum winner, but on his Imoca "LinkedOut", which he keeps as a training boat in his own racing team and with which Sam Goodchild will compete in the Vendée Globe - the same Sam Goodchild who is currently gaining experience on a current top boat in the class on Kevin Escoffier's "Holcim - PRB" in The Ocean Race.
So what are the latest Imocas all about?
Not only their skippers are among the strongest. The design team behind their boats is also among the haute volee of ocean racing. Antoine Koch, himself an accomplished sailor, led the development together with the Finot Conq design office, which also involved the structural experts from Gsea and the engineers from the two sailing teams.
While the hulls are almost identical, the boats differ in terms of cockpit and deck design and foil design. So they are not twins, but rather siblings that look very similar at first glance.
Particularly striking are the bow sections, which appear rather conventional and, despite their fullness, are not reminiscent of the scow concepts that were seemingly unavoidable until recently.
The most striking features are the chines and the deep bulkhead shape. At the front, the hull is almost V-shaped, softly rounded up to the chine, but still strongly pronounced - more like a fast motorboat with a stepped V-frame than a modern ocean racer.
Also interesting: Both Thomas Ruyant's "For People" and Yoann Richomme's "Paprec - Arkea" are comparatively narrow and very flat - unlike Boris Herrmann's "Malizia - Seaexplorer", for example. They have an even narrower waterline due to the chine, which even has a slight waist aft. This is why Thomas Ruyant speaks of a hull that "has something like two levels" - very slim at the bottom and wide at the top.
As unique as the construction may appear, the basic considerations that led to the design are comparable. The new Imocas are based on the same premise as the new buildings completed last year.
"We started from the observation, shared by everyone, that the boats(the last generation, the ed.) are very uncomfortable and difficult to handle," says designer Antoine Koch. "During the last Vendée Globe, we saw that they had problems getting through the waves in rough seas." Sometimes the foilers accelerated as if they had let go, then they got stuck in the sea ahead again, so that the speeds "constantly changed from 15 to 30 knots and vice versa". According to Koch, this was "stressful for the skipper", for the boat and "did not lead to high average speeds".
He describes his latest design as more moderate, less extreme, and together with the teams of Thomas Ruyant and Yoann Richomme, he even made compromises in terms of performance. In ideal conditions, i.e. 4 Beaufort and flat seas, it is very likely that top boats of the 2019 generation such as "Apivia" will sail faster than the new "For People" and "Paprec - Arkea". In rougher conditions, however, he expects the potential to be around ten per cent higher, if not more. When diving into a wave, the advantage is "more than 50 per cent", as Koch told the French regatta portal "Tip & Shaft".
"This only applies for a very short time, about half a second, but that half a second is enough to slow the boat down, which then needs more energy to get back on the foils. We believe that all this instability in speeds is caused by the very strong drag spike in the sea state, and this is where the gain is relatively large. If it works out as we have seen in the simulation, we can expect a boat that brakes much less in the waves."
Antoine Koch and Finot boss David de Premorel analysed no fewer than 50 hull variants before settling on the design. The focus was not only on behaviour in rough seas, but also on the highest possible efficiency on room sheet courses.
The previous Imocas behaved in a "fairly binary way", says Koch. If you drop too far, you lose a lot of speed and even run the risk of falling off the foils. On the other hand, if you sail five to ten degrees higher, the speed jumps from 15 to 25 or even 30 knots. "There is no in-between". This is "difficult to manage" in the long term. With less wetted surface, less resistance and a very special foil design, Koch hopes to achieve "more linear behaviour".
"It's interesting that we all worked on the same topic, but came up with proposals that have some similarities, but also major differences."
Thomas Ruyant's boat was built in Lorient at CDK Technologies, while Yoann Richomme's sister ship was built at Multiplast in Vannes. Both sail to victory in the Vendée Globe.
It is not yet possible to predict how strong they will be; the first training strokes and test regattas will at best provide an indication, because in the Imoca class, further development counts just as much as the basic design, which is why Antoine Koch and the Finot team will be closely monitoring the two projects until the end of next year.
And who knows: maybe things will go the way they are currently going in The Ocean Race, where the Verdier designs are currently practising formation flying with the "Malizia - Seaexplorer" designed by VPLP. It wouldn't be a bad thing for regatta fans if the boats were close to each other in terms of performance.
