Three finallists

Short list announced for the design competition to pen a new boat for the Tour de France a la Voile

Over the last months a design race has been on to come up with a new boat to succeed the M30 as the one design used for the Tour de France à la Voile from the 2011 race onwards.

To date in this contest, submissions have been sent to the Tour Voile's Sports Direction William Borek from 23 different design houses from niner countries including Spain, France, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Turkey and USA.

Finally, after consultation with many consultants including Marc Bouvet, Jean-Pierre Champion, Dimitri Deruelle, Fabien Henry, Thierry Lerette, Bernard Mallaret, Nanda Nengerman, Bertrand Pacé, Cino Ricci, Daniel and Bruno Troublé Souben, the Tour de France à la Voile have come up with a short list of three projects still in contention.

These are:

- the 998 from JPK Composites and designed by Jacques Valer
- the T2011 One Design Challenge presented by K Challenge, from RC44 designers Russell Coutts/Andrej Justin
- the M34 from Archambault and designed Joubert Nivelt

Among the subjective criteria aspects such as aesthetics and innovation, the reliability of the manufacturer or contractor, the draft the transportability on a trailer, the internationalization and the distribution, creation of a charter fleet and the marine potential have been considered.

For the three remaining projects on the short list, the final winner will be announced no later than 31 July 2009.

	JPK 998	One design / K-Challenge	M34 Archambault
LOA	9,98 m	11,00 m	10,34 m
Beam	2,99 m	2,99 m	2,98 m
Displacement	2 700 kg	2 420 kg	2 400 kg
Bulb	1 350 kg	1 240 kg	1 100 kg
Draft	2,10 m	1,85 / 2,65 m	1,70/2,50 m
Upwind s/a	68 m 2	83 m 2	72 m 2
Spinnaker	120 m 2	145 m 2	130 m 2
Designer	Jacques Valer	Russell Coutts/Andrej Justin	Joubert Nivelt Design
Builder	JPK Composites	Pauger Carbon	Archambault
Price	109 800 €	119 000 €	120 000 €