The winning ship

The Daily Sail takes a tour of Bernard Stamm's Open 60 Around Alone leader Bobst Group Armor Lux

Bernard Stamm is one of the great characters of singlehanded offshore racing. A couple of hundred years ago he would probably have a hook and a patch and would be leading a posse swashbuckling and ransacking Her Majesty's fleet around the Caribbean. The character the ex-merchant mariner portrays is rather at odds with what is one of the most sorted Open 60s around and this must at least be part of the reason that the Brittany-based Swiss skipper has scored two wins in as many legs in Around Alone.
Bobst Group-Armor Lux is firstly unusual for being the only Open 60 ever built to a design by Pierre Rolland. Rolland is the most prolific designer in the Mini class, the ranks of which Stamm passed through in the mid-1990s - he came second in the singlehanded TransGascoigne race in 1995 and then third in the Mini Transat that year behind Yvan Bourgnon and the great Mini builder Thierry Fagnent. Stamm's Mini, Hotel Albana, was a Rolland design.

The boat shares a similar look to the Rolland Minis with pronounced tumblehome and deck camber and in fact Bobst Group-Armor Lux is one of the prettiest Open 60s around - it has a lot of beam midships, but has a narrower stern than the more brutal lines of the Finot-Conqs. The tumblehome and deck camber are both designed to prevent the boat inverting and remaining upside down, a problem that frequented this class prior to the introduction of the Open 60 class (IMOCA rules).

Starting at the pointy end - Bobst Group has a fixed bowsprit and a considerable number of furlers, a forestay and inner forestay and one for the masthead and fractional spinnakers/gennikers. Being able to flying masthead and fractional kites is a new mod for this year that came at the same time as Stamm fitted his new mast and allows him more modes, and the boat a more rounded performance. Emma Richards' Pindar for example does not have this. Like many of the 60footer Stamm has opted for continuous line furling (rather than a drum, where the furling line can snag always at the most inconvient moment).

The new mast is another carbon fibre affair, with full width swept back spreaders that in light to moderate conditions will hold the rig up even if the skipper isn't completely on the case with the runners. With the new rig Stamm has opted for rigging in lightweight PBO instead of rod - a majority of the Open 60s have gone to PBO for its lightweight to improve the all-important stability of their boats by reducing weight aloft. The rigging is held in place by a combination of vectran lashings and turnbuckles.