Transat Jacques Vabre IMOCA 60 form guide

PRB and Virbac Paprec 3 expected as frontrunners PLUS video dockside tour

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The Transat Jacques Vabre sets sail from Le Havre in northern France on Sunday bound for Costa Rica. The fleet of doublehanded offshore race boats this year features three classes – the IMOCA 60, Multi50 and Class40.

For the IMOCA 60s, the TJV is a highly competitive and significant race in the calendar, but so too is the singlehanded Transat B2B which sets sail from St Barts on 9 December, bound for Lorient and is a qualifier for next year’s Vendee Globe.

Going into the TJV, the form boats seem to be PRB and Virbac Paprec 3, in terms of their time on the water, boat and crew prep. Vincent Riou competing on PRB with Hugues Destremau of the Incidence sail loft in Brest, while on Virbac Paprec 3, Jean-Pierre Dick is hoping to secure his hat-trick of wins in this race sailing with former Delta Dore skipper, Jeremie Beyou, the convincing winner of this year’s Solitaire du Figaro. Read about the design of these boats here...

If these two boats are favourite then the next swathe of boats are also in with a chance, but are prepared not quite as finely honed as the top two.

Talk on the dock along the Bassin Paul Vatine in Le Havre, is over the serious-looking weather that the fleet will on encounter on Wednesday, assuming Sunday’s start goes ahead; how all IMOCA 60s and Class 40s will be scow-shaped in years to come, following the success of David Raison’s Proto Team Work Evolution in the Mini Transat; and chortling about the new titanium keel on Safran, sailed in this race by Marc Guillemot and Yann Elies, whom Guillemot famously helped rescue during the last Vendee Globe, after Elies had broken his left femur in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

Safran is the defending IMOCA class champion in the Transat Jacques Vabre, Guillemot having won it with Charles Caudrelier (soon to be setting off on the Volvo Ocean Race with Groupama) and while she was supposed to have a new keel and a new rig fitted to her for this race, in the end only the new keel arrived in time. But titanium?

This came about because the designers were investigating ways of upgrading Safran. According to Guillemot, designer Guillaume Verdier asked his sponsor, the aerospace and defence giant Safran, whether it was possible to get some titanium: “Safran said we’ve had this block of titanium for a long time and Guillaume said ‘yes, we’ll have that...’” Apparently the block of titanium couldn’t be used for aeronautical purposes. “It is good for the CoG, which is 10-15cm lower and it is the same weight as carbon,” continues Guillemot. “The old keel we had to repair the head of it several times and it was very heavy.”

Obviously working titanium is not easy, but Safran had the specialist equipment to manufacture the new foil, which is fitted with composite fairings. More on the titanium keel here.

The decision to fit the new keel was bold as this only took place at the beginning of October and according to Yann Elies it is so new they haven’t had a chance to find out how it has affected Safran’s performance. Before it was fitted, Elies reckoned the performance of the newer VPLP-Verdier designs was a little better than Safran, particularly 70-110° off the breeze, in above 15 knots. “This is faster in lighter winds and in VMG.”

Banque Populaire was campaigned by Michel Desjoyeaux as Foncia in last year’s Route du Rhum and Barcelona World Race until she was sold and ex-BritAir skipper Armel le Cleac’h installed as skipper, racing in the TJV with fellow Figaro sailor Christopher Pratt. She is different in many many ways to the other VPLP-Verdier designs, as we contemplated with MichDes prior to the Route du Rhum last year (more here). However in July she suffered a rather severe structural failure.

According to Christopher Pratt, who sailed Marc Thiercelin’s DCNS in the Route du Rhum last year, while they were out training a big crack developed around the vicinity of the main sheet track and on down the topsides to around 1m up from the water on the starboard side. “There was no water inside the boat but we were wondering about where the liferaft was,” Pratt admits. The reason for the failure was quickly identified as being due to the lack of internal structure from the aft keel bulkhead back to half way down the cockpit. They have since installed three ring frames and several longitudinals to stabilise the area. “We think it is okay, but we’ve only had one day in more than 35 knots, so we will see,” says Pratt.

Since the Barcelona World Race when the top of her wingmast broke, a replacement rig has been fitted to Banque Populaire.

Le Cleac’h and Pratt are more than capable of putting in a good performance in the Transat Jacques Vabre, Le Cleac’h being one of the most talented sailors of his generation, only Pratt admits that despite the training they have put in against the other boats in the Port la Foret-based IMOCA 60 fleet, they lack time on board compared to the more experienced crews. “It is a fantastic boat, but we have just had 2-3 months of sailing on it, so it is difficult for us to be okay with all the manoeuvres and the rig tune – we have a lot of things to learn and the TJV is here for that. We are still wondering if we put should put down 1m or 1.5m of daggerboard, etc.”

The latest IMOCA 60 in the TJV is MACIF, a direct sistership to Banque Populaire, built from the same moulds, skipper Francois Gabart having competed in the Barcelona World Race with Michel Desjoyeaux up until the mast breakage. MACIF was built in around eight months and only launched at the beginning of August. In the TJV Gabart is racing with well known match racer and former Areva Challenge America’s Cup helmsman Sebastien Col. While the MACIF campaign is run by Michel Desjoyeaux’s company Mer Agitée, Col brings his experience from the Cup and most recently from the Audi MedCup circuit where he has been racing alongside Jochen Schueman on Audi All4One.

“I think we are very close to Safran and Bel and Banque Populaire – all the Verdier-VPLP boats,” Gabart told us. “We hope that this boat is a little bit better, because we think it is a little bit lighter. We sailed a lot with all of them in Port la Foret and we are very close. The different in the TJV won’t be because of the boats [it will be down to the crews, tactics, etc]. The boats we don’t know is Poujoulat. In light winds we were faster, but we will have to see how it is in an offshore race in more wind.”

The general consensus over Bernard Stamm’s new Juan K-designed, Decision-built Cheminees Poujoulat is that she is a weapon reaching, as she proved in the Rolex Fastnet Race in August. In the TJV Stamm is racing with 1999 470 World Champion, Jean-Francois Cuzon, who sailed with Seb Josse on BT in the last TJV and was at one point tactician on Areva Challenge. More on the new Cheminees Poujoulat here.

Also among the top contenders is likely to be Britain’s own Mike Golding, for whom this is his first IMOCA 60 race in two years, following the hiatus after his sponsorship from Ecover concluded. He is once again racing with North Sails France boss Bruno Dubois, who he sailed with in this event in 2007.

Thanks to his new sponsorship from Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Gamesa, Golding has put his Owen-Clarke designed former Ecover 3, through a massive rebuild at Green Marine in Lymington over this summer. Unveiled in her new livery during Southampton Boat Show, Gamesa has a new cockpit layout, a new compact cabintop and importantly a new fixed rig, following her dismasting in the hands of Jean le Cam during the Barcelona World Race this spring. Importantly a lot of weight has been shed from the boat and in turn from the bulb with the end result that Golding reckons Gamesa now hits the scales at just over 8 tonnes: “The power of the boat remains the same, but we feel the boat is more lively, but slightly stiffer because the centre of gravity is lower.”

Safran’s sistership Groupe Bel returns, being sailed as always by skipper Kito de Pavant, with Yann Régniau on board for the TJV. The boat underwent major work this season with a new keel fitted, following the problems they experienced from this area of the boat during both the Route du Rhum and the Barcelona World Race. In the process they have shed weight from inside the boat and also changed the cabin top.

Alex Thomson has hopefully made enough sacrificial offerings to prevent any further disaster from befalling him in this race. Something of a surprise – having acquired the Juan K-designed IMOCA 60 Bahrian Team Pindar, which Brian Thompson sailed around the world in the last Vendee Globe, and then putting her through a substantial refit at Green Marine last year, Thomson is racing in the TJV not this boat, but the Farr-designed former BT, with Volvo Ocean Race veteran Guillermo Altadill as his co-skipper.

The theory was sound, given the trend towards ever more powerful boats and following the introduction of the new IMOCA class rules limiting mast height and righting moment, the Pindar 60 could be grandfathered as her mast exceeded the maximum air draft of 29m. But while power is king, Thomson has since determined that power is only king, if it is manageable. If he can sail the less powerful BT to a higher degree of efficiency, the overall result will be greater performance.

His new boat comes from having won the Route du Rhum last year as Roland Jourdain’s Veolia Environnement (Thomson had his greatest success as an IMOCA 60 skipper in the last boat he took on from Jourdain) and Altadill has previous experience of the boat having been its co-skipper with Jonathan McKee when the boat was called Estrella Damm in the first Barcelona World Race.

Dominique Wavre’s Owen Clarke-designed Mirabaud has not really set the world alight since she finished third in the first Barcelona World Race. Having dismasted in the last doublehanded round the world race this spring, Mirabaud has been repatriated from Brazil and this summer was fitted with a new mast and sails. Whether or not this will transform the boat’s performance remains to be seen.

Another question mark hangs over Akena Verandas, the boat which as PRB Vincent Riou campaigned in the last Vendee Globe, dismasting shortly after rescuing Jean le Cam from the upturned hull of his IMOCA 60 off Cape Horn. The boat is a Farr designed sistership to Hugo Boss and is now being campaigned by Arnaud Boissieres sailing the TJV with leading Figaro sailor Gerald Veniard. More about Boissieres and his yacht here.

Marc Thiercelin’s DCNS 1000, a Finot Conq designed sistership built prior to the last Vendee Globe as a sistership to Hugo Boss, Generali and BritAir. Throughout its history, the boat has failed to make much impression. Thiercelin on this occasion is sailing with Luc Alphand, the World Champion in skiing in 1997.

An 11th hour entry into the Transat Jacques Vabre are the Burton brothers, Louis and Nelson who are sailing the TJV aboard Jeremie Beyou’s former Delta Dore (the Farr-designed sistership to BT and Akena Verandas).

While this is a stab at a form guide for the IMOCA 60 class in the TJV, if the race sets sail on Sunday then the outcome is likely to come down to the team which can best preserve their boat in winds that the latest forecast shows are set to exceed 40 knots from Tuesday night and for around 48 hours on from this. 

To see the video below in its full screen glory, click on the bottom RH button in the viewer. This video is about 20 minutes long and takes a while to load...