IMOCA 60

Has there been any particular woman who's inspired you or encouraged you?

I follow a lot of French sailors who sailed in Imoca's or the huge trimaran's are like some kind of those like huge sailing stars so those are like really really cool girls who sail that kind of big boat who is flying there so yeah

Yeah, they're pretty cool, the famous project.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, but before that we had seen his boat disappear into the storm- And, uh, and then it disappeared off tracker.

So we thought it was gone, and we think it probably did sink in a way an Open 60 sinks.

It maybe doesn't sink to the bottom-

Mm

Is that right? Did it not have a cabin with like extreme tumblehome? Open 60s have, uh, some Open 60s designs have had, uh, quite a lot of tumblehome in the design.

Thinking of, um, Derek Hatfield's boat, Active House, in the Velux Five Oceans race was, um, a Thierry Dubois, uh, association with, um, Bernard Nivelt, and he built a boat with loads of tumblehome, and he did that because he'd been stuck upside down in his Finot-Conq Open 60, which had so much section- suction with a, a flat deck that it wouldn't roll back over as it was designed to do with the, um, with the canting keel.

Uh, the hydraulics released on the canting keel.

The keel should have rolled it round, but the suction kept it there, and he had to be rescued.

The term motor sailor, an improvement on the term 50-50, which it supersedes, is often used in a derogatory sense, but it should not be, for a good motor sailor does what her owner requires, carrying him efficiently and in some comfort from one place to another.

So again, choosing the boat that you want.

My Open 60 has got a 38 horsepower engine and 60 foot on the waterline.

Its propeller is a sail drive and I have twin rudders, which are like 12 feet behind the propeller.

I feel like Jester, the little junk rigged boat that was sailed by...

Uffa Fox, is that right? Did it not have a cabin with like extreme tumble home? Open 60s have some open 60s designs have had quite a lot of tumble home in the design.

Thinking of Derek Hatfield's boat Active House in the VLUX 5 Oceans race was a... thierry dubois uh association with um bernard nevelt and he built a boat with loads of tumble home and he did that because he'd been stuck upside down in his finocon open 60 which had so much section suction with a flat deck that it wouldn't roll back over as it was designed to do with the um with the canton keel uh the hydraulics released on the canton keel the keel should have rolled it around but the suction kept it there and he had to be rescued so i With that in mind, he then went, am I getting all these people's names right? I feel like I'm, I think I was right.

Yeah.

The...

The design of boats has obviously matured, not matured, maybe changed since the, again, we've just remind ourselves this was last updated by the author in early 1980s.

If you think now into quite a lot of the boats that obviously are racing a very square backed Volvo 70s, Volvo 65s, Class 40s, Open 60s, IRC boats, Comanche, all that kind of big racing boat stuff.

Those designs have started to rub off on the cruising world because they offer something that's very useful as well, which is if you're mooring stern too, which more and more marinas will give you an option to do because they can pack everyone in tighter, you get that big square frontage onto the dock.

Now, I'm interested.

So when we were doing back in the day with Volvo, we had the money to do the design for the – well, it ended up becoming the fastest IMOCA 60 for quite a long while – The way we did sort of ideas was that the Aussies involved in the sort of...

I was going to say this.

We'd go off and have beers every night and we'd have a million beers and then go, oh, what if we tried this? Like all the great ideas come from having...