Matthew Sheahan

WHISPER IT, BUT THE DECADE-OLD VO65 MIGHT JUST BE OUTPERFORMING THE FOILING IMOCA 60…

Set against the modern IMOCA 60 trend for wide flat sterns, bulbous scow bows, sunken foredecks, fully enclosed cockpits and, of course, moustache foils, it’s easy to think of the VO65S as being outdated, outclassed and surplus to requirements. As I write this I’m working as a TV news producer for the Ocean Race Europe, a three-leg offshore race around Europe from Lorient to Genoa, via Cascais and Alicante. The event is a preamble to next year’s Ocean Race proper (formerly known as the Volvo Ocean Race), where the existing fleet of VO65S will be doing their third lap of the planet. For the first time in a while there’ll be two classes as the contemporary foiling IMOCA 60 speed machines join the action to blast their way around the globe – and in so doing are expected to show us just how far offshore design has moved in a few years.

But the Ocean Race Europe has triggered a discussion about how much the VO65S still have to offer.

It seemed clear before the start that with their ‘conventional’ plain-looking straight daggerboards the VO65S would point higher upwind. And indeed they did. But what wasn’t expected was that they’d sail lower and faster than the IMOCAS downwind, even with the 60s’ ability to get up onto their leeward foil, lift their bows and smoke off over the horizon.

Instead, the VO65S were quicker, thanks in part to new A4 masthead kites that the fleet didn’t have during the last Volvo Ocean Race. These conventional looking downwind gennakers appear to have added at least one more major gear into the VO65’S transmission. And they’re quick.

In the downhill slide from Cascais to the Gibraltar Strait the VO65S started 20 minutes behind the IMOCA 60 fleet, but caught up and passed all but one of them. No one had expected that.

The other thing that has always impressed me, and I believe is underrated about these boats, is just how robust a VO65 is. Yes, it’s possible to break one, but compared to the VO70S these things are bulletproof and continue to deliver blistering speeds without self-destructing.

So I’m going to claim that the VO65 is one of, if not THE, coolest offshore boats of the last decade.

But how come the foiling IMOCA 60s find themselves playing second fiddle to these old fashioned fully crewed boats? A recent interview with designer Juan Kouyoumdjian on the Ocean Race podcast ‘Off Watch’ delivered some fascinating reasons as to what is really going on with high performance offshore design in the IMOCA world. In it, Kouyoumdjian explains that the current foiling generation is all about making compromises, quite serious ones.

“Modern IMOCA foils are trying to achieve three things, vertical force [to lift the boat], side force [to act as the daggerboard] and righting moment,” he said. “One example of the compromise is that pushing the foil further outboard provides more righting moment but requires more structure to handle the loads and the bending moment which adds weight. It also creates more drag as a result of the fatter foil.

“Too much righting moment also puts higher loads on the rig.

“In light airs, foils in the water simply mean drag so you don’t want them there at all, but it’s really hard to make the foils disappear completely. Another issue is that downwind in a big sea you need to use the foil to lift the bows, but with the C-section curved foils it’s difficult to get enough foil low in the water to work.”

The bottom line is that creating a competitive IMOCA 60 that will smoke its way around the world non-stop means working within a lot of parameters and compromises. The VO65 is a one-design boat that had none of these constraints. So, while the new IMOCA designs are clearly raising the bar with each lap of the planet, recent evidence suggests that when they are matched against an all rounder like the VO65 you could argue that the IMOCAS are becoming one-trick ponies.

There will be plenty who don’t want to hear this, but it was difficult not to start thinking it during the Ocean Race Europe watching the fleets racing alongside each other. Even more interesting was that no one expected to be having such a searching discussion around a race that was essentially a preamble to the

big gig next year.

‘IMOCAS are becoming one-trick ponies’