Global Solo Challenge: Class40 Obportus, Tosetto, and the Franco-Italian synergy
by Margherita Pelaschier 21 May 2023 20:05 AEST
Riccardo Tosetto's boat © Riccardo Tosetto
The story of Riccardo Tosetto's boat, an Italian skipper of the Global Solo Challenge, takes us on a journey into the heart of French offshore sailing, in Brittany, discovering adventures of sea and men.
In offshore sailing communities, there is solidarity and a longing for discovery. Riccardo will take these authentic values around the world.
Riccardo, after his decision to sign up for the GSC, looked for the boat to make this dream come true. He had clear ideas: "I chose a Class40 because I wanted a simple, reliable boat, already designed to sail the oceans, and fast enough to give me more security when facing storms. Small, manageable, and affordable."
The Class40 "Obportus" was located in Saint-Malo and owned by Louis Burton's team, skipper of the IMOCA Bureau Vallée. Louis handed over the boat to Tosetto to write a new story of the sea. Obportus is a project by architect Jacques Valer, built in 2007 at the JPK Composites shipyard in Brittany.
Jacques Valer, an officer of the French merchant navy, sailed on oil tankers for twenty years before turning the passion for designing sailboats of his youth into a profession. His first project dates back to 1965: a dinghy designed for friends. That talent was later expressed in giving life to magnificent sailboats. Valer himself, a self-taught man, says in an interview: "For fifty years I have been drawing boats on paper, with pencil and eraser, like a child."
JPK Composites Shipyard was founded by Jean-Pierre Kelbert in 1992 for the production of funboards, a type of windsurfing board that is shorter and without a central daggerboard, designed for speed and acrobatics competitions. When the market moved to Asia in 2000, Kelbert turned to the construction of cruising racer boats for the IRC circuit. The meeting between Valer and Kelbert is the turning point for both. Valer started collaborating with the shipyard, and in 2003, the first production boat, the JPK 9.60, was launched. The rest is now nautical history.
Obportus, built entirely in fibreglass sandwich, is a Class 40 boat belonging somewhere in between the first and second generations of these boats. The class was established in 2004 to create a category of boats intermediate between the Mini 6.50s and the IMOCAs and to offer amateurs the opportunity to participate in offshore yacht races.
The rules imposed by the class aim to create safe and affordable ocean-going boats. Obportus fits the class's box rule: 12.20 metres long with a 4.3-metre beam and a 3-metre draft. It weighs about 4700 kilos, of which 2000 are in the bulb.
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