Route du Rhum IMOCA 60 form guide

Michel Desjoyeaux and his new Foncia lead the field

If calling the form in the Ultimate fleet was hard, then it is even more so in the Route du Rhum’s IMOCA 60 class where once again there are nine entries, but of these we reckon there to be seven boats that could be on the podium.

The nine boat turn-out for the Route du Rhum may be modest compared to other IMOCA 60 events, but it does include almost all of the class’ most competitive skippers and boats, including three new VPLP-Verdier designs for which the Route du Rhum is their first major outing. Whether it is relevant or not, three - Foncia, Virbac Paprec 3 and Groupe Bel - will be making a fast turnaround in Guadeloupe in order to be shipped back to Spain to compete in the Barcelona World Race, starting on 31 December.

While the choice is hard in terms of how to place the top seven, we feel there is a clear stand-out leader among them in the form of solo sailing superhuman, Michel Desjoyeaux. Having won two Vendee Globes, three Solitaire du Figaros, the Transat, as well as the disaster stricken 2002 Route du Rhum in his trimaran, Desjoyeaux is now the most successful singlehanded ocean racer of all time. Worse still for the competition is that he comes to the Route du Rhum with the newest boat in the fleet, his third IMOCA 60 and the most radical of the nine boats, Desjoyeaux having had the opportunity to show his flare as an innovator which perhaps he didn’t have with his last Foncia. It could be said that his new boat is a generation beyond the rest of the fleet.

We’ll go into more depth about the new Foncia next week, but it is a very very cool boat with some great features. For example the length of the hull has the whole shear line corner cut away, like angular tumblehome, just one of several features designed to optimise the boat to meet the latest version of the IMOCA 60 rule where there is a maximum righting moment limit of 32 tonne metres. The foredeck is not flat or cambered down towards its perimeter like any other foredeck. Instead it cambers down from both sides towards a central shallow trench the aim being to maximise sail area downwards now the IMOCA rule has a maximum mast height limit, as well as lowering the boat’s centre of gravity.

Most radical about the new Foncia are her daggerboards. While curved ORMA 60-style lifting daggerboards were fitted to Marc Guillemot’s Safran prior to the last Vendee Globe, with Foncia the development has gone a stage further and she features giant straight asymmetric boards fitted at the outboard extremity of the deck. While daggerboards are typically toed out so that the leeward board is vertical when the boat is heeled, on Foncia the asymmetric boards are slightly toed in so that when heeled they go through the water at an angle, not only preventing leeway but also developing vertical lift and added righting moment.

The only potential chinks in the Foncia-Desjoyeaux package is simply how new the boat is (launched just one month ago) and allegedly getting the boat built and launched in record time has left Desjoyeaux exhausted, although we haven’t seen any evidence of this. Most feel Desjoyeaux will win or not finish.

Holding second place in our form guide is Jean-Pierre Dick’s new Virbac Paprec 3. Dick, it is safe to say, may not be the lifelong solo sailor as some of his competitors are, but with eight years in the class including two Vendee Globes – he was leading the last until his boat developed rudder issues – he is by no means the IMOCA new boy he once was. Virbac Paprec is one of the most business-like teams in the IMOCA class and having spoken to them and had the features of the boat explained to us we were thoroughly impressed by the level of detail they have gone into. Dick has also shown no qualms about reaching out to get the best from the Anglo-Saxon world. He was the first to go to the Farr office for a newdesign, although this, his third IMOCA 60, is a homegrown VPLP-Verdier design. However, like his first Open 60, the new Virbac Paprec 3 was built by Mick Cookson in New Zealand.

Dick’s latest steed differs greatly from Foncia and the other VPLP/Verdier designs in that he has opted for a Hugo Boss-style twin doghouse arrangement with lines leading aft from the mast running between them back to a narrow pit area. If the ride is wetter – Dick won’t be able to reef while wearing his slippers quite like MichDes can – this arrangement for the pit area is simpler and more practical. Unlike Desjoyeaux’s wingmast and deck spreader arrangement, Dick has also opted for the minimum weight option with a conventional fixed mast based on a tiny tube and continuous carbon fibre rigging.

We probably wouldn’t have put him there, but we have been coaxed into placing Armel le Cleac’h and BritAir third in our form guide. Most experts in France think the younger le Cleac’h brother to be on fire at the moment and it is true he has scored the double this year, of wins in the Transat AG2R and the Solitaire du Figaro which he dominated, winning three of the four legs. But these events were in the Figaro class and personally we are still not convinced that his IMOCA 60 - BritAir being one of the three Finot-Conq designs built for the last Vendee Globe - has the pace to keep up with the latest VPLP-Verdier boats. Saying this le Cleac’h has consistently posted solid results – he was fourth in the Route du Rhum four years ago, second in the Artemis Transat and Vendee Globe.

The feeling is that le Cleac’h is a potential winner if it blows (typically not a good sign) but he is also tactically one of the best in the IMOCA fleet, which will come in handy as this year skippers must do their own on board nav and meteorology, whereas four years ago they were allowed to use shore-based routers.

In fourth place we have 2004 Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou and his new PRB. By our calculation this is the fourth new Open 60 that PRB, the Les Sables d’Olonne-based company that makes cladding for buildings, has sponsored since they first backed Isabelle Autissier in the mid-1990s. The new PRB has a hull taken from the same moulds as Safran while the team built her deck.

PRB was the first of the new generation VPLP-Verdier designs since the last Vendee Globe, and was launched in March. She has already competed in the class’ race around Spain earlier this year when she finished second. Riou, winner of the 2004-5 Vendee Globe is capable of victory in the Route du Rhum and his steed has had more chance to have her teething problems sorted out than the other new builds, even though we feel she perhaps slightly lacks Virbac Paprec 3’s degree of sophistication or Foncia’s innovation.

With the next three boats it is particularly hard to predict their finish order. These boats and skippers are all capable of winning, and it is only because these are older generation of boats, all built for the last Vendee Globe and may possibly lack pace compared to the newer examples that they are were they are in our pecking order. It could be argued for example they have more miles under their keels, are more developed and more reliable than their younger siblings.

Marc Guillemot’s VPLP-Verdier designed Safran has been the boat to beat since the last Vendee Globe when she finished third. This time last year Guillemot and Solitaire du Figaro winner Charles Caudrelier won the Transat Jacques and she has also won the IMOCA class’ only long distance event of 2010 – the race around Spain when she beat a perhaps overly new PRB.

This year’s Route du Rhum could equally be the occasion Groupe Bel finally gets a race win. Kito de Pavant is another former Solitaire du Figaro winner with the skill to pull this off and he has come close - last year he finished second in both the Transat Jacques Vabre and the IMOCA class’ Istanbul race.

Groupe Bel is yet another VPLP-Verdier design and de Pavant, fighting his case, says he doesn’t reckon that the new boats will be much faster – they have been built to the new version of the IMOCA rule while the existing boats have been grandfathered, so for example Groupe Bel has a marginally taller rig. “Probably there are some small differences,” he says. “And we know very well our boat and that is the problem for the guys with the new boats – the time to get to know everything on board.”

De Pavant’s boat dismasted early on in the Vendee Globe and has been fitted with a new wingmast rig with deck spreaders. Otherwise de Pavant says they haven’t made any major changes to the boat but have continued to refine the gear on board to make it easier for him to sail the boat singlehanded.

Roland Jourdain cannot be discounted as the winner of the Route du Rhum four years ago. This time has given up his Lombard-designed Juan K-optimised Veolia Environnement, in favour of the Farr design Seb Josse campaigned in the last Vendee Globe as BT. One of the lighter Farr boats, his boat he reckons still has the edge over the VPLP-Verdier designs in VMG upwind or downwind conditions. He is hoping for a lot of transitions and changing conditions.

This leaves two boats which we feel to be outside bets.

Since the Route du Rhum Arnaud Boissieres has a new Akena Verandas, which is the boat that was Vincent Riou’s PRB in the last Vendee Globe, the same boat Riou used to rescue Jean le Cam before it was soon after dismasted en route to Cape Horn. While Boissieres competed in the last Vendee Globe, finishing behind Dee Caffari albeit sailing an older generation boat, we don’t think he and his boat have the same potential in this race as the hotshots so far mentioned.

DCNS was the last Finot-Conq design to be launched for the Vendee Globe where it was sailed by veteran Open 60 skipper Marc Thiercelin. The deal with DCNS was for Thiercelin subsequently to train up a young aspirant skipper and amply filling his shoes for this Route du Rhum is Christophe Pratt. Pratt, who despite having a very English-sounding name is French, beat several other accomplished Figaro sailors such as Roman Attanasio and Nicolas Lunven to his present position and has since been training heavily in the boat. However while Pratt may be a talented sailor, this is his first major IMOCA 60 race while we suspect that DCNS won’t have the legs against the competition.

We haven’t particularly enjoyed putting this form guide together as there have been so few races over the last two years to go on not helped by the advent of the three new launches. Nonetheless that will make the outcome of this race, not just the results but who completes the course, all the more fascinating.