Yves Loday

We discuss catamarans and the new Loday-White Tornado with the French maestro

Yves Loday is a busy man. The Barcelona Tornado Olympic gold medallist shares his time between designing and then selling boats - mainly catamarans - such as the Spitfire and the Shadow - for Loday-White, the Anglo-French joint venture company he runs with fellow cat gold medallist Reg White. When he is not doing this Loday is busy sharing his wealth of twin hulled racing experience as a coach for the French team.

When we meet with him Loday has a slight twinkle in his eye over a new Tornado Sport he has been developing recently. His partner in crime, Reg White was for so many years the leading builder of the Olympic catamaran. Famously the boat Loday sailed in Barcelona was a one-off built in Brightlingsea but today most feel the Tornado of choice to be those made by Marstrom in Sweden.

"We have built two - one for Rob Wilson and the other for the French Federation for the French team," says Loday. Against the Swedish boat, the significant difference is that the new boat has much more structure in terms of bulkheads and subdecks in it. "Compared to the very last one Reg built for me in 1992 in which I won the Olympics, we have changed the bulkhead positions, changed the layout. Basically we have tried to have more weight in the middle without losing too much stiffness."

Compared to the Marstom Tornado, the White-Loday boat is less rounded forward and is supposed to be better cutting through a chop. Aft it is less full and this means crew weight has more affect on fore and aft trim sailing downwind under kite.

"The one we made for Rob Wilson was more classic, more like the one I had in 1992. Rob used that in the World Championship but he did have very good results although he had some very good races." The Wilson boat has now been inherited by UK Tornado duo Leigh MacMillan and Mark Bulkeley who sailed her at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta finishing 11th - not quite the success they'd hoped. But this boat is not the final incarnation of the latest in Loday-White Tornado design and there are some secret developments on the new boat.

Meanwhile the FFV boat is to be sailed by French Tornado representative for Athens, Yann Guichard. Loday admits that they have come to the table with their new boat a little late for Athens. He is not expecting them to be able to build more than three or four of the new boat in this cycle. "That is what we did last time in 1992. If we build more than that it will be dangerous," he says.

Aside from coaching the French team, Loday is busy pushing the catamarans he has designed for Loday-White in particular the 16 footers, the singlehanded Shadow and the Spitfire doublehander.

They have now built 110 Spitfires. About 40% of these Loday estimates are in the UK, with 30% in France and the rest dotted around Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. The UK Nationals are on 29-31 May at Stokes Bay Sailing Club. Loday expects 30-35 boats to show at the Europeans when they are held from his local club, the CNBPP in La Baule on 24-27 August where at present they have nine Spitfires and two Shadows.

Meanwhile his goal is to get the Shadow - the ultimate singlehanded catamaran - selling in France. Although the Shadow was launched two years ago in the UK, it was only introduced to the French market last May. This is the boat Loday is sailing personally at the moment and he says on the water his goal is to beat the two-handed Spitfires and F18s. So far he has managed this only once.

"Racing it weighs less than 100kg," he says. "We have a spinnaker and a chute on the trampoline and it is very easy for singlehanding and a lot of fun. It is smaller and a lot stronger than an A-class. We keep an alloy mast but it is still very light - only 13kg. A Formula 18 mast is around 23-24kg. So it is a boat where guys of 70kg can right the boat after a capsize and you don’t need any complicated system to do that.

"The hull is Kevlar because we want to achieve the weight and at the same time you can go in open races like Eurocat. We have 200 boats on the start line for the long distance and no one wants to go there with an A-class because it is too fragile. So we use the Kevlar to ensure you have a light boat and as strong as a Formula 18 or Spitfire."

We are interested to know why Loday has not got involved with the F18 or F18HT classes. He doesn't rule this out for the future, but at present can do nothing. "I am overbooked with design and coaching. The F18 class is good. The problem is for the customer as this is an open class. When a guy has bought a boat just after one year the boat has lost its value, so for some of those guys it is very hard. And it is not a case that one boat is faster than another one, it is just a question of fashion."

The school is still out on the F18HT he says. "Whenever they try to sail it in France they apparently have difficulty sailing it in sea water as soon as there is choppy waves but in another way we never see very good crew on that boat. We had an order last year for an F18HT but we had no time to achieve that. It is something we have thought about."

Aside from this Loday is likely to be doing some sailing with Bruno Peyron on board the new Orange. Both Peyron and Loday come from La Baule and are old friends.

"He wants me to come out on the first sea trials," says Loday. "I was a little bit involved with the hull shape design. Because I had sailed on the other boats [Loday sailed round the world with Peyron's younger brother Loick on Innovation Explorer during The Race], he asked me to drive the hull design a bit at the beginning. It is a lot different to the last one. You need more freeboard and a lot less rocker - that was my main input in the design." Peyron meanwhile bought himself a Spitfire last year which he sails with his daughter out of Loday's club.

Although he prefers to coach these days, Loday has not discounted his making a return to the Tornado in 2005 when the Worlds look set to be held in France.