King of the Open 60

James Boyd spoke to Sill skipper Roland Jourdain about why he's so fast and what its like racing under IMS...

And what of Bilou's plans? He is known to be a major trimaran enthusiast and has raced with fellow Port la Foret colleagues such as Jean le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux and Jean-Luc Nelias. "A 60ft tri? Not for the moment. I will wait and have a look at what happens there. I have some friends on the trimarans, so when I want to sail a little bit, I can go with them and it's less problems for me!" Sensible man - there is the old adage 'fools by boats for wise men to sail'. "Because the multihulls move a lot now, there are many changes and lots of pressure before the Route du Rhum so I'm not in a hurry to get one.

"I love the Open 60s, but there are many things which are happening now, there is The Race in big catamarans, the 60ft multihulls... I may have Sill for the next two seasons. We are going to talk to my sponsors after the finish of the Route du Rhum , to see if they want to do the next Vendee Globe or not. Maybe with this boat. Maybe with a new boat."

But why get a new boat when the current boat is going so quickly? "When we built this one I didn't know anything about these monohulls. So now we have some ideas and some little things we'd like to change a little bit. It could be a nice challenge to make a new boat, but for that we need money."

Many of the characters who took part in the last Vendee Globe have now moved into the trimaran fleet, such as Michel Desjoyeaux, Ellen and Thomas Coville, will the next Vendee be as competitive? "I think it will be as good a race as the last one," says Bilou. "There are some good new guys coming through like Sebastien Josse, Antoine Koch, and I think the next month we'll have two or three Figaro guys coming in too. In Port la Foret there are one or two ready to sign."

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