50 yachts that changed sailing

I enjoyed your article on the ‘50 boats that changed the way we sail’, but was disappointed that you were unable to find space for Icarus, the original Tornado catamaran on foils.

James Grogono and his friends developed the idea of foils over some years and eventually Icarus held the World Sailing Speed record for Class B for a decade.

You included Monitor which, although revolutionary, was a one-off oddity. It was really Icarus, with foils that one would recognise today, that demonstrated in a competitive environment how much faster a boat with foils could go.

The foiling trimaran l’hydroptere, also in your list and another important boat, appeared 15 years later and is in essence an enlarged version of Icarus. The crew of l’hydroptere always recognised their debt to Icarus. Foiling catamarans, including those of the America’s Cup, owe much to the pioneering work of James Grogono on Icarus.

Martin Thomas

You mentioned Safran 2 in ‘50 boats that changed the way we sail’. This boat is the result of an eight-year collaboration (six previous IMOCA 60s) with Team Verdier, so credit for the design of this boat should be shared between us both.

Vincent Lauriot-prévost, VPLP Design