Vendee Globe winner?

Having created the boat that won the last two Vendees, Michel Desjoyeaux gives us the guided tour to his new Foncia

One of the most special Open 60s we have eagerly been awaiting the launch of this year has been that of Michel Desjoyeaux's new Foncia. Desjoyeaux, also know as 'Le Professeur', not due to his eccentric hairstyle, but due to the reputation he has earned for freely imparting his knowledge to newbie Figaro sailors, of course won the Vendee Globe in 2000 just ahead of Ellen MacArthur. But this is only one highlight of a career that includes winning the 2002 Route du Rhum, albeit at the front of a decimated fleet of ORMA 60 trimarans and then winning the Transat in 2004 in the 60ft three hulled class. In addition to winning the 'big three' oceanic races, Desjoyaux this year won his third Solitaire du Figaro (now ranking him alongside solo offshore racing titans Jean le Cam and Philippe Poupon). While Poupon won the Transat (then known as the OSTAR) and the Route du Rhum, he never managed to win the Vendee Globe, thus making Desjoyeaux the most successful skipper in solo offshore racing history.



Desjoyeaux's mentor, like so many French skippers of his generation, including Roland Jourdain and Jean le Cam, was the late great Eric Tabarly and from Tabarly Desjoyeaux inherited a strong desire to innovate and pioneer. This was seen on his last Open 60 PRB which had a rotating wingmast rig with hinged spreaders, a single central tackable daggerboard, twin kick-up rudders mounted within a transom 'sugar scoop' and 'le maison', the central area of his accommodation, including the chart table and galley area which could be canted up to windward in its entirety. The boat was designed by Finot-Conq, but in typical Desjoyeaux fashion combined a Finot-Conq hull with a deck moulding taken from Catherine Chabaud's Marc Lombard-designed Whirlpool. Aboard this incredible boat, PRB, Desjoyeaux won the 2000, and then as he jumped ship to go trimaran racing on board his new Geant, handed the boat to his shore crew Vincent Riou, who then won the 2004 Vendee Globe in her. This boat, the only double Vendee Globe winner, is now Sam Davies' Roxybut its direct descendant is the new Foncia.

After sponsor hunting for many months, Desjoyeaux was finally appointed skipper of the new Foncia, traditionally the backer of Alain Gautier, winner of the Vendee Globe in 1992. Desjoyeaux teamed up with Vincent Riou who had backing for a brand new PRB Open 60 and both boats were built in their hometown of Port la Foret, by CDK Composites, run by Desjoyeaux's elder brother to a design by Farr. With sponsorship in place PRB was the first of the two to be launched around a year ago, just in time for the 2006 Route du Rhum. With Desjoyeaux's delay in finding sponsorship, Foncia was only launched this summer and on her first competitive outing she won the SNSM Trophy race.

Both PRB and Foncia obviously share the same hull and deck moulds - they are believed to be the beamiest of the six new Farr Open 60s, although this is a matter of only a few centimetres. Both boats are also fitted with wingmasts and deck spreaders, an arrangement Yves Parlier first fitted to his Aquitaine Innovations Open 60 eleven years ago. Both have the same canting keel arrangement with a single ram mounted to starboard, twin kick-up rudders and three pairs of giant waterballast tanks.

So they're the same? Far from it!

The interior and cockpit layout on Foncia is very different. Firstly there is effectively no interior furniture. There is no chart table, merely a bunch of electronics attached to the main bulkhead aft of the keel compartment. Most unusual about the accommodation are the two, what can only be described as, carbon fibre planks that run aft through the middle of the main cabin area, upwards and outwards. While all the other Farr Open 60s have a centre tunnel for all the halyards running through the top of the cabintop back to a central pit area, located between the two companionways, on Foncia the halyards, reef lines, etc drop vertically down from the mast by around 1m before reaching a turning block. They then are funnelled back to the cockpit inside the two plank/tunnels. Because each rope only goes around a sheave once Desjoyeaux maintains that his system has a lower friction than that of his opponents.

Finally, Desjoyeaux addresses a point we have been longing to hear from some of the Open 60 campaigns this time around: With rigs and sail plans getting larger and larger, what is being done to improve the efficiency of the lone skipper attempting to handle it? "You are not very powerful regarding the sail area you have so you have to try and find solutions," says Desjoyeaux, who admits that he doesn't enjoy the gym, so he prefers to find a technical solution. Since he last sailed the Vendee Globe, coffee grinders have become standard fit (only Ellen had one in the 2000 race), some such as Ecover even have two, while primary winches have increased by one and occasionally two sizes compared to the last generation of boats.



When we interviewed him following his 2000 Vendee Globe win Desjoyeaux attributed one reason for his success to PRB's sail plan being relatively small and managable - citing the three lead boats, including Ellen MacArthur's Kingfisher as having this same characteristic.

So what happened to that argument? "Now everyone is big!" admits Desjoyeaux. "But we are the smallest of the big ones!" Foncia's rig is around 28m tall while others among the new boats are typically 29-30m. The largest (or shortest depending upon how mean you're being) is that of the new Pindar at a whopping 32m, says Desjoyeaux. One reason they were able to opt for a shorter rig was because it is a rotating wingmast and supposed more efficient as a result.

"I don’t say it is too much," says Desjoyeaux of the height of the competition's spars. "It is just not the choice we made. The discussion with Pat [Shaugnessy] at the Farr office was to quantify the input under the theoretical polar curve because of only having one guy to manage such a big sail area. We decided to be not conservative – because it is already 28m, which is almost the same as Geant - and the boat is designed around his concept."

Desjoyeaux says that the mast on Foncia is only half a metre shorter than Geant's but the mainsail is bigger. "We wanted to use the spare battens from Geant on this mainsail and they are too short. We needed 20cm more! Imagine!"

Aside from the rig another area they have attempted to focus on (as have several other teams) is on absolutely minimising weight. "Inside there is nothing. There is no chart table. There is nothing - minimum, minimum, minimum. That allowed us to have a boat that is 300kg lighter than was designed or how PRB was at the beginning. This is good news because it means we have won everywhere except in the keel because we have a keel that is a bit heavier than was designed."

Desjoyeaux won't say exactly how much the new Foncia weighs, but says it is 'closer to 8 tonnes than 9' while implying that PRB and Delta Dore are closer to 9 tonnes than 8. He reckons Marc Guillemot's Safran to be lighter still - just 8 tonnes.

While the hull is the same as the new PRB's Desjoyeaux reckons it is a different design to Virbac Paprec and Gitana Eighty, both these boats being fitted with a large planing board under their transom. So did he consider this system?

"Pat Shaugnessy [at Farr Yacht Design] proposed this system to us but the advantage they were able to appreciate - not to calculate - is a few hours around the world, so with Vincent we said we are not interested by such a complex system for such a small possible advantage which is also a few kilograms at the aft end of the boat. Obviously you want to lift the back of the boat so it is a bit contradictory to add weight at a place where you would like to remove it."

Desjoyeaux says that they are still keeping close tabs (ha!) on Virbac and Gitana Eight and if they do indicate a noticable improvement in performance will look at retrofitting such a device or similar to Foncia.

Not having the planing board does have advantages. It has allowed them to fit kick-up rudders within the transom sugar scoop rather than off the transom, a very neat arrangement as it was on his old PRB, although considerably refined. Now for example instead of having a sacrifical pin break in the event of a rudder colliding with something they have a rope system, where the rope keeping the rudder in its down position gets ripped out of a clutch.

"It is working because we already touched something during the SNSM Trophy," says Desjoyeaux of the new system. The rope broke in the clutch and it was then simply a case of changing it out.

The rudder system is otherwise entirely built in carbon fibre - including the pivot pins. The only non-carbon part is a single stainless bolt.

As on PRB the twin rudders are operated by a tiller in the middle of the cockpit, but while on PRB this has a conventional tiller extension on it (or it did when we saw it last year) on Foncia there is V-shaped tiller. Oddly this has the coffee grinder mounted within the 'V' which looks like a compromise. However the tiller system makes sense allowing Desjoyeaux to sit in comfort to weather within easy reach of all the sheets.

Like Gitana Eighty and Virbac, Foncia also features a substantial pull-back cover that encloses an extra 1.5m or so of the cockpit, including the steering position and within the hatch on each side there is a perspex bubble allowing the helmsman a view up towards the sails and forwards. Desjoyeaux, it should be remembered, was the first person to introduce protection around the helming stations on his 60ft trimaran, something that has now become standard fit on all the (remaining) boats in this class. He admits that the sliding hatch is the only item on Foncia where his desire to cut weight was compromised. Even so, he maintains that his hatch is lighter than those on the other Farr boats - it is only one piece and is on the outside of the cabintop rather than being a three part hatch sliding back from within the cabintop arch.

Foncia of course has the 'Desjoyeaux' C-shaped track for both the mainsheet and the vang, that has been a feature of his boats since he sailed in the Mini class. Similar arrangements are to be found on his old PRB, Generali, Britair and Groupe Bel. The mounting for the track also forms the back wall of the cockpit with large triangular-shaped cut-outs in it to allow water to exit - a similar arrangement to his old PRB.

In the name of weight saving, the cockpit also features just four winches - most of the other new Open 60s typically have five.

Going forward there are no tracks for the headsail sheets. Instead there is a ring system that can be moved up and down or laterally. Again this is a feature on several of the new boats, but on Foncia there are twin rings allowing headsails to be changed without the potential complications presented when two sheets pass through the same ring.



Then there are the two deck spreaders (or 'outriggers' as Desjoyeaux calls them). In addition to being a low centre of gravity way of stepping a rotating wingmast, by widening the shroud base and allowing smaller diameter rigging to be used, their geometry also allows Desjoyeaux to gybe without having to worry about the runners, which can be wound up after the maneouvre. In addition to this the deck spreaders are also used a convenient sheeting point for the downwind headsails.

Just forward of this are the twin asymetric daggerboards. These are very very long and higher aspect ratio than those found on the previous generation of boats and Desjoyeaux says he wanted them longer still, except that any longer and they would collide with the canted keel...

Immediately forward of the mast is the substantial dome for the Fleet 77 satcom transceiver. As on Hugo Boss this has a custom-built cover that forms part of the deck and presumably, as is the case on Alex Thomson's boat, forms part of a cabin top acreage necessary to help de-stabilise the boat during its 180degree inversion test, required by the class rules.

As on most of the new Open 60s all the headsails are on halyard locks, however Desjoyeaux prefers to use a more belt and braces remotely operated clutch at the top of the mast for the main halyard. Hydraulic downhauls are used on innermost storm jib/ORC while the Solent is permanently fixed on a furler, as it is on most of the 60s.

As always the sails for Foncia have been made by Incidences' Brest loft, that Desjoyeaux says he has been working with since 1987!

Back down below and as we have mentioned the interior fit-out is spartan to say the least. Aside from feeding halyards and reefing lines back to the cockpit the twin planks are also used as the mounting point for a detactible carbon fibre bucket seat, mounted on a lockable universal joint. Aside from being a comfy place to sit or sleep even, the seat has a window mounted in the cabintop above it allowing Desjoyeaux to check the trim or conditions outside, while a computer screen and autopilot control head is within reach of this seat, mounted on a beam. Desjoyeaux is also going to fit a foot rest to this set-up but this has yet to be installed. The seat is detachible from the beam, allowing it to be set up on the opposite beam, as he says it was too heavy to build two of them.




The 'galley' is minimalist in the extreme. A flimsy carbon fibre stand, which pulls out from beneath the cockpit on the starboard side, this features a one burner camping gas stove and the smallest of sinks.

There are twin pipecots mounted aft in the tunnels either side of the cockpit, but one gets the impression Desjoyeaux is not going to use these. An interesting feature of this area is the track mounted on in the inside of the topsides. This has a number of cars attached to it from which small blocks and tackles are used both to haul the stack up to weather but also to move the stack quickly fore and aft when required. Desjoyeaux has a number of purpose-built bags made up especially for stacking.

The water ballast arrangement on Foncia is similar to that on PRB with three pairs of enormous water tanks taking up most of the floor space. Desjoyeaux reckons that filling two of the tanks (the typical configuration) would add around 50% to the displacement of the boat. For added security (but complexity in the build) all the plumbing for the water ballast runs inside the tanks, including the intakes (or 'schnorkel' as Desjoyeaux calls it). "So if it leaks it is inside the tank."

While the ballast arrangement is similar to PRB, the bulkhead arrangement is different. On PRB the bulkheads fore and aft of the keel box are water tight, whereas on Foncia the forward one is not watertight, but there is an extra water tight bulk at the forward end of the sail area to comply with class rules.

Like everyone Desjoyeaux reckons the next Vendee Globe will be the most competitive on record, but says this is natural. "It is always the same progression since the beginning of the race. The first time they didn’t know where to go. This time we go to make a race, not a round the world tour."

As to why the event has suddenly become so popular, he feels that it is down to the duration of the race. "It is long enough for sponsors to have a return on their investment, which if you work correctly before the start and during the race, even if you are not first boat you can have good returns."

The only difference this time is that skippers will have to push that bit harder to win. "The way to sail will be a bit different and a bit higher than before. We discussed about spare parts we will carry or not carry on the boat and for sure we will carry less and less and less because we want to save weight as much as possible."

In terms of the performance of the new Fo ncia Desjoyeaux reckons that the boat is around half a knot faster upwind than his old PRB was and downwind he is still accumulating data. The upshot he reckons is that given reasonable weather conditions and a more competitive race, the time to complete the Vendee Globe could be as little as 85 days - approaching that of the Jules Verne Trophy of old...

More photos on the following pages...