With 13 boats taking the starting line, including 9 designed in collaboration with Guillaume Verdier, VPLP Design will once again be well represented in the Vendée Globe when it gets underway on 10 November for this, it’s tenth edition. Ambitions vary depending on the skippers and the generations of IMOCAs.
Now that the Défi Azimut-Lorient Agglomération has reached its conclusion, all eyes are turning their attention to Les Sables d’Olonne. The last three editions being won by IMOCAs designed by VPLP and Guillaume Verdier (Macif, Banque Populaire VIII, Maître CoQ IV), the Vendée Globe starting 10 November is looking to be more hotly disputed than ever, with 11 foilers and 2 centreboarders built especially for this year’s race.
Boris Herrmann’s Malizia-Seaexplorer, the latest boat to come off the VPLP drawing board, belongs to this new generation and, on paper, is a favourite for a podium place. Boris enjoyed success in the spring transatlantic events with second places in The Transat CIC and the New York to Vendée. The German skipper is an experienced Vendée Globe competitor, coming 5th in 2020. His IMOCA was designed specifically for him and features a protective and very low-lying living compartment, so he can stand up. Above all, Malizia-Seaexplorer’s rockered hull is designed to maintain very high average speeds in a breeze.
The experience acquired in the Southern Ocean during The Ocean Race 2023 is going to be a great advantage: Boris won the southern leg between Cape Town and Itajai, and broke the 24-hour distance record for monohulls. As a result, Malizia Seaexplorer will be one of the latest generation foilers with the most sea-time when she lines up at the start of the Vendée Globe. In the words of her skipper: “Malizia is through her teething problems. She’s reliable, forgiving and, above all, has fantastic potential for performance. You can sail heeling to leeward or to windward, using the trimmer or not. Nothing stops her.”
Big foils, big opportunities
The current architectural convergence on foil shapes, and the limits placed on their surface area by the IMOCA class rules, led several boats to undertake ambitious and effective refits. Bows have been reshaped to limit the effects of digging in and new foils have been fitted to some. This is notably the case on Justine Mettraux’s Teamwork-Team Snef (formerly Charal), the first ever boat designed specifically for foiling, designed by VPLP and launched in 2018.
“To remain competitive, we knew we had to make the move to big foils and we commissioned the studies from VPLP to this end. They allow us to lift out of the water earlier and make up for our deficits in other areas, in particular on the powerful points of sail, so we can continue playing with the best,” says the Swiss sailor who finished 6th in her first Route du Rhum in 2022. The refit comprised two phases: the first involved grafting on the new trunks and reworking the structure in 2023; while the new foils were added during the winter refit in preparation for the very intense 2024 season.
Most of the 2016 generation VPLP/Verdier IMOCAs have been upgraded. Probably the most ambitious works of all were undertaken on Groupe Apicil by CDK Technologies for Damien Seguin in the winter of 2022–23. Over the course of eight months, the yard did 70,000 hours of work on the former Maître Coq IV, winner of the 2020 Vendée Globe with Yannick Bestaven at the helm. “We did a massive refit which included adding large foils with a static moment of 8 m3 and changing 30 m2 of the bottom shell. We also changed the coachroof as, given the weight added to the boat, it required more volume in order to pass the stability test,” explains Damien Seguin, who secured 7th place in the last Vendée Globe.
During the lay-off Damien took the opportunity to join Biotherm during The Ocean Race in order to familiarize himself with sailing an IMOCA with big foils. Since going back in the water with her new configuration, Groupe Apicil has made promising progress with a 5th place in the Retour à La Base and 8th in The Transat CIC. On the upcoming Vendée Globe, her skipper says: “This upgrade clearly shows our ambition to break into the top 5. I signed up for a second Vendée Globe because I wanted to move up a level in terms of sport and technology. And to do that, I had to make significant changes to the boat.”
Clash of the centreboard IMOCAs
The Vendée Globe will also be a race within a race because no fewer than 16 centreboard IMOCAs have signed up, including Monnoyeur-Duo for a Job. Skipper Benjamin Ferré has this to say about his centreboarder: “A historic boat, well-built and sailed by the best.” Winner of the 2012 event with François Gabart at the helm, this IMOCA was launched in 2011 and remains competitive, coming 12th in the last Vendée Globe under the command of Clarisse Crémer.
Instead of completely transforming the boat, Benjamin Ferré endeavoured to “capitalize on her qualities of lightness and versatility, and to progress alongside her.” Changes were limited to the rudder blades and reducing her weight. As he prepares to embark on his first Vendée Globe (he is one of 15 newbies in the 2024 edition), Benjamin is measured in his ambitions: “I haven’t set myself any goals because I risk losing sight of my priority which is to complete the Vendée Globe.” Nevertheless, he feels that his VPLP/Verdier IMOCA has the potential to do well by “adopting taut trajectories, to save nautical miles, and not attempting to keep up with the foilers.”
The 13 VPLP designs in the 2024 Vendée Globe:
MACSF* (Isabelle Joschke) 2007, MS Amlin* (Conrad Colman) 2007, La Mie Câline* (Arnaud Boissières) 2010, Monnoyeur Duo For a Job (Benjamin Ferré) 2011, Medallia* (Pip Hare) 2015, Guyot Environnement-Water Family* (Benjamin Dutreux) 2015, Prysmian* (Giancarlo Pedote) 2015, Groupe Apicil* (Damien Seguin) 2015, Fortinet Best Western* (Romain Attanasio) 2015, Teamwork-Team Snef (Justine Mettraux) 2018, Hublot (Alan Roura) 2019, DMG Mori (Kojiro Shiraishi) 2019, Malizia Seaexplorer (Boris Herrmann) 2022
* Designed in collaboration with Guillaume Verdier
Read also (in French): VPLP Design and the Vendée Globe: A history of victories and innovations
