FIGARO BENETEAU 3

OFFSHORE SAILING, FORWARD, WITH FOILS

There is no such thing as the right boat for everyone, but there is the right boat for the right time. For today’s fervent offshore racing soloists and doublehanded teammates, that boat — right here, right now — is the Figaro Beneteau 3.

This 35-foot ocean racer isn’t just another cruisy crossover from Beneteau. There is zero comfort under its low- slung deck, unless luxury is a white, wet and noisy fiberglass cavern. It’s not a beastly Class 40 type either. For righting moment and power, it doesn’t rely on hundreds of pounds of seawater sloshing in ballast tanks. With the Figaro Beneteau 3, there are the two unmistakable arcing carbon side foils projecting from slots in its topsides. The foils are no gimmick. Neither Beneteau nor Figaro race organizers do gimmicks. The foils don’t “lift” the 3-ton platform free of the surface, however. They give a hint of lift and a pile of righting moment for a faster, smoother ride into the night.

The boat is designed and built for the Solitaire du Figaro race, the unofficial world championship of singlehanded sailing and the stage onto which all future solo sailing greats must step. It’s a multileg race that runs the length of the French coast, covering nearly 2,000 nautical miles over two weeks. The event was first held in 1970, and entries varied in size and shape until stakeholders made it a one-design contest with the Figaro Solo 1, a stout 30-footer. A decade’s worth of Vendee Globe race legends emerged from these contests until the Solo 1’s use-by date ushered in the Beneteau Figaro II, a robust double-rudder design.

For 16 years, pros and amateurs alike put “crazy amounts of mileage on the boats,” says Beneteau product manager Luc Joëssel, before the class and competitors agreed enough is enough. It was time to elevate the official Figaro class — and the race itself — mirroring the groundbreaking foil-assisted 60-footers of the IMOCA class.

“All the top design offices answered to the call,” Joëssel says. The firm of Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-prévost got the nod, and Beneteau, with its longstanding relationship with the race, remained as builder. They will soon deliver 50 brand-spanking-new one-design offshore boats to hungry soloists young and old.

“The philosophy of the class is that if 50 boats start, 50 must arrive at the finish for the good of the event,” Gianguido Girotti,

Beneteau’s general manager, explains to Sailing World’s Boat of the Year judges, Chuck Allen, Tom Rich and Greg Stewart. “These guys are maniacs with their trimming; they do it 24/7 because it’s in their DNA. They are always stuck to each other, which makes them push that much harder.”

The Figaro Beneteau 3’ s price ( as sailed and presented for Boat of the Year) is $250,000, which includes a six-sail inventory, electronics, cordage, all the race-required safety equipment and a shipping/dry-storage cradle. Construction is polyester infusion with a mixed use of Core-cell and balsa core, placing more structure where it’s required most and less where it’s not.

Finalizing the deck layout was a complicated exercise, Joëssel says, as controls need to be centralized around the cockpit in order to minimize the competitor’s exposure on deck. “After hours and hours working with all the guys on the mock-up,” he says, “it was all validated on the prototype.” The most complicated piece of the puzzle, however, was with the foils and their adjustment.

In conjunction with Multiplast, which has built many of the best big rigs in high-speed ocean sailing, Joëssel says they invested in a complex set of molds in order to maintain strict tolerances through the use of several measurements and jigs. “Everything is measured and weighed straight out of the molds,” he says. “So far, the maximum discrepancy is 40 kilos.”

The 8- foot keel is cast iron with an iron- encased lead bulb. There is no fiberglass shell for protection, but there’s a reason: “Eventually, a fiberglass shell will leak, which will then lead to repairs, and once you get into that, questionable modifications will happen,” Girotti says.

Boat of the Year judge Tom Rich, a custom boatbuilder, says the Beneteau 3’s construction matches its purpose well. “Maybe it’s a bit rough on the finishing touches,” he says after crawling through the innards of the boat, “but it’s a raceboat with a lot of structure. The standard boat is white, white, white. There’s nothing exotic.”

The interior isn’t meant for lounging with rosé either. It’s more like crashing off watch in a bean-bag chair or sail stack, wedged between ring frames and gear bags. While the interior is spartan, the deck layout does have a lot going on.

According to the judges, feel of the helm is smooth all the time. “It sure feels like a big boat,” Rich says. “The stability is unbelievable. I thought it was really stiff upwind, especially when you feel the leeward foil bite. The rig is the right size for the boat. It’s plenty big with a really wide shroud base.”

In roughly 10 knots of wind for the sail testing, Stewart, a naval architect, and Allen, a sailmaker, immediately felt the Figaro Beneteau 3’s defining asset: a sensation of lift and righting moment from the active foil. “As soon as you feel it load up, the boat rises and just starts crushing it,” Allen says. “It’s like a baby Comanche [the 100-foot VPLP record machine built for American yachtsman Jim Clark].”

“It has a nice feeling upwind, with a really positive grip,” Stewart says. “The toe-in was set perfect, and there was no noticeable wake off the transom. The foils don’t lift the boat, but rather straighten it upright. The lift component is pushing against the displacement, and there’s your righting moment increase.”

The foils, both of which are fully deployed once the boat is off the dock and sailing, are adjusted independently through a block-and-tackle purchase led to the cockpit. They adjust fore and aft, with about 5 inches of travel. In light air, they would be neutral to forward, and as the wind built, they would be incrementally adjusted aft. “When the foil is working, the boat lightens up and feels really amazing,” Allen says. “When you start cracking off and going downwind, you can feel the bow rise. With the rig back and all that buoyancy forward, it will surf, for sure.”

There’s a lot going on with the hull shape that makes it all work, Stewart says, notably its full bow section, which will prevent the boat from tripping over itself in a seaway. “With such a powerful sail plan, the power steering you get from the twin rudders is awesome,” he says.

The class sail inventory includes a 440-square-foot North Sails 3Di square-top main, J2 and J3 jibs, a furling code zero, and A5-size and A2 Airex spinnakers. With such a quiver, and with most of the sailhandling business conducted in the back of the yacht, there’s a lot of rope pouring into the cockpit at all times. The deck gear layout is comprehensive, and the judges each agreed all control systems work flawlessly. Sets and douses, tacks and jibes are easy with four hands or two with autopilot assistance, which will mean more efficient downwind maneuvers for Figaro competitors who are used to dealing with a symmetric spinnaker.

Faster maneuvers may end up being one undesirable side effect of the Figaro Beneteau 3, however. If competitors think the racing has been insane of late, wait until the fleet gets elevated.