The monster - part 2

We look at Bruno Peyron's second generation G-Class cataraman

This article continues on from part one published yesterday

To date Orange 2 has less than 1,000 miles on the clock but these included a trip up to Falmouth and back - both legs were upwind in 40 knots - to test the structure. She passed with flying colours.

Structural analysis on Orange 2 was, like the first generation Ollier cats, carried out by Herve Devaux and the Ecole Centrale de Nantes university. Some impressive engineering stats for the boat include the 100 tonnes compression loads at the mast step that are handled in the mast beam by an area of solid carbon 150mm thick and the enormous martingale (seagull striker) on the foreward beam in 60mm Kevlar that is speced for a 180 tonnes breaking load.

A problem identified in the 60ft trimaran class, particularly following the disasterous 2002 Route du Rhum, was that breakages in the latest boats may have occurred because a combination of very stiff hulls built in carbon/Nomex and low stretch PBO rigging and laminated or Cuben fibre sails was reducing the amount of 'give' in the structure, reducing their resistance to shock loads.

Thus while a majority of Orange II's construction is in carbon fibre/Nomex, the underside of the crossbeams are foam-cored. Similarly the rigging is in Kevlar - offering the possibility of marginally more stretch than PBO. High modulus carbon is used in the cross beams and mast as it was in the first generation boats, but the highest modulus is M40J rather than M55. Franck Martin says this latter material is very difficult to handle, because it is very brittle and it is also very expensive. "You can roll it through your fingers and - ‘poop’ - it breaks and from M55 you get to M0! And if you don’t see it, it is very dangerous. M55 is so stiff that when you drill it you can initiate a delamination around the hole."

One of the technological limits that has been reached with Orange II is the spec of the rudder. "Before the speeds of the boats were such that the daggerboard had a skin with some foam around it and a little bit of reinforcement on the side.," says Franck Martin. "Then when the speed increases the load increases to the square so we make the reinforcement wider and wider and wider. And now we are at the stage where the stock is solid carbon, 160mm thick. So now what do we do? We have reached the limit.
So either we have a new kind of fibre or maybe the boat has a lot more inertia so maybe now you don’t expect to steer the boat such as placing it on a wave and steering down it - you just go straight."

At 45m off the deck, the mast is believed to be the tallest wingmast ever built, but is also different from the first generation boats. "It is more like a chimney mast, it is a small cord mast," says Franck Martin. "Because of the hull shape we were afraid that the hull would pitch a lot so in order to decrease that we wanted to lower the centre of gravity a little." The mast is also monolithic and unlike the older generation spars has no sandwich core. "The trade-off is that we increase windage but we lower the centre of gravity - we don’t have any tool to say which is right, so we just go on our experience."

Once again the structure in the mast is also beefier with the idea that the crew won't have to worry about breaking the mast. There appear to be reinforcement on the outside of the mast in key areas to absorb the impact should blocks or anything crash into it. "You have to remember the context as well. The mast was designed one month after the Route du Rhum and it was not the fashion to take risks at that time!" says Franck Martin. The main beam and mast are also located slightly further aft in the boat than the first generationers.

The sails have been developed by Jean-Baptiste Levaillon from the Incidences loft. Most of the wardrobe is in lightweight, waterproof but costly Cuben fibre. On our trip from Lorient to La Trinite we flew the full main and blade (a large light wind upwind sail/moderate air reacher) and in about 4 knots of breeze Orange II was making 5-6 knots and tacking through 110 degrees. Aside from the blade and the 470sqm mainsail the boat carries a solent jib, another non-overlapping jib, a staysail and a storm jib, while downwind sails include a 'Max' genniker, a medium genniker and a storm chute flown between the forestay and inner forestay.

The inner forestay can be removed to allow easier handling of the big headsails. All the headsails are tacked on to a beam that extends forward from the maststep, as on the previous boats.

One of the problems experienced early on with the first generation Ollier cats was with the padeyes which cost Spinlock many rum and cokes when the boats finished The Race. Orange II instead uses Spectra loops throughout and as is the current trend with boats of this kind there is the increased use of old ship technology such as 'dogbones'.

On deck each hull once again has its own cockpit with sail controls duplicated in each. The cockpit layout has changed significantly with the helm position moved forwards. There are also four coffee grinders compared to the two found on Club Med and Innovation Explorer and three on Team Adventure. The grinders can obviously all be linked together and as a result around 25% more grinding power is on tap. When we were on board the mainsail was hoisted in just 4 minutes 50 seconds with eight men on the pumps.

Probably the single most important issue in conceiving any G-class multihull is judging how large to make it so that it can be handled by the crew. With Orange II the assumptions about what a crew can handle without resorting to powered winches has seen a marked increase. "This boat is much more physical than the previous ones," says Franck Martin. "The sails are bigger. For anything you do on board you need four people on the grinders. On average there is a 40% increase in loads like on the primary sheets. The pull is 9.5 tonnes for the foresail sheet while on the previous generation it was about 6.5-7 tonnes." A 40% increase in loads and a 25% increase in grinder power - the crew will therefore have to work 15% harder.

Another sop to crew comfort is the increased protection in the cockpit. The coaming is higher on the outboard side of the cockpit and the doghouse is also enlarged. It is possible for the four stand-by watch to be kitted up and sit comfortable beneath the doghouse.

Down below the layout is very similar to the first generation boats. The accommodation doesn't extend forward, although the bows are used for some stowage. The starboard hull has the main galley area forward with a head compartment just aft of it on the inboard side opposite a large hanging area for oilskins - sealed by a large zip-up flap. Aft from here is a door on the inboard side into the engine room. The engines are not being removed for Orange II's forthcoming Jules Verne attempt.

The design team has spent much time improving the ergonomics of the layout. Thus the pipecots are aft from here and look bigger with more headroom than on the old boats. Swedish crewman Klabbe Nylof says they are a lot more comfortable than the ones he enjoyed on Assa Abloy in the last Volvo Ocean Race. Each crewman has his own bunk. As usual the carbon down below has been left unpainted making for a very dark inside to the boat.

The area aft in the starboard hull is once again the lair of the navigator, in this case round the world veteran Roger Nilson. All the expected gear is here, along a wealth of satcoms equipment. The comms spec includes two Fleet 77s, one Fleet 33, twin Iridium phones and two Inmarsat C terminals. A significant step forward, made by computer guru Eduardo Valderas who was attached to the Amer Sport campaign during the last Volvo Ocean Race, is that they have managed to get the Fleet 77s working in unison so that they can now communicate at 128 kb/sec instead of 64. The boat is also to be fitted with a wireless network and, as on Kingfisher II, each of the crew is to be given a Sony Clie PDA from which they can send and receive email wirelessly from the privacy of their own bunk.



Above: Bruno Peyron

Nilson will also be using Valderas' own Vigor software. This stores the exact location of webpages that are required on board and Nilson has a list of these pages he can edit prior to hitting the 'download' button that will automatically download just these pages. "So you download with one click," Nilson. "There is no browsing. Normally you have to do 100 clicks to find certain files on the internet. So this will to reduce time and money on the Internet. I used to download 250 weather files a day on the Volvo. With this software it took 1/10th the time and was 1/10th the cost. You can set up the software so you can leave and go and down something else for 20 minutes."

Just forward of the nav area is a ladder leading up to a hatch at the back of the cockpit and there is a new feature forward of this that is a like a mini chart table with a laptop computer. "That is Bruno's office," explains Roger Nilson. "If he wants to use MaxSea or do some routing there, he can also talk on the Inmarsat from there and he can be on data on the Iridium."

The layout in the port hull is similar. Instead of the galley forward the area here is principally a workshop area with a small galley. Aft there is the media station and the equivalent of Peyron's office Nilson describes as 'the cyber cafe'.

Another feature of the accommodation are the two ballast tanks that reside in each hull, each capable of carrying 3 tonnes of water ballast. Cleverly, as on the first generation boats, the forward tanks are mounted around the daggerboard case so that in the event of a severe collision rupturing the back of the case, it would open into the ballast tank rather than flooding the hull.

The forward tanks are used in the most severe conditions to weigh the boat down and hopefully prevent it from capsizing. These tanks start to be filled in 70 knots... Occasionally the leeward forward tank is used to add displacement to the boat and thus inertia when sailing upwind, although this may not be necessary on the new boat. The aft tanks are used sailing downwind in big conditions.

On the Jules Verne Trophy the crew are under instruction not to use the water ballast until they reach New Zealand and have eaten half the food on board.

In terms of a departure on the Jules Verne Trophy Peyron says they are ready but they won't start this week due to the big high pressure system over Europe. The latest they will leave is the first week in March. He adds that he is not worried or at all focussed on taking the record below 60 days - he merely wants a go at defending his title. Even in his new wonder boat breaking 60 days would be a mammoth task - if you add up the fastest runs for each leg of the Jules Verne Trophy course the total comes to just 59 days.

That the boat is ready to go is impressive considering that Orange II is one of the world's biggest race boats and first touched the water just seven weeks ago... "We have only had a short time to prepare the boat so there is a good chance we will not be at maximum potential, so we will still be learning the boat," says Peyron. They have chosen to spend time getting the boat sorted out technically rather than spend time training deep ocean, simply because they have a highly experienced crew many of whom sailed with Peyron on his last Jules Verne attempt.

Following on from the Jules Verne attempt Peyron says that we can expect to see Orange II in the UK where he plans to make attempts on the cross-Channel record, the round the island and round Britain and Ireland records. The boat is also likely to go to northern Europe where she may well take part in the Round Gotland Race. He also plans to have a go at the 24 hour record and it seems highly probable that 2004 will see the 700 mile barrier broken by one of the maxi-multihulls. Finally the boat will end up in the Med towards the end of the season.