Hot Prospect

James Boyd speaks to Jean-Pierre Dick last year's Tour Voile winner about his Vendee 2004 plans

Looking at Vendee Globe entrants over the years, a majority have like Ellen MacArthur worked their way up through the ranks of the Mini and Figaro classes then got to crew and finally skipper Open 60s. Some 'superstars' like Michel Desjoyeaux, winner of the last Vendee Globe, came from other disciplines like the Whitbread and the 60ft trimaran circuit. It is fair to say that none have come from winning the annual Tour de France a la Voile.

Jean-Pierre Dick's background is very firmly in fully crewed inshore racing - about as far away as possible from singlehanded offshore or round the world racing as one could get. 36 years old, he's sailed for the last 15 years and has been national champion eight times in classes such as the Beneteau First Class 8, the JOD 24 and 35, J/24, Melges 24 and Mumm 30. In 1987 he was part of the French Admiral's Cup team. Most recently he won Key West and was Melges 24 National Champion in France in 2000 before going on to win last year's Tour Voile - a campaign which he put together and skippered.

Dick's entry into the Open 60 class could not have been more impressive. Open 60s are hard to come by at the moment with two major events, the Route du Rhum and Around Alone, taking place at the end of the year. But Dick waded straight in and chartered the winning boat from the last Vendee Globe - Michel Desjoyeaux's PRB. This boat has many Desjoyeaux idiosyncracies such an accommodation area, including chart table and galley, which can be canted up to weather, a hull which is from one designer and a deck from another as well as Desjoyeaux's long C-shaped mainsheet track arrangement. But it is nonetheless the Vendee winner and about the best starting place for anyone wishing to get a fast track project together for the 2004 event.

Dick has been rechristened the boat Virbac, named after his family company that makes medicine for animals and today employs 2,100 people worldwide. His campaign is also sponsored by the town of Saint-Raphael in the Var department in the Cote d'Azur. Dick himself comes from Nice.

But the next stage in his Vendee Globe project is equally interesting. He has a new boat at the concept stage not from a top Open 60 designer such as Groupe Finot, Marc Lombard or Owen/Clarke, but from design group led by Farr Yacht Design and including Michel Desjoyeaux and some of Dick's regular crew.

At present Dick is unwilling to reveal more details about the new boat. "What we like in Farr Yacht Design is how they look at it in a scientific way as far as possible and we are just at the beginning of the exercise now," Dick told madfor sailing. "There will be some research, but it is difficult for me to talk about that. For the moment we are working with the concept and the boat will be ready mid-2003. That's all I can say at present."

To date Farr Yacht Design have only been responsible for one Open class boat - an Open 50 for an Italian client that has never lined up again the French fleet. Farr is king when it comes to classes such as the Volvo Ocean 60 and presumably there will be some benefit from the extensive experience they have in this arena.

Open 60s are very different animals to VO60s and the prospect of designing rotating wingmast rigs and canting keels to a rule the Farr office are unfamiliar with will present the Annapolis-based team with an entirely new set of problems to head scratch over. "Their experience [in Open 60s] is very little, but when they work on the topic I think they can succeed because they have the right people," says Dick. The whole Open 60 community is watching with baited breath.

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