Le Professeur takes to three hulls

James Boyd met up with Vendee Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux to see his new tri

In French yachting Michel Desjoyeaux is an exceptional figure. He won the last Vendee Globe despite being chased vigorously by la Petite Anglaise. Three times he has won la Solitaire du Figaro, the effective world championship of singlehanded offshore racing and he has raced offshore multihulls and Formula 40s at the highest level for around 15 years.

Although no Frenchman would dream of making the comparison, Desjoyeaux shares many of the ideals of the great Eric Tabarly with whom he and fellow Vendee competitor Roland Jourdain sailed the 1985/6 Whitbread aboard the maxi Cote d'Or. He has a diverse racing background and is nicknamed 'le professeur' (the teacher) less because he knows everything (which many feel he does - he is widely considered to be the guru within the Figaro class) but because, like Tabarly, he is very generous with his knowledge sharing it with others and helping young sailors.

Another attribute of France's greatest sailor which Desjoyeaux shares is his interest in technical innovation. It was he who originally introduced the canting keel into the Mini class before it was later scaled up on Isabelle Autissier's Open 60 Ecureuil Poitou Charentes and subsequently became a must-have feature in the 60ft monohull class. It was he who introduced the basket used for spinnaker hoists and drops in the Figaro class - a small, but time saving technique whereby the spinnaker is dumped into a basket slung across the companionway and then spinnaker and basket are simply taken forward en masse and hooked on to the pulpit when the next hoist is needed.

His Vendee Globe winner PRB (now racing in the Regata de Rubicon as Virbac) was also a hotbed of innovation. Not only was she built with a Groupe Finot hull and a Lombard deck but has twin transom-hung kick-up rudders, a canting accommodation pod and chart table down below and a wealth of other ideas.

It therefore comes as some surprise that Desjoyeaux's latest boat, Geant, a 60ft trimaran designed by Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost, has little obvious in the way of innovation. Desjoyeaux showed madfor sailing around the boat currently in build at CDK Composites, the yard his brother Hubert runs in the Breton sailing mecca of Port la Foret.

"Nothing is original anymore," says Desjoyeaux half seriously of the 60ft trimaran class. "Even if a lot of people want to say everything is different on their new boats, on ours there is nothing new."

Like so many of the boats in this fleet his new tri was made using a hotch potch of female moulds from other tris. The main hull is from from Jean le Cam's Bonduelle, the floats are the same as Belgacom's, the beams came from Foncia's moulds, but were adapted. "We changed it [the beam moulds] a bit because we are wider and also because Foncia has got a wave in the beam in the middle we didn't want, so we just changed the mould to make a straight beam." The only piece of the platform which is new is the curved beam aft for the mainsheet traveller. All these parts were built in different yards and carted to CDK Composites where they have been assembled.

The wingmast CDK have built themselves and is taken from the same moulds as Sergio Tacchini, Banque Populaire and Bayer, but again has been modified and has a little more cord. In terms of the appendages, the boat has the current van Peteghem/Lauriot Prevost thinking with conventional spade rudders in the floats and a transom-hung rudder on the mainhull with a retracting blade (lifted in light airs). Mounted forward in each float is a retractible foil to reduce leeward hull burying. These are curved and are similar to the new ones fitted last winter to Groupama.

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