2016 Vendée Globe – Great initial training course in Port-la-Forêt

by Olivier Bourbon on 3 Jul 2015 2016 Vendée Globe – For three days, from 16th to 18th June, four skippers took part in a training course organised by the Pôle Finistère Course au Large (Offshore training centre) in Port-la-Forêt in Brittany. The two new boats designed by VPLP/Verdier fitted with the famous foils – Morgan Lagravière’s Safran and Armel Le Cléac’h’s Banque Populaire VIII – were able to see how they measuured up against two of the reference boats in the circuit: Paul Meihat’s SMA (ex Macif) and Vincent Riou’s PRB. We look at what happened and how things are likely to evolve with the sailors and Christian Le Pape, the Director of the French training centre.

“We ran through all the different situations and points of sail to draw up an initial comparison of the potential of the boats. It took place in ideal conditions with flat calms seas, a wind going from 5 to 22 knots.” Christian Le Pape felt very positive after this first training session, which took place this week in Port-la-Forêt with the boats in solo mode, as they look forward to the next Vendée Globe. Alongside the sailors, who carried out the manoeuvres alone, two or three people were on board the boats for safety reasons, but also to record performance data. The various teams were quite willing to share this info with the others to ensure they can all make progress together.

Two rookies and two experienced sailors

Among the four skippers attending, there were two of the newcomers to the IMOCA circuit: Morgan Lagravière (Safran) and Paul Meilhat (SMA). For them, this training course was an opportunity to judge their own skills and weaknesses to work on their preparation. “These were interesting sessions. It all felt like what I had experienced in the Figaro sessions, but I don’t yet have the same ability,” explained Paul Meilhat. “It’s hard, but I expected that. Each manoeuvre takes time and if you make the slightest mistake it can cost you a lot! I messed up a few times, but on the contrary to what I expected, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the technical aspects of the 60-foot boat. For the time being, we have to get our priorities right, and focus on what is important.”

For Morgan Lagravière, there was another element: ensuring the reliability of his recently launched Safran. “I’m starting to get to grips with the boat and everything is starting to come naturally,” stressed the 28-year old skipper. “Until we got here for this course, we had each been training separately. You learn a lot by seeing how you measure up against the others.”

A veteran in the IMOCA circuit, having finished second on two occasions in the Vendée Globe (in 2008/2009 and 2012/2013), Armel Le Cléac’h took advantage of the training to find out more about his brand new Banque Populaire VIII, which was launched last week. “The timing was a bit tight for us, so that we did in fact miss out on the first day of sailing. We are just starting to sail the boat, and these trips were only the fourth and fifth. Banque Populaire VIII is far from being fine tuned and set up like SMA and PRB, which have been the reference boats in the circuit for yeas now. So we have got a huge amount of work to do to find 100% of the boat’s potential, but initial impressions have been good.”

Foils: let’s not be too hasty

All of the skippers who were present were able to observe the effect of the foils, the appendages fitted to Safran and Banque Populaire VIII, instead of the traditional daggerboards. “We remain cautious and it’s too soon to draw any hasty conclusions,” Christian Le Pape warned us. “The new boats haven’t yet been fully prepared and that is all the more important when looking at the foils. Because of the conditions we experienced this week and the length of the courses (10 to 15 miles at the most), it is hard to judge what they contribute and to examine the drawbacks the foils will have during a transatlantic race and even harder to work out what will happen as they sail around the world. We’re going to have to investigate this further in stronger conditions, heavy seas, and on much longer race courses.”

However, some observations were noted. It was no surprise to see a positive effect when sailing downwind (and more particularly when reaching) and a negative effect upwind. “That was quite normal: the foils aren’t daggerboards!” stressed Le Cléac’h. “We are going to be working on how to reduce the negative effect, imagine other ways of sailing and setting the foils.”

Aboard PRB fitted with traditional daggerboards, Vincent Riou was able to watch what was going on with his two rivals with their foils. He gives us his opinion: “It is going to take longer to get the boat set up properly, as the foils lead us to adopt a new way of sailing. These appendages are not magic. It is not just by fitting them that we will be faster. There’s a lot of work to be done and they’re going to have to try out various types of foil. This is just the start of an adventure.

Personally, I hope to have the boat ready as soon as possible for the start of the Vendée Globe. If fitting foils is the right thing to do, we’ll fit foils. The new boats are going to be the pioneers.” The four 60-foot boats present this week in Port-la-Forêt (as well as some others) will be doing battle in the Fastnet Race in August. And between now and the Transat Jacques Vabre, five double-handed training courses will be run: one in August, three in September and one in October.