What makes Ellen so special?

James Boyd analyses Ellen MacArthur's solo sailing success

Kingfisher - the Open 60

Kingfisher is still the latest generation of Open 60. In comparison Mike Golding's Groupe Finot design Ecover comes from the generation before.

Work started on Kingfisher during 1999. She was the first Open 60 to be conceived by an America's Cup-style design team comprising Rob Humphreys, Merf Owen (and his partner Alan Clarke), SP Technology's Giovanni Belgrano and former Vendee winner Alain Gautier. She was constructed at Martin Yachts in Auckland, the first full-on Open 60 to be built in New Zealand.

While Kingfisher was in build Ellen raced on board Aquitaine Innovations (now Patrick de Radigues' Garnier), possibly the lightest most surfboard-like Open 60 ever built and the first to have deck spreaders and a rotating multihull-style wingmast.

In comparison Kingfisher was a much more conservative design. There was no wingmast and deck spreaders, although Merfyn Owen later admitted that the figures for a fixed mast and deck spreaders had looked favourable. Instead her rig was fixed and stayed with rod instead of the more exotic (and less tested) PBO aramid. The rig was also slightly shorter than other Open 60s.

Kingfisher's hull was not the maximum beam, low freeboard surfboard shape of the Groupe Finot designs like Aquitaine Innovations and the newer generation boats like Mike Golding's Ecover, but following the introduction of the IMOCA class association's new stability rules for the Vendee Globe was narrower and less prone to tipping over and staying inverted.

This year Kingfisher has been 'de-Vendeeised' and refitted. The generator has been taken out and the rod rigging changed to PBO saving weight aloft. She has had a new mast fitted and a new swing keel - both changed for durability reasons. The sails used in the Route du Rhum were new at the beginning of this year. These included a main, two spinnakers (light and heavy), big genniker, jib (Solent), staysail (trinquette), storm jib (ORC) and a 'Code E' - a loose luffed jibtop type sail.

The Inmarsat satcoms have been changed from B to F (Fleet 77) which is less power hungry (therefore less fuel needs to be carried), has a smaller antenna (and therefore lighter).

Other improvements included the addition of Pilotfish, the Swedish system used in the Volvo Ocean Race enabling a range of physical and performance data to be polled from on board at regular intervals. This data, including wind information and wave height, was picked up by Ellen's routers Jean-Yves Bernot and Meeno Schrader - a somewhat cheaper option than that employed by multihull race winner Laurent Bourgnon four years ago when he had his Inmarsat Mini-M terminal switched on for the entire race!

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