Mad voyage

We speak to Yves Parlier about the beating he took crossing the Atlantic in his new catamaran

There has been no shortage of war stories from The Transat: the dismasted monohulls, the keel breakage on Bernard Stamm's Open 60. Ironically statistics from this race give the impression that 60ft multihulls are more reliable and seaworthy vessels than Open 60s. One of the most incredible tales from the race was that of Yves Parlier's seaplane-hulled, twin wingmasted Region Mediatis Aquitaine catamaran.

Parlier sailed his new catamaran in the race despite knowing beforehand that it was going to be an unpleasant ride ( click here to read about her pre-race sea trials). In the event on his arrival in Boston at the end of the race the French sailing legend, said that the ordeal had in many ways been harder than his experience in the last Vendee.

So do you regret doing the race, Yves Parlier? "No, no - it is a good thing. Every 60 footer I have my first race is this one." Previously Parlier has sailed two Open 60s in the race the wrong way across the Atlantic - Cacolac d'Aquitaine in which he set the monohull course record in 1992 (which stood until broken by Mike Golding this year) and subsequently the radical wingmasted Aquitaine Innovations four years later.

"The history of this race, is that every guy builds a boat for this race and tests it for the first time. This was the first Atlantic race and sometimes I think about the guys in 1976 when they had five lows and when Eric Tabarly wins and all the old tris and cats break. And I say 'it doesn’t matter', you must be very happy: you have a pilot, you have your boat, you have your mast and when I heard about the boats that had broken their masts and their keels, I said - keep your strategy."

For Parlier The Transat has been a testing ground for his new boat. Thus for the most part he sailed it conservatively by 60ft multihull standards.

His race did not start well as on the way out to the start line he switched on the autopilot to find there was a fault with it. They did an about-turn and headed back for Plymouth Yacht Haven, but Parlier says they were unable to find what was wrong. Region Mediatis Aquitaine crossed the line 30 minutes after the gun (see the video of her storming through the fleet - here).

"The start was very hard with the wind and no visibility and all the spectators boats coming back and the monohulls," recounts Parlier. "After the Eddystone I was very happy. I was in the sea and I was okay and I make my race without very much information on the other boats."



The reason for this he says was less due to any computer or comms issues, but perhaps because he had started late and that his agenda was slightly different - he was out there to test his boat - and seeing the trimarans screaming away from him he would have found depressing for someone normally used to leading. "During the first night and first morning, I saw Foncia and she was going upwind better and faster than me. We stayed together for two hours."

Their crossing of the first high pressure ridge went well but their tackling of the first depression was not so successful. "We hoped to be in the north but we didn’t get there at the right time," says Parlier. "I had good speed before the low when we catch the southeasterly and south wind, but when the wind was going southwest it was very hard. Then I decided to pull down all the sail and to stay with two masts only."

Under this configuration the boat, he says, felt very secure (with no sails up his catamaran is effectively a giant raft). His track at the time shows him sailing a less than profitable course to the SSE, almost at right angles to the course. Parlier explains that this was because he was only sailing under the masts and thus he had no pointing ability. "I just had to stay without sail and without trying to climb upwind, but the boat was very secure. For me it was better to wait like. It was the first time for me to sail with this kind of wind. Before that the maximum wind was 25 knots in upwind conditions with crew. And I don’t know how the masts are going with two reefs, because with two reefs we have no forestay and how the boat can go with just one mainsail with two reefs or only the jib. If you are alone if there is a problem you see it too late. It was easier for me to say ‘stop. We wait’ And the strategy was to arrive in Boston, without breaking the mast or anything like that."

While he says that the most wind he saw was 50 knots, as ever the bigger problem was waves. This was also interesting research for him. His catamaran is almost as wide as the G-class cats twice the length of his boat and the two hulls are almost always effected by different waves making the trampoline area between them a hazardous place. Waves would occasionally crash down on to the boat or into the cockpit sending terrible reverbations through the boat - much more so than on the trimarans he sailed, says Parlier. "I remember Primagaz and Banque Populaire - they have a very soft structure. We have a very rigid structure but I think it would be better if it was lighter and more soft."

In the early stages of the race and particularly in the first depression Parlier had been pushing when conditions were right, but had gone into boat (and skipper) preservation mode when they were not. For the second depression the multihulls encountered he decided to try a different approach.

"For the second depression we decided to go through just to the south of the middle and in the beginning there was not very heavy wind. Then the wind went to the NNW and I think the boat can go fast with a cross wind and I say ‘this time I make speed’. So I kept the sails - the jib, two reefs in the upwind main, one reef in the downwind main, ballast, and ‘chuff’ through the waves, the boat must be fast. But the boat didn’t have good speed - 15 knots, no more - and it was very hard."

The waves were from the wrong direction and the boat couldn't accelerate and Parlier says that maybe his sails were too full as well. The experience was also taking its toll on him: "I was in my hull and I was afraid. I was not happy because the boat was not making good speed and the wind grew and I said 'no, I don’t want to change the sail', but at one time I see by the flashlight that the downwind mainsail was too much released and was flapping in the wind and had broken. For me it was very difficult and it was a big mistake of me. I say ‘why did I do that?' Now I have just one mainsail and I have difficulty to put it down and I break some battens and the lazyjacks."

Sailing under one reef, the port mainsail had split below the second reef and for the rest of the race Parlier had to keep two reefs in that sail.

Parlier says that it is not the size of the waves that are an impediment - it is their direction. "When we are in the same direction as the waves, downwind with 20 knots to 30 knots - this is very good for the boat."

Sailing to the SSE of Newfoundland and resuming 'boat preservation' mode Parlier then had to tackle a problem with his autopilots. On board he runs his own 'custom' PC-based pilot as well as a B&G one. These operate a Raymarine drive that controls the awkward multi-part tiller bar arrangement that runs around the rear of the aft beam. First the Raymarine drive developed a grinding noise and Parlier felt he should replace it before it went terminal. He then experienced an electrical problem. After 10 hours with the sails down pondering this, either helming manually or with elastic holding the tiller, he put back the old drive unit and traced the fault back to the crossover box between the pilots.

For the remainder of the race the winds remained reasonably light and Parlier was able to make good speed. Arriving in Boston on Sunday the boat looked in places like it had been through the wars. One of the rudders had suffered a blow from a whale. However conditions on board had taken their toll on Parlier, whose hands had almost doubled in size from prolonged exposure to salt water.

Even in relatively light conditions the motion of the boat had made it hard to live on. For the duration of the race Parlier went without hot food - even in the freezing conditions in the Labrador Current to the east of Newfoundland. "I never cooked anything. I ate dry fruit, cheese, chocolate, cold meat, dry meat and some fish like tuna, bread. But no hot food. It was too hard to make it hot." Everything down below was soaking wet. If he had been able to light the stove keeping a kettle on it would have been hard and trying to pour boiling water into a mug and then keep it there, impossible.

In some conditions sleeping in the weather hull was almost impossible. "The biggest problem is when you are in the hull upwind, it is very light and it touch only on the top of the waves…poff, poff, poff, poff. When you are inside, it goes BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG…" He says that while it would be more comfortable to sleep in the more heavily depressed leeward hull, there he doesn't get any indication of how heavily the boat is powered up. If while he is in the weather hull there is a sudden silence then Parlier says he can release a sheet or can bear away using the autopilot.

So what did he learn from The Transat? "You must be an iron man to sail this boat alone, and I am not an iron man because I spent a lot of time in the hull and it is not in the hull that I can make a good sail with this boat."

But as a continuation of the tests for the boat Parlier says it is was invaluable. The boat is clearly hideous upwind and he thinks that the only way round this would be to give the boat a more nose-down trim, perhaps by filling the forward water ballast tank and pushing the transom up using a T-foil (he says the fitting of inclinable rudder T-foils, a la International 14, will take place this winter).

He also recognised that more must be done to protect the cockpit from spray. Fitting some sort of windscreen to each cockpit will be hard because of possible damage from the boom. "We think about small things to protect the cockpit but it is not very easy. We must have something strong, because maybe some waves could break it. I regret maybe not having a central cockpit because if I have a central cockpit I can be dry. The water is over the hull not in the middle and that could be a change of the boat, but I don’t know if we will do that. We’ll sail it with a crew to see."

While Parlier fully admits that The Transat is not a good race for his boat, next up will be the Quebec-St Malo race starting on 11 July, which, once out of the St Laurence River, should be a downwind race with potential for Mediatis Region Aquitaine to show her potential. This he will sail with his crew including designer Romaric ??, Mini Transat winner Yannick Bestaven, and Stephane Herve and Jean-Marie Dorris.

"I think it will be very hard but with a crew it is more possible and I think the boat will be able to be sailed at the maximum planning. I hope we have good conditions downwind to make this time a race, no necessarily to win, but to be competitive with the trimarans."

This will be no mean feat. In the Quebec-St Malo race four years ago the trimarans logged their highest ever speeds - covering more than 620 miles in a day. This only represents an average of 25.8 knots, while given optimum conditions Parlier's speedster should be capable of peak speeds in the 40s and averages in the 30s...

More photos on page 2...