60 feet of fun

In the first of this series James Boyd looks at why the 60ft trimaran class is currently so successful

But the main reason for the current upsurge in this class is that since 1996 the circuit has finally got its act together. From his base in La Trinite-sur-Mer, Philippe Facque (above), once the co-skipper of the 85ft catamaran Royale, has set about organising the class and has been highly successful in doing so.

Under the leadership of Facque, his production company Royale Productions and the Offshore Racing Multihull Assocation (ORMA), a circuit of grand prix was set up around France to supplement the four yearly cycle of offshore events such as the singlehanded OSTAR and Route du Rhum, the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre and the fully crewed Quebec-St Malo race.

Via his TV production company Facque set up television deals to give live coverage to the class' grand prix. He took an active role in dealing with sponsors both of the class - such as 9 Telecom who currently sponsor the annual ORMA championship - some boat sponsorships (several of the boats competing at present, such as Bonduelle exist through deals he set up). He even bought a boatyard to build the tris - his company now owns CDK Composites, run by Michel Desjoyeaux's brother Hubert, where the Vendee Globe winner's new tri Geant is currently under construction.

At the beginning of the new millenia, the 60ft trimaran circuit is the place where France's top sailing stars hang out to race what are unquestionably among the world's most exciting racing yachts. Today in this class you will find an extraordinary variety of talent from Vendee Globe winners such as Alain Gautier or Michel Desjoyeaux to Tornado medallists such as Yves Loday or Mitch Booth, to America's Cup crew such as Pierre Mas to Whitbread and Volvo sailors like Herve Jan or Jacques Vincent to world class match racers like Thierry Peponnet.

The attraction of this class, as if competing against this great talent were not enough, is that the boats are now highly competitive. This is remarkable considering how few rules there are constraining the design of the boats. Aside from technical and safety rules, the defining parameters govern overall length (60ft), mast height (100ft) and spinnaker pole length.

In theory at least the class is open enough so that you could still turn up with a vessel with four hulls each with a large propeller mounted on it. However at present few such eccentricities take place - although there are some surprises just round the corner.

Today most of the skippers in the circuit are reluctant to dice with sponsor's money by coming up with radically different boats that are likely - initially at least - to be slower and so the circuit has become similar to a one design class. This is why it is so competitive and explains how two boats, Groupama and Foncia can race neck and neck for more than 5,000 miles as they did recently in the Transat Jacques Vabre.

In the overall scheme of yacht racing the class is not as competitive as the Volvo fleet or the America's Cup, but then the budgets aren't there yet for major tank test or sail development programmes or two boat testing.

Then there is thrill factor. 60ft trimarans are the fastest boats on the ocean save for the giant multis of The Race. On a bad day they will sail at the same speed as the wind, but on a good day they can average 20+ knots. The 24 hour record in this class belongs to Laurent Bourgnon's ballsey younger brother Yvan, who managed 628 miles (26.1 knots average) in one day during the Quebec-St Malo race last year. And that was in what by today's standards is an old boat.