What next for ORMA?

We get the views of Sopra skipper Antoine Koch

Like many of the ORMA teams in France still with 60ft trimarans, Sopra Group and their skipper Antoine Koch are at a crossroads as the class attempts to get their one design 70ft trimaran (read about this here) off the ground.

According to Koch, who turns 30 tomorrow, ORMA are still working on the one design concept and the design and technical side is well advanced. However before they can finally press the button on the project someone must sign up for the fifth boat.

"The ORMA fleet is examining the possibility of racing the existing boats in 2008 and maybe 2009 in some small races (but without a championship) to keep the boats and the crews running and ready for the future," Koch tells us. "But for most of the teams, such as Sopra Group, the main target for the tris in 2008 will be PR /corporate events. Even if it wasn't their initial design purpose, those boats are the ultimate PR boats (given flat seas)."



Koch says that he finds it inconceivable that the next Route du Rhum (in 2010) might be without some sort of big multihull class and we agree with him. Alongside the OSTAR, the Route du Rhum was the event that launched multihulls, when within sight of the finish line of the first race in 1978 Mike Birch's tiny Olympus Photo overtook Kriter V , a monohull twice her size to take line honours by just 98 seconds. At present one imagines that Pierre Bojic and his team at Pen Duick, the Route du Rhum's organisers, are waiting to see what ORMA can conjure up.

Koch points out that across the board the whole multihull world is in a state of flux at the moment. On the one hand the ORMA 60 class in France has died and the Tornado, as the situation stands at present, has been dropped from the Olympics for 2012. Meanwhile more boats than ever are taking part in the F18s, the Extreme 40s and even the next America's Cup is lining up to be held in multihulls depending on the outcome of the court action in New York. Ironically while the ORMA 60 has spun into oblivion, the last Route du Rhum and last year's Transat Jacques Vabre were both exceptional races for the ORMA trimarans with no major carnage and incredible times set by the crew. And then there is Francis Joyon's phenomenal singlehanded around the world record: "More proof that when they are well designed, built and sailed, multis are seaworthy," says Koch.

So what would Koch personally like to see happen to the ORMA class? "I am a naval architect and from the sailing point of view I come from the Figaro class. So from the sailing point of view a one design class is fun and you are sure your boat won’t be out-performed by a new boat, but it is a bit boring in terms of design. So it is very hard to know. The ORMA class is trying to organise itself and there are a lot of very good ideas in the class to try and establish a one design. Their point of view is that today, even if Groupama is faster than the other boats, in terms of technology all the boats are very close so they say it could be the time to go for a one design, even if it is a bit frustrating from an intellectual point of view. The races could be better in one design and most important, a boat could be good for five years or so and that wasn’t the case with the previous boats."

Aside from a catastrophic safety record in events such as the 2002 Route du Rhum and the Transat Jacques Vabre the following year, one of the reasons cited for the demise of the class was the trend as much towards inshore Grand Prix as the main shorthanded offshore events, hence boats getting bigger cockpits with the potential to be sailed by crews of more than 10.

Koch agrees this was an issue. "Some skippers don’t have the same point of view as me: I strongly believe that [the Grand Prix] was one of the weak points in the past with the class. From a design point of view it is absolutely not the same thing to design a boat to have fast VMG upwind or downwind in 12 knots of wind with a lot of people on board and a boat that is fast and safe reaching in 30 knots singlehanded. I think that is one of the reasons for the current disaster and the breakages that occurred in these past races."

Koch believes that the new ORMA fleet should focus on offshore races and if there is any inshore racing it should be just for show. "It could be seven or eight people on board," he says of what they could do for the inshore events. "With a 60 or 70 footer, eight people it is still shorthanded. It is definitely not the same as 11 because the first crew that stay ashore are the grinders and if you lack grinders you are obliged to sail as if you were shorthanded."

Perhaps the most crippling factor of the ORMA 60s evolving into more inshore boats was that costs spiralled upwards. So where should this be pitched with the new boat? "If we can stick with the current costs it would be a great thing. Some people think we could go for cheaper cost, but I think that is optimistic. Costs in the IMOCA fleet have grown exponentially in recent years and now it is the same cost to do a high tech monohull [as 60ft trimaran or one design]. With the R&D it is getting on for 3 million Euros. For a five year program the cost of a new boat isn’t the problem, its the running costs and breakage and the perpetual evolution of the boat. In the ORMA the boats often change their floats or the bottom of the mainhull. Every 18 months we change the mast and every year we change daggerboards and foils - that is very expensive."

So should the new boat be fully one design or partially one design? "That is very interesting, but it is hard to know and today most guys in the ORMA think they should go for a complete one design for the first three years and then see what is best for the future. First of all you need to learn how the boat behaves and its weak points and then possibly to make an evolution of the boat and then to open the class at that moment."

Koch also believes that the boat should be a bit easier to sail. With the 60s being so overpowered for their length it is hardly surprising that even the most experienced skippers should occasionally capsize. "Hopefuly ORMA will be pushed to have a strong, safe boat and to really understand that if they want success they have to have more boats finishing races than they had in the past. Obviously an offshore trimaran will never be an easy boat to sail, but to have a boat that is a bit easier to access than our boats is the first point to attract more British or Norwegian people."

Another issue with ORMA, both a blessing and a curse, is that the class comprises many hugely experienced and well respected individuals, but who often hold highly opposing views. "It is the French way!" says Koch with a smile. "I am not afraid by that. If you go to a Figaro class meeting you have the same feeling but overall it is a class that is very well run and they have very good races. If eventually you end up with a strong class and competitive championship you are going to have a lot of boats at the start. For all those guys - multihulls are like a drug. Once you have sailed them it is very very hard to do anything else! It is an amazing feeling to go upwind at 18 knots flying the main hull."

Personally Koch took over the Sopra Group sponsorship from Philippe Monnet back in 2006 at a time when he says they were looking for a new orientation to their yachting sponsorship. "They were interested in the fact that I was young and an engineer - the same profile as people in Sopra, where the average age in Sopra is 29 years old and I have been through the same school as a lot of them, so they asked me if I was interested to work with them on a new project, mainly to communicate inside the company."

He acknowledges they haven't been competitive in the ORMA fleet but adds that his sponsors have still valued their involvement with the class. "They are very happy with the project, even though we don’t have a competitive boat - they were aware of that - because the boat is old fashioned and I am new to the class. Lionel Lemonchois has been sailing multihulls for 25 years and Franck [Cammas] has done three Route du Rhums. I still have a lot to learn. So they are very happy and they bring a lot of people from the company on board, so the project has good press. They really have a good project to give people enough time to achieve their goal. That is why after the Route du Rhum we signed a new contract until 2009."

So while their hotrod remains mostly tied to the dock, for the next two years Sopra Group has backed both Koch and Gregory Gendron, Koch's co-skipper from last year's Transat Jacques Vabre, to compete in the Figaro class.

"The main targets are La Transat Ag2r and La Solitaire du Figaro. We really hope that the opportunity to have two boats in the team will allow to push forward the boat's development and crew training in order to get the little more speed necessary in one designs. Sail testing, mast testing, mast trimming, twin rudder trimming etc is well underway. Very clearly 2008 will be a training year because I haven't sailed in Figaro for years, but I hope for a good ranking in 2009! As the first training in Port La Foret has shown, the competition is going to be really tough. The overall level of preparation of boats and crews has gone up in a few years. And this class is quite refreshing because it is all about sport and sailing consistently."



Aside from his sailing program, Koch warns that a similar fate as occurred to the ORMA class could well befall the currently flourishing IMOCA class. He has had experience of these boats when in 2002 he campaigned Giovanni Soldini's former Fila (which latterly Sir Robin Knox-Johnston raced in the Velux 5 Oceans).

"I strongly believe that the IMOCA class is in the same position as the ORMA class was in 2002. In 2002, when I was on an IMOCA boat, I really fought hard to get a higher AVS and some people who at that time had new boats building for the Vendee 2004, said 'no, we will add lead to bulb'. That time there were four new boats. So we stuck with it. Now we have 20 new boats - that could be dangerous in the Southern Ocean. With this low AVS and with the tremendous amount of interia from the water ballast, the real AVS is very very low when static and dynamically it is terrible. The problem is of inertia - when the boats are going fast you have a lot of inertia. When you wipe out you transform this energy into rotational energy and if you have the keel canted and with all the water ballast full, your real AVS is much lower than the static angle."

We look forward to seeing what ORMA can muster up, for it would a disaster for our sport if they cannot come up with something for the 2010 Route du Rhum.