With the foils, have the Imocas reached the peak of progress?

In the Vendée Globe, we can't stop progress -

When we look closely at the Vendée Globe winners, we understand two things: the first is that Michel Desjoyeaux is the only one to have won this inhuman race twice (2000 and 2008).

The second is that each champion goes faster than the previous one, with the exception of Alain Gautier who, during the second edition, was doing less well than Titouan Lamazou (110 days against 109).

New materials, advances in aero and hydrodynamics, better precision and interpretation of weather files are, among many others, so many factors that explain the obvious: the boats go faster and faster and we do not take a lot of risks to say that the record of Le Cléac'h (74 days) will not pass the winter.

There is still more important progress than others.

The wheel, the printing press, the alternating current or even Donald Trump's Twitter account are all inventions that have changed our existence.

For the Vendée Globe, the appearance of foils - these appendages capable of carrying boats in favorable wind conditions - in 2016 changed everything.

“The foil was a big step forward, confirms Kevin Escoffier (PRB), with a big gap where we gained a lot at certain speeds.

Today, there were the foils of 2016 with which Le Cléac'h won the Vendée Globe, the foils of PRB in 2018 and there there is a set of new boats and also of old generation which had foils. 2020. ”Some L-shaped (Charal and Apivia favorites) and others C-shaped (Arkea-Paprec and another favorite, Hugo Boss).

The former are a little less efficient at unbridled speeds and are not retractable unlike the latter, but they are more efficient at VMG ("useful speed").

It remains to be seen which approach the race will crown.

🌌 Yesterday evening, the technical team installed the second V3 foil that arrived from Italy last week.

🌊 Tomorrow, ARKEA PAPREC will go out sailing to validate all the work done this week.

📲 More info ‣ https://t.co/pOiZlADQaW

📸 @Martin_Viezzer |

# VendéeGlobe pic.twitter.com/9Rf6Vkf7MI

- Sébastien Simon |

Skipper ARKEA PAPREC (@SebastienSimon_) October 22, 2020

A glass ceiling?

What glass ceiling?

As a result of all these advances, we find more and more engineers at the start of the Vendée Globe.

Kévin Escoffier began by designing boats and leading projects such as the Maxi Banque populaire V.

“It makes sense because the boats are getting more and more complicated.

The skipper also becomes a test pilot.

We are going to go racing but until the time of the regatta we are there to optimize the boat and develop it so that it goes as quickly as possible.

And they have become such complicated boats that to understand them, you have to have more and more skills in terms of appendages, in terms of sail in terms of aerodynamics ... It was often said that F1 pilots like Schumacher were excellent drivers but it was mainly because they were able to tune the car better before the start.

"

Does the advent of millimeter adjustment reflect an upcoming lack of technical progress?

In other words, have we reached new heights with the appearance of foils and their improvement between the Vendée Globes 2016 and 2020?

In the fleet, no one really believes it.

“We can see that if we put new boats like Charal, Hugo Boss, Arkea next to the others, even people who do not know sailing will see that they are not the same, analyzes Samantha Davies (Heart Initiatives), another skipper- engineer.

We are at the end of the evolution when everything is identical and this is not the case at all.

"

“In 2008, 2012, 2016 we also spoke of glass ceilings and yet boats are always going faster, agrees Thomas Rouillard (LinkedOut).

We still have to be able to go faster and there we have a gauge that limits us a little but we could for example go for stable flight.

"For the moment impossible because it would be necessary to have load-bearing planes on the rudders, which Imoca currently prohibits, even if the president of this class of boats recently admitted that" this development will be part of the of the future of Imoca.

To simplify matters, gliding is the future of the Vendée Globe.

Ecology and safety

Going fast is good.

But here we are talking about going around the world alone, not an urban rodeo.

“Do we need to go faster, isn't it too much,” Davies wonders.

Shouldn't we protect our planet by not using certain materials too much?

You have to think in all directions to remain reasonable.

"

Let us add to the reflection of the Briton that to win, it is above all necessary to go to the end and therefore to avoid the whales and other ofnis on the surface of the waters of the globe.

And it is well known that the faster you go, the harsher the shock.

Power gains must therefore be accompanied by advances in terms of safety.

Loud: “There are things that are developing around that because it's a real problem on these boats.

When you go at 30 knots you can't see what's going on ahead.

"

In addition to the AIS (navigation instrument which allows maritime traffic to be viewed) and other radars or masthead cameras already in place, new tools have been added.

“Some boats will be equipped with sonar in the keel to be able to warn or send a signal to the marine mammal that will be on the boat's route and potentially asleep,” explains the winner of the last Vendée Globe, Armel Le Cléac'h.

Thomas Rouillard, who retired four years ago in a collision like a Kito De Pavant, is one of the skippers who have bet on the tool whose effectiveness remains to be proven.

But he warns: “it will not avoid all the shocks and all the problems linked to an impact in the water.

These systems don't see everything either.

It will come one day.

Sport

Vendée Globe: "Somewhere, the skippers are lucky to be doing this race in this context," said Armel Le Cléac'h

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