The strongest Vendee Globe ever

We look at the new boats due to set sail next year from Les Sables d'Olonne

Skipper	Sponsor	Designer	Builder	Launching
Unai Basurko	BBK	Murray Burns Dovell	Kanga Birtles	2005
Vincent Riou	PRB	Farr Yacht Design	CDK	Sep-06
Jeremie Beyou	Delta Dore	Farr Yacht Design	JMV Industries	Sep-06
Dominique Wavre	Temenos	Owen Clarke	Southern Ocean Marine	Sep-06
Derek Hatfield	Spirit of Canada	Owen Clarke	Own team
Jean-Pierre Dick	Virbac-Paprec	Farr Yacht Design	Southern Ocean Marine	Jan-07
Yann Elies	Generali	Groupe Finot	Multiplast	Apr-07
Alex Thomson	Hugo Boss	Groupe Finot	Jason Carrington/Neville Hutton Boat Builders	May-07
Marc Guillemot	Safran	Guillaume Verdier/VPLP	Thierry Eleure	May-07
Michel Desjoyeaux	Foncia	Farr Yacht Design	CDK	May-07
Offshore Challenges	TBA	Farr Yacht Design	Own team in Cowes	May-07
Mike Sanderson	Pindar	Juan Kouyoumdjian	Cookson	Jun-07
Armel Le Cleac'h	BritAir	Groupe Finot	Multiplast	Jun-07
Mike Golding	Ecover	Owen Clarke	Hakes Marine	Jul-07
Kito de Pavant	Groupe Bel	Guillaume Verdier/VPLP	Indiana Yachts	Jul-07
Jonny Malbon	Artemis Ocean Racing	Simon Rogers		Jan-08
Dee Caffarri	Aviva	Owen Clarke		Spring 08
AN Other	TBA	Farr Yacht Design	Southern Ocean Marine
Boats changing hands
Bernard Stamm	Cheminees Poujoulat	ex Virbac
?		ex Pindar/Hexagon/Artemis
Sam Davies	Roxy	ex PRB
Yannick Bestaven		ex Aquitaine Innovations
?		ex Cheminees Poujoulat
?		ex Ecover
Jean-Philippe Chomette	Solune 2	ex VMI/Sodebo
Dee Caffarri	Aviva	ex Ecover/Hellomoto

The 2008-9 Vendee Globe is lining up to be one of the greatest ocean races ever. At present we count 17 new generation Open 60s either recently launched, currently under construction or soon to start and despite being designed for solo sailing these boats represent some of the world fastest ocean racing monohulls. As Juan Kouyoumdjian, designer of Mike Sanderson's new Pindar Open 60, puts it - on the computer at least, the only occasion they will be slower than a Volvo 70 is upwind in medium to heavy air (read our interview with Juan here).

According to the Notice of Race a maximum of 27 boats can take part in the 2008 Vendee Globe - as Denis Horeau, who is most likely to be Race Director of the event, explains this is a limitation on the pontoons in Les Sables d'Olonne. The area around these and leading out to the Channel must be dredged in order to allow in such a large fleet of boats each drawing 4.5m. Then there are boats with awkward deck spreaders taking up additional pontoon space.

Three of the 27 entries will be 'wild cards', and unlike the Mini Transat where they tend to be reserved for foreign entries, Horeau sees these being used for those who have struggled to meet the qualification deadline of 1 July 2008 through some unforeseen technical disaster such as keel trouble - as happen to Roland Jourdain's Sill & Veolia prior to the last race - or dismastings. At present potential entries must pre-register and to ensure these are serious, pre-registry must be accompanied by a 20,000 Euro entry fee - increased from previous years. The list of pre-entries is to be published mid-March.

Considering what is known about the entries to date, Horeau thinks it likely on this occasion that 27 boats could be on the start line, much increased from the 20 entries in the 2004-5 event. It is even conceivable that there might be even a few disappointed entries who won't make it. Confirmed entry is on the basis of who is first to meet the qualification requirements and as with the Mini, teams may find the race is on just to qualify as rapidly as possible.

With the large number of boats in build and the increased professionalism and competitiveness between campaigns, designers and teams are keeping their cards more closely to their chest than ever and at present there are still a number of boats particularly from Groupe Finot and the new collaboration of Guillaume Verdier and ORMA 60 trimaran gurus Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost that little is technical detail is known about publicly as yet.

It may still be that some boats don't fall in line with current trends, but generally boats for the 2008 Vendee Globe appear to be more powerful from the overall size of their sail plans, down to the overall beam of the hull, to the bulb weight and canting angle of the keel to the amount of water ballast carried down below.





This has already become evident with the latest offerings from Farr Yacht Design, the most prolific design house for the next Vendee Globe. The first two of their new generation boats were launched prior to last year's Route du Rhum - Vincent Riou's PRB 2 and Jeremie Beyou's Delta Dore(read more about these here). As with all the Open 60s, the most striking difference between these two boats was with their rigs, PRB reverting to a rotating wingmast and deck spreader arrangement similar to that originally used on Yves Parlier's Aquitaine Innovations 11 years ago (the first Open 60 to sport a rotating wingmast), while Delta Dore was fitted with a rotating mast but with three sets of hinged spreaders. Unfortunately in the Route du Rhum neither boat made it out of the English Channel, Beyou pulling in for personal reasons and PRB dismasting.



Since then Jean-Pierre Dick has launched his new Virbac-Paprec, his old boat now sold to Bernard Stamm (read our interview with Dick and Farr's Russell Bowler here). While the previous two Farr designs were built in France, Dick once again chose to build in New Zealand partly for reasons of cost, but also to enable him to get some more miles under his belt sailing the new boat back to Europe. The new Virbac Paprec is innovative in having a planing board/trim tab beneath her transom and a sliding hatch arrangement to cover the cockpit back to the runner winches. She too has a different rig to the first two boats with an arrangement similar to that used by Mike Golding on the present Ecover - where the spar, braced by two sets of diamonds, rotates within fixed shrouds and a single spreader. The only difference with the new Virbac Paprec is that her rig appears to have shed the top set of diamonds. A second Farr boat is rumoured to be coming from her moulds at Southern Ocean Marine but at present there are no further details of this.

Some while back Michel Desjoyeaux announced that he was retiring temporarily from the ORMA 60ft trimaran circuit in order to compete in the 2008 Vendee Globe, following his win (often forgotten) ahead of Ellen MacArthur in the 2000-1 race. After months of speculation he has taken over Alain Gautier's trimaran sponsor Foncia and has a new Farr design under construction at CDK Composites, run by his brother in Port la Foret. Her hull will be a sistership to Vincent Riou's new PRB - Riou left Desjoyeaux's company Mer Agitee in October last year - but otherwise we can expect the new Foncia to incorporate considerable innovation for which Desjoyeaux has become renowned.

Meanwhile another Farr Open 60 is under construction at the former GBR Challenge facility in Cowes, the latest craft for Ellen MacArthur and Mark Turner's Offshore Challenges Sailing Team. Her launch is expected in early May. No technical details are available about the boat, but it is expected to be fairly 'vanilla'. While Dame Ellen MacArthur has categorically stated she won't be competing in the next Vendee Globe her sailing in the first event for the boat, the Calais Round Britain Race, has not been discounted, while present favourites to skipper the boat in this year's Barcelona World Race are rumoured to be Brian Thompson and Spanish Volvo and maxi-cat veteran Guillermo Altadill. OC may build at least one more new boat is they are able to rustle up sponsorship.



Owen Clarke have already launched the new Temenos II for highly experienced Swiss skipper Dominique Wavre. With the retirement of the Farr boats, Temenos II was the only new Open 60 to complete the Route du Rhum where Wavre finished a disappointing fifth.



Over in Canada Derek Hatfield is finishing off his new Spirit of Canada, believed to be similar in design to Mike Golding's present Ecover. She is due to compete in this year's Transat Jacques Vabre. Meanwhile build of the new Ecover is well progressed down at Hakes Marine in Wellington (Mike Golding talks about his new boat here). Dee Caffarri has also opted to go with Owen Clarke for her new Aviva Open 60, but at present a builder has yet to be finalised and this is lining up to to be one of the last new Open 60s launched for the Vendee Globe.





Open 60 veterans, Groupe Finot, the French design house in the past responsible for some of the widest boats seen in the class and who have penned the last four Vendee Globe winners have three new boats on the stocks. Oddly Groupe Finot had no new commissions for the last race (while this time Marc Lombard, designer of 2004-5 race favourites Sill and Bonduelle has no new commissions). The new designs by Jean-Marie Finot and Pascal Conq and their team include Alex Thomson's new Hugo Boss as well as the new Generali for Yann Elies and the new BritAir for Armel le Cleac'h. Preliminary drawings show that these boats may have similar added cockpit protection to Virbac-Paprec.



One of the most radical new Open 60s will be Juan Kouyoumdjian's Pindar for skipper Mike Sanderson. The Volvo Ocean Race winner seems less than keen to compete in the Vendee Globe, as due to the Volvo Ocean Race being held a year earlier the two events clash. However that does not mean the boat will not compete in this race with another skipper. Juan K is known for drawing extreme boats and the new Pindar is likely to be no exception. Oddly given Juan K's success in the Volvo Ocean Race, to date this is his only firm Open 60 commission. The boat is expected to be on the start line of the Transat Jacques Vabre later this year.

Aside from Juan K the only other new design partnership fielding boats in the Vendee Globe are talented French architect Guillaume Verdier, presently with K Challenge/Areva, who has teamed up with ORMA 60 trimaran specialists, Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost, recently announced as designers of the new Coutts-Cayard catamarans. This partnership has the new Groupe Saffran in build for Marc Guillemot and a new Groupe Bel for Kito de Pavant. The latter is being constructed by Indiana Yachts in Italy, who have been involved with the last Luna Rossa/Prada builds, while the former is being put together by Thierry Eluere who is Yves Parlier's regular boat builder.

These two boats are coming from different moulds and as Vincent Lauriot Prevost puts it the skippers have differing ideas when it comes to cockpit and deck layout and the rig format, however the hull form, basic structure and the keel and keel attachment will be the same for both boats. While VPLP have been handling the development work on the appendages, the VPP, the sail plan and deck layout, Verdier has mainly been in charge of the hull form development and the structure.

While again specific details about these boats are few and far between it is possible they will be slightly simpler and therefore lighter than the new Farr boats. There is also a possibility that they won't be maximum power machines. As Lauriot Prevost puts it: "They are boats for the Vendee, so why have too tall a mast if you are always reefed. So we tried to have a boat that is easy to handle for the skipper to be able to exploit it to the maximum range. It is not a boat issued purely from the VPP. If it was, it is like for multihulls, you increase the power and the sail area and you are faster. The VPPs definitely say that."

There is a lot of hardware being launched this year in the IMOCA Open 60 class, but it is also refreshing to see a new batch of talented sailors coming into the class. Marc Guillemot for example is a multihull racer of erm, at least 20 years experience having most recently skippered the Biscuits la Trinitaine trimarans. However the largest recruitment as ever has come from the Figaro class, where several of the top sailors have now graduated up. These include former Solitaire du Figaro winners, Jeremie Beyou, Armel le Cleac'h and Kito de Pavant. Yann Elies has not won a Figaro but has come close on many occasions and was part of Bruno Peyron's Orange Jules Verne Trophy winning crew.

There is also a substantial increase in the number of Brits competing. This time round Mike Golding and Alex Thomson, who competed in the last race, are being joined by Dee Caffarri, the first woman to sail round the world westabout non-stop, and former Kingfisher and Artemis boat captain Jonny Malbon who has recently taken over the helm of the Artemis Ocean Racing Open 60 from Brian Thompson and has a new Simon Rogers-designed Artemis Ocean Racing soon to be built.

A potential entry from the US is once again Bruce Schwab who is touting around designs for a new Alan Andrews-designed Open 60, Ocean Planet II. While he is likely to be joined by Great American skipper Rich Wilson who has purchased Thierry Dubois' Solidaires.





And this is just new hardware. Brittany-based English sailor Sam Davies this year takes over the reigns from Anne Liardet of Roxy, the former PRB winner of the last two Vendee Globes. Conrad Humphreys is expected to make an announcement soon and this could be for a new or a second hand boat. Mini turned Class 40 sailors Phil Sharp and Nick Bubb are looking to graduate up, mounting campaigns on secondhand boats, while Steve White has already acquired Josh Hall's former Gartmore. Thus in theory there could be at least eight British skippered Open 60s on the start line...

There is obviously similar action going on in the secondhand market in France where former Mini sailor have acquired Yves Parlier's former Aquitaine Innovations.

More news will come in mid-March when the preliminary list of entries for the Vendee Globe is published.