The IMOCA 60 Future Gets Clearer

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, Dec 12, 2018.

  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  2. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  3. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  4. Doug Lord
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  5. Doug Lord
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    Location: Cocoa, Florida

    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  6. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Giant IMOCA 60 turn-out for 2019 Rolex Fastnet Race https://www.sail-world.com/news/216257/Giant-IMOCA-60-turn-out-for-Rolex-Fastnet-Race

    Excerpt:
    One of the largest fleets of IMOCA 60s ever gathered is due to set off on the Rolex Fastnet Race on Saturday, 3rd August. 29 of the boats, best known for their use in the Vendée Globe singlehanded non-stop round the world race, will assemble on the Cowes start line of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's premier event to take part in the biennial voyage to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock - 26 competing in the IMOCA class, another three in the main IRC fleet.

    This line-up is the third biggest in IMOCA history, after the 2016-17 and 2008-09 Vendée Globes, and is due to the Rolex Fastnet Race being a qualifier for the next Vendée Globe.

    Picture by Yvan Zedda:
    Charal 4-11-19.jpg
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
  7. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  8. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    These two pictures appear to be of the same boat* by Yvan Zedda but the curve looks different. The foil(s?) designed by Guillaume Verdier.
    *Initiatives Coeur
    PS- keep in mind that because of the rules these foils need to produce lateral resistance and vertical lift-now look again-see anything weird?

    IMOCA  foils InitiativesCoeur_YvanZedda.jpg

    IMOCA  foiiiiiil.jpg
     
  9. Dolfiman
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    Dolfiman Senior Member

  10. Doug Lord
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    From Tip and Shaft Newsletter:

    VENDÉE GLOBE INTERNATIONAL ROUND UP

    Logically it could be argued that the 2008-9 Vendée Globe was the most international edition yet, with 13 of the 29 starters representing seven nations other than the host country France. That epic race was a high water mark for the British skippers when seven started and three actually crossed the Les Sables d’Olonne finish line among the top six finishers. But the organisers preference was to call the 2016-17 solo non stop round the world race the most international yet, when eight nations were represented, each of Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the USA all represented by one skipper. Regardless, as the 2020-21 edition wrestles to taper down a bumper entry, interest from outside of France is very strong and representative of all types of solo skipper, from big budget potential winners, to determined adventurers scraping by on crowd funding donations and in kind sponsorships. There are 13 non French skippers with active projects. Tip & Shaft takes a quick tour round the houses a couple of weeks before the first IMOCA Globe Series race of the season, the Bermudes 1000 Race, the 2000 miles season opener from Douarnenez to Brese via the Fastnet and the Azores which starts May 8th.

    Britain’s Alex Thomson is presently in Mexico as the current Hugo Boss completes a promotional tour in South America. The launch date for the new Hugo Boss remains on schedule mid June to be ready for the Fastnet and the Transat Jacques Vabre. Thomson is qualified for the Vendée Globe and needs only to sail 2000 miles solo on the new boat. “We are all very excited about the new boat, we expect to roll it out the shed mid June which is pretty much on schedule and around the same time as a bunch of other new boats I guess. It is never easy pulling all the pieces together at the same time and getting ready for measurement but we are good.” Says Stewart Hosford of Alex Thomson Racing. “Alex is in Mexico and will sail the boat back where it will be handed over to the new owners.” The boat was refitted in Antigua after the Route du Rhum grounding with the foils returned to Persico. The new owners have not yet been announced but Hosford expects they will compete in some IMOCA Globe Series but says the possibility of the boat racing in the Vendée Globe ‘is a whole different discussion….’ “We are really focused, putting everything in to it. We are a big team now, 24 or 25 people, and all pushing hard.”

    Switzerland’s Alan Roura still has La Fabrique out of the water and completing the winter refit after starting about a month ago. Roura’s season will be mainly about the Fastnet, the Défi Azimut and the Transat Jacques Vabre. Alan has been in Switzerland working with his sponsors and potential sponsors and testing and refining his strength and conditioning programme. After an excellent Route du Rhum Alan is qualified for the Vendée Globe and therefore does not need to chase qualification miles.

    Japan’s Kojiro Shiraishi has spent two months training on Maître Coq the former Safran out of Cascais under the guidance of Roland Jourdain, alternating with Maître Coq skipper Yannick Bestaven and has returned to Japan for April. He will return to training in Brittany in May. His new boat should be launched August/September to be ready for what will be very much a shakedown race on the Transat Jacque Vabre. He chosen co-skipper has not yet been announced but is ‘not a high profile name skipper’.

    Germany’s Boris Herrmann is in good shape with his refitted Malizia back in the water and is making ready for the Bermudes 1000 he is VG qualified having completed the Route du Rhum and is already at the top of the group of candidates in terms of miles sailed.

    Likewise Finland’s long haul airline pilot Ari Huusela has been in Gosport, England and was setting off for some post refit sailing before he heads for the Bermudes 1000 Race, he too is qualified for the Vendée Globe but needs to build miles. The boat has had no major changes over the winter.

    Isabelle Joschke, French based but German, is having new foils fitted to her MACSF and so will not participate in the early season races. The boat is expected to go in the water in July ready for the Fastnet and the Transat Jacques Vabre which she will sail with Morgan Lagraviere.

    After winning the Sardinha Cup in the Figaro Beneteau 3 Sam Davies, French based but British, is back fully focused on her IMOCA programme with Initiatives Coeur which is just being relaunched with some very powerful looking new Verdier foils. Sam starts as one of the favourites for the Bermudes 1000 Race. She will do the Fastnet and, sailing with Paul Meilhat, the Transat Jacques Vabre.

    Italy’s Giancarlo Pedote needs to qualify for the Vendée Globe but has his boat, Prysmian Group, formerly Jean Pierre Dick’s 2015 VPLP-Verdier design, in the water and has been doing a lot of sailing. He has the backing of his long term sponsor until after the Vendée Globe but the Bermudes 1000 Race will be his first solo circuit race on his IMOCA. He will do the full IMOCA Globe season.

    Britain’s Pip Hare has the former Superbigou, previously Alan Roura’s La Fabrique and is looking forward to her first solo IMOCA race too, the Bermudes 1000 Race, she is on a tight budget but plans to do the season.

    In Caen Miranda Merron, French based but also British, has this week launched her 2006 Owen Clarke IMOCA Campagne de France, formerly Rich Wilson’s Great American IV. She is setting out to qualify for the Vendée Globe with the Bermudes 1000.

    And Belgium’s former Mini sailor Denis Van Weynbergh also has his IMOCA, formerly Nandor Fa’s Spirit of Hungary, starting the qualification process with the Bermudes 1000. He has done a routine maintenance refit during the winter.

    Also refitting an IMOCA, the former Spirit of Hexagon, is English veteran Richard Tolkien who is reported to be fitting a new class keel to the Owen Clarke design. Conrad Colman’s IMOCA has been sold to an owner who will not do the IMOCA circuit, the Kiwi skipper has not yet found a budget for the Vendée Globe and Ireland’s Joanne Mulloy, like Colman, is doing the Figaro circuit and still looking for backing but she will race the Transat Jacques Vabre with Alexia Barrier.
     
  11. Doug Lord
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  12. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Interview with Fabrice Amedeo on IMOCA foils etc.:
    https://voilesetvoiliers.ouest-fran...r-limite-9ac66990-6a9a-11e9-801b-e2bb297ea63d

    Introductory excerpt:
    Fabrice Amedeo has relaunched his Newrest-Arts & Fenêtres in Lorient, with the Vendée Globe 2020 as his number one goal. In the meantime, he is involved in several races, including the upcoming Transat Jacques Vabre, in double with Eric Peron. We make the point with him. Both on its projects and on the evolution of the IMOCA monohulls and in particular on the foilers, very fast but always more demanding for the sailors. Interview.
     
  13. Doug Lord
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    --From Tip and Shaft a free weekly Newsletter:
    Click here to subscribe:
    Newsletter - Tip & Shaft https://www.tipandshaft.com/en/newsletter/

    IMOCA: IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FOILS

    At the start of the last Vendée Globe in 2016 there were seven of the 29 IMOCAs with foils. In last year's 2018 Route du Rhum Destination Guadeloupe half of the IMOCAs which raced had foils. And in the upcoming 2019 Transat Jacques Vabre more than two thirds of the fleet will have foils. In less than four years foils have become the rule rather than the exception. But they are still very much in the early stages of development. Less than one week before the start of the Bermudes 1000 Race, the first of the 2019 IMOCA season, we review tips and shafts, by Tip & Shaft.

    Generations 1 and 2: The early days
    In terms of IMOCA foils the most experienced designers are unquestionably VPLP and Guillaume Verdier. After working on the basics of the concept together, since the last America's Cup they have been working independently of each other. On the Cup VPLP worked with Artemis while Verdier won with Emirates Team New Zealand. "For generation 1, we were trying to lift the boats knowing that we would be penalized at certain speeds," explains Vincent Lauriot-Prévost. The goal of the generation 2 that immediately followed [such as those which were on the winner of the 2016 Vendée Globe, Ed], was to limit the loss, especially upwind.

    Dubbed "Dali" this S shaped generation, like mustaches, follow the same themes but with different small variations. These are either on the original foil assisted boats from VPLP / Verdiers or those which subsequently have had foils added, Prysmian Group Giancarlo Pedote (formerly UCAR-StMichel), Maître Coq Yannick Bestaven (formerly Safran II), Louis Burton Bureau Vallée (formerly Banque Populaire VIII) - Burton announced the construction of a new pair of foils next winter -, Newrest Arts & Fenêtres by Fabrice Amedeo (formerly No Way Back), Malizia II-Monaco Yacht Club of Boris Herrmann (formerly Edmond de Rothschild). As for the current VPLP/Verdier Hugo Boss went furthest in terms of the surface area of the foils with a more stretched out shape, two years later Alex Thomson showed his overwhelming superiority downwind in the Route du Rhum.

    Among this second generation is Sam Davies' Initiatives Coeur which of course was previously Maître Coq of Jérémie Beyou (ex- Banque Populaire VII, ex-Foncia). It dates back to 2010 but during the winter of 2015-2016, prior to Beyou's Vendée Globe, benefited from the addition of foils designed by the New Zealander Nick Holroyd (variously with Emirates Team New Zealand, Softbank Japan Team and now at Ineos Team UK). After the solo round the world race, Initiatives Coeur added rake controls for 2018 and then this winter fitting brand new foils (see below).

    Charal and Hugo Boss: from generation 3 to generation 4
    Summer 2018 launched Charal's foils are for the "the first boat designed around its foils," says Vincent Lauriot-Prévost. The hull shape is much more influenced by the effective reduction in drag and the cant of the keel (which adversely affects the action of the foils) has been reduced. Launched at the end of the summer Charal has proved very potent with its huge bent foils that are angled to the tip, which allow the boat to lift for longer, sustained periods and to accelerate hard. Too strong? "It is a long learning curve," admits Pierre-François Dargnies, the technical director of the Charal team. "But we have made about thirty successful passages since the Route du Rhum and the boat will race the Transat Jacques Vabre with this pair of foils. For the Vendée Globe, we are already preparing our V2."

    The new foils for Initiatives Coeur
    VPLP promise..."The foils of the new Hugo Boss will look like nothing we have already seen" ... so, logically, nothing like those which have just been revealed last week on Initiatives Coeur. Still, the new, huge lifting planes, designed by Guillaume Verdier for Sam Davies' IMOCA are also very typical lengthening the key horizontal plane with a very tapered tip - which appears almost flexible at its end - there is negligible anti-drift action. "This generation has been designed to be more stable, to work earlier and to lift more at slower angles. But the performance potential is huge, there are even VPP values you just do not want to believe!" explains David Sineau, the project manager. Initiatives Coeur's foils are almost as wide as its outriggers and the slim tapering tips make it very complicated to dock... and they will likely be hard to clear when sailing.

    The extra mass (that is the aperture structure and mechanicals) is reckoned to be more than twice the weight of the foils themselves (a 2016 generation foil weighs between 150 and 200 kg) "There is more weight also added because of the repair of the hull because of the delaminated area during the Route du Rhum and because the foils change the attitude of the boat so consequently brings the slamming areas aft," explains Sineau. The cost of this 'initiative'? No comment, but along with the new mast that will be fitted next year, according to the team manager of Initiatives Coeur all developments of the boat since 2018 will cost 1 million euros.

    What about other architects?
    Charlie Dalin and Thomas Ruyant both commissioned Guillaume Verdier for their IMOCA. Sébastien Simon chose Juan Kouyoumdjian, who also works for Nicolas Troussel's Corum). Simon notably has the support of Vincent Riou, who had already had Juan K, the French-Argentinian draw PRB's foils for the Route du Rhum. "The experience gained on PRB and the feedback from Vincent allowed us to really refine and back up our simulation tools", explains Juan K. "But the problem with foils is that we have to integrate the deformation of the structure under the increased loads otherwise the simulations themselves are worthless."

    Designer Sam Manuard, is working on his first IMOCA for Armel Tripon and so is starting from scratch. He relies on KND SailingPerformance for modeling and simulation. They have worked on the Volvo Ocean Race, the America's Cup and with the TP52s. Manuard is obviously tight lipped on the direction they are taking with their foils: "One thing is certain, the foils will not be small and they will be orientated more towards all round versatility because the Vendée Globe is not just about speed downwind in breeze."

    Retro-fits
    Last year, Arnaud Boissières and Alan Roura lined up on the Route du Rhum aboard 2007 generation IMOCAs equipped with foils. On La Mie Câline, the foils built at Mer Agitée came out of the moulds for Maître Coq's foils for Jérémie Beyou in 2016, but adapted to the specifics of the completely reworked Owen-Clarke design which was previously Ecover 3 and Gamesa.

    On Roura's La Fabrique, designers Finot-Conq chose an original geometry: in the form of a comma, the foils move almost vertically on a small radius of curvature. So the tip is almost horizontal in the up position and it straightens down the foil. Really their results during the Route du Rhum, were not conclusive in terms of the effectiveness of the retro fit formula on these heavier boats. The two skippers retain this configuration this season and for the Vendée Globe.

    Isabelle Joschke has used her additional funding from new partner MACSF to equip the former Safran 1, with foils designed by VPLP. They will be "less extreme and more conventional than those on Charal," explains Vincent Lauriot-Prévost. MACSF has a very light, fairly slender hull, it seems perfect to find a new lease of life with this extra power. Maxime Sorel's virtual sister ship V and B (ex Le Souffle du Nord) remains in its original configuration. But the skipper (as others) may modify it next winter after the Transat Jacques Vabre whilst retaining the qualifying miles already accumulated.

    What of the future?
    The cost of a pair of foils with apertures and mechanical systems varies from 500 to 600 000 euros ex tax. This high expense might be what may hinders future developments. Right now there is nothing within the rules which really limit development and performance potential. "At the end of the day the only limit is keeping the rig up," chuckles Sam Manuard. The moment of maximum static recovery for the mast is readily exceeded because of the added power of the foils.

    In fact, between the first and latest generation, the surface area has more than doubled. The increased loading requires a much greater strength and structural integrity of these composite pieces and that means substantially increased cost. And specialist builders capable of producing these parts in an autoclave, such as Persico, CDK, Multiplast, Heol Composites, C3 Technologies or Lorima, are very limited. "We might come up with problems of fairness in terms of equalising cost and manufacturing monopolies," anticipates Antoine Mermod, the president of IMOCA, "even if I think that there will be some convergence in designs which will emerge. We are now thinking of proposing to vote in March 2020 for a draft framework for 2024."

    By then a Vendée Globe and an Ocean Race will have been run. And a huge amount of data will have been accumulated. What generation of foils will we be at by then?
     
  14. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Rudder Foil-- I'm curious if a one piece foil as per the sketch below would be technically legal under the rules? I know that main foils that use separate elements of a one piece foil to generate both vertical lift and lateral resistance are legal and the foil only counts as one-so would that be true of a "bent" rudder foil such as the one in the sketch? Obviously, it would be a challenge to build this thing strong enough....
    Update: I just found out that the "separate elements of a one piece foil......" concept is not legal on rudder foils in the IMOCA Class!

    IMOCA 60 rudder.png
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019

  15. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Sam Davis in the third place in the Bermudes 100 Race with new super foils(designed by Guillaume Verdier) :
    (See tracker in following post)-post#16

    Bermudes 1000 Race. Sam Davies : « Je n’ai plus le mode d’emploi » https://www.letelegramme.fr/voile/bermudes-1000-race-sam-davies-je-n-ai-plus-le-mode-d-emploi-09-05-2019-12279507.php
    Excerpt:
    "Aboard her 60-foot Imoca "Heart Initiatives", Sam Davies had huge albatross foils installed this winter. Two turbos that change everything. On the Bermuda 1000 Race, the Englishwoman wants to "finish first". The qualification for the Vendée Globe 2020 is at stake.

    With its huge foils, is it still the same boat?"

    "Yes, it's the same boat but I no longer have the instructions, the instructions for the sail plan, the choice of sails, the adjustments of the appendages. It is much more powerful than before so I have to learn how to use my new machine. That said, I'm not completely lost either, I've been sailing for two years. I will have to go slowly because I do not want to have bad surprises."
    -------


    IMOCA 60--sam-davies-avec-ces-nouveaux-foils-je-vais-devoir_4562172.jpg
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2019
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