Le Professeur

James Boyd looks at the making of Route du Rhum winner Michel Desjoyeaux

With his incredible sailing background, Isabelle Autissier picked Desjoyeaux to take over her Open 60 sponsorship with PRB and in 1999 he launched himself into the construction of a new Open 60 for the 2000/1 Vendee Globe.

Typically this was nothing conventional (see above). It was neither a Groupe Finot design nor a Lombard design, but instead combined a Finot hull with a Lombard deck. The boat had a rotating wingmast but with hinged spreaders (an idea borrowed from Tony Bullimore's Open 60 ketch Exide Challenger). It was also unique in having twin dinghy cat-style kick up rudders (a rather more complicated structure on a 60ft round the worlder) and 'le maison', the accommodation down below including the chart table, chart table and seat and galley which could be canted up to weather in its entirity.

The story of Desjoyeaux's Vendee Globe win is well known. At Cape Horn he had a massive lead, but was severely held up by the St Helena high and then the Doldrums allowing Ellen MacArthur to get into contention again and catch up. But Desjoyeaux clung on to the lead and went on to set a new record time in the non-stop singlehanded round the world race.

However Desjoyeaux's real passion has always lain in the pioneering, high performance 60ft trimaran class. During his career he has been much capped aboard this ultimate genre of boat. Aside from his Formula 40 experience he raced with Philippe Jeantot aboard the two time BOC Challenge winner's catamaran Credit Agricole II. Significantly with Jean Maurel he won the 1990 TwoSTAR aboard Maurel's Elf Aquitaine trimaran. He has also been closely involved with the radical tri-foiler L'Hydroptere.

In the 1990s he sailed on many of the top 60ft trimarans including Loick Peyron's Fujicolor, Francis Joyon's Banque Populaire and with the young fellow Figaro winner Franck Cammas on board Groupama. Ultimately he ended up as a regular crew on board Alain Gautier's 60ft trimaran Broceliande (later Foncia).

With his Vendee Globe victory under his belt Desjoyeaux was able to persuade the French supermarket chain Geant to fund his 60ft trimaran program.

To read the rest of the story about the development of Geant click here or read about some of her innovations.