| |
  Pondering the next VOR design—Sailing news from the U.S. and beyond
 | | Guillaume Verdier to create new One Design yacht for Volvo Ocean Race Amalia Infante/Volvo Ocean Race |
Simply put, these are exciting times for sailors. Spring is arriving on localized levels all across North America, and many yacht clubs have already enjoyed their opening day celebrations, which typically means that the full-fledged swing of regatta season has either arrived or is just hoving into view, latitude and longitude depending. On sailing's international stage, the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers begin on the waters of Bermuda's Great Sound on Friday, May 26, and the 35th America's Cup itself will be determined in late June, thus creating some great armchair sailing experiences for those of us who will be watching AC35 from Stateside vantage points.
But it's the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) that has me the most excited this week, as the event announced back in early April that Guillaume Verdier (FRA) has been hired to lead the Volvo Ocean Race Design Team through a stem-to-stern design change for the 14th edition of the race.
 | | Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing - Volvo Ocean Race Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race |
While the 13th edition of the VOR, which starts in Alicante, Spain, on October 22 of 2017 and wrap-ups in The Hague, in late June of 2018, will use the same One Design fleet of Volvo Ocean 65 monohulls that were used in the 2014/2015 VOR, the door is wide open for Verdier and his team to announce a significantly different design for the race's 14th edition at an official press conference this Thursday (May 18) in Gothenburg, Sweden.
“Conceived in 2011, the current fleet of boats was built to be competitive for two editions,” said VOR CEO Mark Turner in an official race communication. “We need to move now on the future boats to keep all our options open on boat type and design.”
 | | Mark Turner - Volvo Ocean Race Volvo Ocean Race |
For anyone unfamiliar with Verdier, the world-famous naval architect has made a fine name for himself designing some of the world's most outrageous sailing machines and has long collaborated with Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost at the design form of VPLP. Together, VPLP/Verdier has drawn the lines for some of today's most advanced sailboats, including (but not limited to) the 100-foot monohull Comanche, Emirates Team New Zealand's America's Cup Class wingsail-powered and fully foiling catamaran, and several now-generation IMOCA 60 monohulls, including Alex Thomson's Hugo Boss and Armel Le Cleach's Banque Populaire VIII.
 | | Jim Clark's 100-foot Comanche Hodgdon Yachts |
Interestingly, Hugo Boss and Banque Populaire VIII spent the almost entire 2016/2017 Vendee Globe locked in tight competition. Le Cleach ultimately beat out Thomson, however it's important to remember that Thomson snapped one of Hugo Boss' “Dali foils” early in the race and was therefore tactically hobbled compared to his French rival.
Critically, both Le Cleach and Thomson, not to mention other Vendee Globe skippers, proved the vitality and potential (if not also the vulnerability) of fitting lift-generating foils on offshore monohulls (drumroll please), as well as the dramatic speed and daily-mileage increases that this innovation can afford.
 | | Imoca boat Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson GBR reaching, during sea trials, on port tack with his now-broken DSS foil deployed © Cleo Barnham Hugo Boss |
Provided, of course, that the foils don't break, which can be a big “if” all alone in the middle of an unforgiving and uncaring ocean.
Given Verdier's deep knowledge of powerful multi-hulls, monohulls and foils, plenty of VOR fans (myself included) can't wait to hear more about the new design. Will it carry on the VOR's longstanding tradition of using monohulls, or will the race turn a new page and embrace multihulls?
 | | 15111133 1356025014441974 7618521380114092394 o - Banque Populaire VIII - Armel Le Cleac'h - Vendee Globe 2016/17 Team Banque Populaire |
“We are starting from a blank page, and whatever kind of boat we design, whether it's monohull or multihull, we will learn a lot from this process of working together,” said Verdier in an official VOR press release. “I think sailors just want to have fun, and are attracted to a new way of sailing. In the Open 60, for example, we made something which was quite radical, but also very safe, and that's key for the Volvo Ocean Race.”
 | | Guillaume Verdier - Volvo Ocean Race Volvo Ocean Race |
Once the number of hulls is determined, foils become the next big question, and speculation is running high that the new boats will be designed to foil at least part of the time (or, design depending, perhaps employ a foil system that helps reduce part of the yacht's displacement at certain angles and speeds).
Still, as we saw in the last Vendee Globe and in numerous record-breaking attempts, the world's oceans now contain a lot of floating garbage, debris, lost shipping containers, and other detritus associated with the human experience, and these are objects that likely contributed to foil damage, sometimes in remote areas of the world's oceans.
 | | PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG, skippered by Ken Read from the USA has suffered a broken mast on the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, which began 17 days ago from Alicante, Spain. The rig onboard PUMAÕs Mar Mostro failed at around 15:00 UTC in the southern Atlantic Ocean, about 2,150 nautical miles from Cape Town, South Africa. (Credit: Amory Ross/PUMA Ocean Racing/Volvo Ocean Race) Amory Ross/Puma Ocean Racing/Volvo Ocean Race© |
Given the need to complete VOR legs in order to be competitive on the event's big-picture scoreboard, it will be interesting to see what choices Verdier and his design team make for the VOR's 14th edition.
Stay tuned as the curtain lifts on Thursday!
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
The curtain comes down on the eighth Vendée Globe
Vendée Globe, 
The first people to go up on the stage were the eleven skippers forced to retire: Paul Meilhat, Morgan Lagravière, Sébastien Josse, Kojiro Shiraishi, Bertrand de Broc, Stéphane Le Diraison, Vincent Riou, Thomas Ruyant, Enda O'Coineen, Thomas Ruyant and Tanguy de Lamotte.... [more]
|
|