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Flo: the iconic racing trimaran

Trimaran Flo is an updated legendary trimaran of yachtswoman Florence Artaud – Pierre 1er. We tell you about the exciting story of one multihull!

Florence Artaud and the unexpected start of a career

In fact, there are a great many iconic racing yachts, catamarans and trimarans. Among this multitude, alas, not all boats can convey one important aspect - the feeling of the era, its physical imprint in the hull. 

Today's hero is the racing trimaran Flo, formerly called the Pierre 1er, just one of those multihulls that perfectly convey the spirit of their native era, namely the 1990s. With this trimaran, Florence Artaud won the 1990 Route du Rhum regatta. 

Then Artaud overtook Philippe Poupon, who won the previous regatta, by eight hours. Florence became the first woman to win such a major offshore race. With this victory, the yachtswoman inspired a whole generation of girls and women to go in for sailing.

But Florence's influence is not limited to this. In addition to winning the Route du Rhum in 1990, she had already managed to break the transatlantic race record at that time. Then Florence was able to get ahead of Bruno Peyron at 20%, setting a new record.

In addition, Artaud also became the first yachtswoman to be able to receive the title of "Champion of Champions of the French Team". All these regalia occurred against the backdrop of Florence's personal tragedy. In principle, her entire career began in a strange way - with the fact that Florence, then still a girl, had an accident.

Fast forward four years to the first Route du Rhum regatta in which the yachtswoman took part. The year is 1974, Florence is only 17 and she gets into a terrible car accident. Doctors said that the girl was born in a shirt, because after this they don’t survive, but the prognosis was disappointing. Although the girl survived, she fell into a coma. Flo spent almost half a year in the hospital, being bedridden.

It took her two years to recover from the accident. However, she was not only able to fully return to normal life, but also began to sail!

ORMA 60 - the beginning of the beginning

If you think that crazy concepts of sailing and motor boats are something new, then you are mistaken. In the 1980s, the number of interesting models that remained only on paper was no less. The only difference is that today there is more talk about concepts.

ORMA 60 trimarans could have remained such concepts, but they appeared, as they say, “at the right time and in the right place”. ORMA 60 quickly gained popularity among racers and ordinary yachtsmen already in the mid-1980s. Then the shipyards competed in the innovativeness of materials, the audacity of design and tried to reinvent the wheel - they used the latest engineering developments. Has anything changed since then?

One of the trimarans ORMA 60, namely Pierre 1er, was destined for a great destiny. The entire line, including the Pierre 1er, was produced by VPLP (project) and Jeanneau JTA (technology and production facilities). When creating the trimarans of the line, fiberglass and Kevlar were used to increase strength and reliability.

However, this trimaran also had a critical drawback, which was an unprecedented weight-to-power ratio. Despite the fact that the trimaran itself is very stable, due to weight imbalance at high speeds, the trimaran could simply turn over. 

This was the final nail in the coffin of the ORMA 60 class. In 2002, during the same Route du Rhum regatta, there were five accidents. All of them were connected with capsizing trimarans of this model during the race. Then investors and sponsors stopped sponsoring the class and turned their attention to more promising models. Yes, ORMA 60 can still be found at regattas, but they are clearly not in the spotlight anymore.

However, this did not prevent both the entire ORMA 60 class and the Pierre 1er from gaining a glorious racing history.

History of Flo

And now, after this grandiose introduction, we will tell you about the Flo trimaran. Why was such a long interlude necessary? So that you, dear readers, understand the historical context.

On board the Pierre 1er trimaran, Florence Artaud managed to break several world records and win regattas. This trimaran is the most important part of the history of the yachtswoman herself. 

When Flo was still 19 years old, life brought her together with Philippe Poupon, another famous yachtsman. It was then that the foundation of a long friendship was laid. Over time, Poupon's wife, Geraldine Danon, also became close to Florence. The couple referred to Artaud as a member of the family.

Poupon and Artaud took part in the 2000 Transat regatta together, and also helped each other on numerous occasions, replacing members of their teams. Arto once took part in Figaro ll and Transat Jacques Vabre along with Poupon's brother Luc in the mid-2000s.

Shortly before Florence's death in 2015, Geraldine, being a director, discussed with the yachtswoman the idea of creating a film about her non-trivial career. Then the women agreed that one of the heroes of the film was to be the famous trimaran Pierre 1er. 

However, after the victories and records of the road, Florence and her faithful partner parted ways. In 1993, American billionaire and adventurer Steve Fossett bought the trimaran. He renamed the multihull Lakota. In 1994, he even took 5th place on the Route du Rhum, and a year later - first place in the Transpac regatta. 

On the Pierre 1er, Steve managed to break 12 world records, and also managed to circumnavigate the world. After a while, Atlant Ocean Racing became the new owner of the trimaran, and then ... Over the years of its existence, Pierre 1er managed to change many owners and names.

After Florence's death, Philippe and Gerardin decided that the trimaran needed to be restored and given a second chance. In addition, Gerardine is still working on the script for the film about Florence. The couple decided that it was Pierre 1er who should become the key character of the film along with Flo herself.

Restoration and preparation for the regatta

Together with his wife, Philip went in search in 2022. The couple ended up finding a trimaran in the Philippines and shipping it to France. Philippe says: “I was amazed at how well the yacht has been preserved.” The electronics were periodically updated, but there were no cardinal changes in the design at all.   

However, Philip did not have 250,000 euros in his pocket to buy. The new owner loaned the trimaran to Poupon to take part in Route du Rhum 2022 and to film his wife's film.

Below deck, the trimaran has little space. There is a galley, one berth and a small navigation station. However, this yacht was created for speeds and records, and not for measured cruises in the Mediterranean.

Restoration began at the shipyard. Basically, the restoration concerned only cosmetic aspects. Philip also insisted on renaming the multihull, paying tribute to his deceased girlfriend - you have already seen the new name more than once in this text - Flo. 

When the basic restoration was completed, it was time to prepare for the regatta. This is how the story beautifully looped - decades later, Flo sets off on his final tour along the same route on which it all began. 

Preparations for the journey began to boil. Philip noted in an interview that in preparation for a new serious test, it was necessary to make a minimum of changes. The electrical system was updated, but the deck equipment and sailing layout remained virtually unchanged.

Last July, Poupon got his hands on a fully completed Flo. It happened in Cannes, where the shooting of the film about Florence also began. The trimaran received its place of honor in the port of Vieux. 

On Friday, September 9, 2022, the trimaran was re-launched. After a while, he arrived at La Trinite for sea trials.

legendary return

To participate in Route du Rhum 2022, it was required to pass the qualifying stage - a solo passage of a 1200-mile stretch of track. When this test was successfully passed, the regatta began, where Pupon competed in the Rhum Multi class. 

Philipp successfully finished the race in an honorable 7th place out of 17 available. The entire race aboard the Flo took 18 days and 19 hours. However, Philip failed to beat his friend's record. Florence managed to cover the same distance three and a half days faster.

Florence's victory at Route du Rhum 1990 came just months after the women's team won second place at the Whitbread Round the World. Then the athletes and athletes noted that with the latest big names and records, it is likely that the focus of attention from male yachtsmen will shift towards women's teams. 

However, three decades have passed since then. At the last regatta Route du Rhum, out of 138 skippers, only 7 were women. This problem was brought to the attention of Knut Frostad, one of the winners of the Volvo Ocean Race, as well as the CEO of the Navico Group, a marine electronics and equipment conglomerate. 

In his speech at the last regatta forum, he noted: “... not only for the sake of fairness, we should attract more women to sailing. The absence of female representatives is a threat to any sport in the long term. Our industry will die in a generation if we continue like this…”

What's next for Flo? After participating in the regatta, the trimaran went to shoot a film about Florence Artaud. Its further fate remains in question, but most likely it will go back to its owner. 

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We asked historians, round the world race winners and legendary sailors to name the yachts that changed the sport for good. In no particular order, these are the 50 yachts that shifted how we sail…

Photo: Guido Cantini / Panerai / Sea&See.com

1.  Mariquita

Built:  1911 Design:  William Fife III

Mariquita  is a living link between the ‘Big Class’ behemoths, such as  Britannia , the J Class and all that went after, including the hugely popular 12-metres. The 125ft gaff cutter was launched as part of a new 19-metre class designed to pitch matched yachts against one another.

Photo: Oskar Kihlborg / Volvo Ocean Race

2.  ABN Amro One

Built:  2005 Design:  Juan Kouyoumdjian

Two Volvo Ocean Race-winning skippers nominated Juan Kouyoumdjian’s  ABN Amro One , the 5.6m beam, aggressively chined winner of the 2005-06 race. Her skipper Mike Sanderson comments: “I am biased, but I think  ABN Amro One  was very special and really did change people’s thinking about what made a good offshore race boat.

“As this was the first generation of Volvo 70s it was always going to be an interesting time seeing how people translated the rule,” says Sanderson. The other factor was many of the team’s involvement in Open 60 sailing.

“We very much looked at the concept of the boat differently: no spinnaker pole, furling No.4 Jibs, twin rudders, lazyjacks, snuffers on spinnakers… They all went from being equipment that was only used on single-handed boats to our team thinking it could make us faster around the world, day in day out.”

Ian Walker, winner of the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race, recalls: “This generation of boats smashed the previous 24-hour records and made the 600-mile day possible.  ABN Amro  was quite radical structurally but the key thing was she prioritised stability over anything else – such as wetted surface area.

“The Farr boats were lower wetted surface area and even started out with spinnaker poles! Asymmetric spinnakers meant sailing higher angles and more often needing righting moment.

“ABN Amro One  also had twin rudders and more transom immersion, which meant it was slow in light winds but fast at high speed. There was some doubt when it was last in the first in-port races and because much of the race is in light winds, but it was so fast reaching that it negated any weaknesses.”

Photo: Thierry Martinez

3. TP52  Patches

Built:  2007 Design:  Reichel Pugh

Originally created to produce fast yachts for the Transpac Race, the TP52 class developed into an owner-driven inshore circuit which continues to attract the world’s best monohull sailors (these days as the Super Series). One development refined on the TP was the change to wide aft sections.

“We started off with quite narrow sterns and the working deck stopping well over one metre forward of the stern,” comments class manager Rob Weiland. “We now see an almost continuous width of the working deck from Beam Max aft and the working deck continuing to the stern.

“The ‘powerful stern’ is now the norm in offshore racing. I’m not sure whether we started it, but for sure, we were the test bed for how to refine that hull shape concept for windward leeward performance.”

Photo: Ivor Wilkins Offshore Challenges / DPPI

4.  B&Q Castorama

Built:  2004 Design:  Nigel Irens

‘Mobi’, as she was affectionately known, was the 75ft trimaran designed by Nigel Irens specifically for Ellen MacArthur’s solo round the world record attempt in 2004.

B&Q Castorama  was highly optimised, being longer, narrower, and with more freeboard than the ORMA 60s, reducing the risk of a pitchpole.

She was also, uniquely, custom built for a petite female skipper, with a full-scale mock up of the cockpit created at Offshore Challenges office. The trimaran took over a day off Francis Joyon’s record to finish in 71 days and 14 hours.

5. J/24  Ragtime

Built:  1976 Design:  Rod Johnstone

It took 18 months for Rod Johnstone to build this 24-footer in his garage in Connecticut. It was designed to be simple to sail, with few rig adjustments, and light enough to be trailable. Rod’s family helped sand and finish the boat, and she was called  Ragtime . Competing at their local race series in the summer of ’76,  Ragtime  was so successful that many people asked Rod for a sistership. He quit his job, and with brother Bob Johnstone set up J-Boats.

Their confidence proved well placed. Just two years later the J/24 class had its own one-design fleet at Key West in 1978, with 20 boats on the line. Now over 5,500 boats have been built and sold worldwide.

The J-boat line expanded to include one-designs like the J/70, as well as cruiser-racers such as the J/109. It has since has become synonymous with asymmetric sailing, doing much to popularise the use of asymmetric spinnakers on big boats.

Photo: Spike Abram

6. Gunboat 62  Tribe

Built:  2001 Design:  Morrelli & Melvin

When you are the son of the son of Bob Johnstone, one of the founders of J-Boats, keelboat sailing is in your blood. But when Peter Johnstone wanted to update his cruising yacht in the early Noughties he commissioned a 62ft catamaran.

Tribe  was one of two custom Morrelli & Melvin designed 62ft cats commissioned by Clint Clemens and Peter Johnstone and built at Jaz Marine in Cape Town, South Africa. Combining comfort with racing yacht technology,  Tribe  reported intimidating speeds of 15 knots upwind and 30 downwind. The unique design was a big success and attracted a great deal of interest: the Gunboat concept was born.

Some years later Peter Johnstone formed Gunboat to build more 62-footers, subsequently Morrelli & Melvin also designed the Gunboat 66, 48, and 90 catamarans. Gunboat has since risen and fallen, before finally being sold. But the Gunboat brand continues, now under new ownership, and a slew of luxury performance catamarans from boatbuilders all over the world has since followed the innovative  Tribe.

7. The Mirror dinghy

Built:  1962 Design:  Jack Holt

Not a yacht, clearly, but the Mirror deservers a mention for bringing thousands of people into the sport. Jumping on the trend for home-building sailing dinghies in the 1960s,  The Mirror  newspaper commissioned designer Jack Holt and television DIY expert Barry Bucknell to come up with a family friendly boat, which could be built at home.

The Mirror, with red sails to match the red-top paper, cost £63 11s, and fitted on top of a car. It was a huge success, with more than 70,000 sold over the years. The class was part of a movement which saw the sport vastly expand and, thanks to its symmetric spinnaker, was also the teaching ground for many of Britain’s most successful sailors – Volvo Ocean Race winner Ian Walker is among its alumni.

8.  Endeavour

Built:  1934 Design:  Camper & Nicholson

By the 1970s it looked as if the J Class was destined to fade from history.  Endeavour  exemplified the Js’ plight, abandoned to sink on the River Medina. Ten years later she was completely restored.

“In his seminal book  Enterprise to Endeavour  yachting historian Ian Dear said in the 1970s that the likes of the J Class would never be seen again. And who could blame him! But he had to publish another edition when, to his delight, he was clearly proved wrong,” recalls David Glenn.

“The re-build of  Endeavour  by Elisabeth Meyer, and of  Velsheda  by Ronald de Waal towards the end of the last century, not only fired the starting gun for a resurgence in the J Class which today draws crowds like the Red Arrows, but was a catalyst for the boom in superyacht racing in the first 10 years of the 21st century.

“Their power and sheer beauty are genuinely timeless and modern materials have made them manageable. Their 100th birthday in 15 years time will be worth waiting for!”

9.  Tarantella

Built:  1967 Design:  Sparkman & Stephens

Tarantella  was originally conceived for owner Pekka Koskenkyla who wanted a 36-footer built using the new glassfibre method.

Photo: Jean Marie Liot

10.  Pen Duick V

Built:  1969 Design:  Michel Bigoin/Daniel Divergie

“My choice would be Eric Tabarly’s  Pen Duick V . This aluminium 35ft monohull was the first offshore racing boat that used water ballast successfully,” says former  Yachting World  editor Andrew Bray.

Pen Duick V  was the smallest of Tabarly’s famous line of yachts, but one of the most successful. In her Tabarly won the 1969 solo San Francisco to Tokyo Race, finishing more than 11 days faster than the next boat.

11.  Merlin

Built:  1977 Design:  Bill Lee

Weight saving is the holy grail of yacht design today, but it wasn’t until the late ’70s that the first Ultra Light Displacement designs, or ULDBs, were launched.

Among them was Bill Lee’s 67ft Merlin, at 12.5 tonnes and just 12ft wide.  Merlin  smashed the 1977 Transpac course record, setting a time which stood for 20 years.

Officials, concerned that ULDBs were not robust enough for ocean racing, changed the Transpac rule in an attempt to limit it to slower IOR designs.

Merlin  was heavily modified, but still managed to win the ‘Barn Door’ trophy for the fastest crossing twice more. The record was finally broken by the sled  Pyewacket , also designed by Lee, two decades on.

12.  Monitor

Built:  1955 Design:  Gordon Baker

Legendary offshore sailor Loick Peyron nominates this futuristic design from the ’50s: “I think Gordon Baker’s  Monitor  is the one, which in the 1950s did a lot for the present and future of sailing.”

The 26ft  Monitor  is quite unlike anything else, made of glued mahogany with hollow, stainless steel hydrofoils which look more like windmill vanes than yacht foils – unsurprisingly, as that is what Baker Manufacturing had previously focused on. The early hydrofoiling yacht was reported to have a top speed of around 30 knots, using battened cotton sails.

13. Infiniti 46

Built:  2015 Design:  Hugh Welbourn/Gordon Kay

The DSS-enabled Infiniti 46 is the first yacht to be designed around the twin retractable foil system (rather than have them retrofitted) to increase lift, reducing drag and heeling angle.

Since 2016 she’s been campaigned hard, winning class in the Middle Sea Race and RORC Transatlantic Race.

14. Vestas  Sail Rocket II

Built:  2011 Design:  Malcolm Barnsley

For two decades speed sailing was dominated by the race to top the 50-knot barrier.  Yellow Pages Endeavour  got to 46.52 knots over 500m in 1993, then ten years later windsurfers and kitesurfers upped the ante, finally pushing over 50 knots in 2008.

Macquarie Innovation  became the first sailing vessel to nudge over 50 knots in 2009. Then in 2014 Paul Larsen on  Vestas SailRocket II  knocked all previous attempts out of the park with an incredible 65.45 knots in Namibia. Nobody has even got remotely close since.

15.  Maltese Falcon

Built:  2006 Design:  Dykstra/Perini Navi

At the time the most grandiose yacht ever to be built, the 289ft  Maltese Falcon  was a technical triumph. Her three-masted ‘Dynarig’ system was created by Perini Navi at the behest of technology investor Tom Perkins, and is a modern day development of a 1960s concept created by Wilhelm Prølss.

Her gold and granite styling is not to everyone’s tastes, but the 2,400sq m sail area saw  Maltese Falcon  sail across the Atlantic in ten days. The systems proved so successful she was spotted sailing off her mooring in some venues – quite a feat for a 1,200-tonne vessel.

16.  Speedboat

Built:  2008 Design:  Juan Kouyoumdjian

Launched as  Speedboat  in 2008, this 100-footer was initially designed with the express intention of setting records, specifically the transatlantic record. Following on from Juan K’s successful Volvo 70 designs, she was exceptionally wide at the transom with a deep canting keel and water ballast, but record successes were few and far between.

Re-optimised for IRC as  Rambler 100  she had some race victories before losing her keel and capsizing in the 2011 Rolex Fastnet Race, with five crew swept away from the boat.

All were rescued safely, but the incident intensified the focus on reliability in canting keel designs.

When owner George David commissioned the replacement  Rambler 88 , his new yacht includes fibreoptic patches on the keel fin and load sensors on the pin, with data continuously fed to the navigation station

17.  Pen Duick IV

Built:  1968 Design:  André Allègre

“Built by Eric Tabarly, this was the first large ocean-racing multihull, which led the trend towards large multihulls in ocean races,” Robin Knox-Johnston nominates  Pen Duick IV.

“For example, it encouraged us to ask Rod Macalpine Downie to design the 70-foot catamaran  British Oxygen  in 1973.”

Pen Duick IV  took victory in the 1972 OSTAR with Alain Colas, who went on to sail her solo around the world – the first solo multihull circumnavigation.

18. Class 40

Built:  2005 Design:  Various

The Class 40s have provided a first step into ocean racing for many skippers. Less than a year after the class was formed, 25 lined up for the 2006 Route du Rhum.

Pro navigator Campbell Field explains: “It would be easy to nominate ‘Swiss Army knife’ foilers, or the super high tech IMOCAs. However, the Class 40s are complete in many ways. Affordable, bulletproof, ultra high performance, safe, and sexy [they can be sailed] one, two or four-up. They are simple, dynamic, rewarding, and guaranteed to thrill.

Photo: Jacques Vapillon

19.  Pierre 1er

Built:  1989 Design:  Van Peteghem & Lauriot Prévost

Beautiful and radical, the golden  Pierre 1er  was the first ORMA 60 and won the 1990 Route du Rhum with Florence Arthaud.

Vincent Lauriot Prévost recalls: “I think in ocean racing the first big change was to fly the hull with a trimaran as if with a catamaran.”  Pierre 1er  was swiftly followed by  Primagaz , the first big tri to sail on one float.

20.  America

Built:  1851 Design:  James Rich Steers & George Steers

The yacht which famously won around the Isle of Wight one August day some 169 years ago,  America  was also radical. Marc van Peteghem comments: “The schooner America brought something new. She was the first really wide beamed racing yacht to win against really narrow boats. It was a first really big step.”

21. One Tonner  Jade

Built:  1985 Design:  Rob Humphreys:

The Admiral’s Cup was the perfect testbed for design experimentation, typified by the One Tonner  Jade , which won the 1985 One Ton Cup and came second in the Admirals’ Cup of the same year.

Designer Rob Humphreys remembers: “She was designed to compete in what, with hindsight, was one of the most competitive One Ton Cup world championships ever. If I remember correctly there was a fleet of about 40 boats, counting probably 30 brand new ones.

“She was a very committed racing yacht – no compromises, which I was sometimes prone to do in order to add some value – and won the event.”

Owned by Larry and Debbie Wooddell,  Jade’ s talented crew included David Howlett and Rodney Pattison.

“She was a particularly good reaching boat but could hold her own in an upwind/downwind context,” adds Humphreys.

“The former characteristic was important because the Ton Cups then retained a strong offshore element and often one would sail with cracked sheets, and in this respect we tended to romp away from the competition. We were also leading our class in the same year’s Fastnet Race as part of the British Admiral’s Cup team, but lost our mast in ironically benign conditions in the Irish Sea.”

Photo: Marc Guillemot

22. IMOCA 60  Safran 2 

Built:  2015 Design:  VPLP/Verdier

The IMOCA 60 class has pushed innovation for 25 years, from halyard locks and kick-up rudders, to numerous ballast systems and safety features, and even Owen Clarke Design Group’s  Acciona , the first boat intended to race around the world without fossil fuels (the attempt failed when  Acciona  capsized).

Its most spectacular development has been the dynamic foil system. The 2016 Vendée Globe was the first to see semi-foiling IMOCA 60s racing around the world, and the first boat to be equipped with the curved ‘Dali moustache’ was the VPLP-Verdier designed  Safran 2 .

“The new rules were putting the old boats kind of at a disadvantage because they had to have a one-design keel, one-design mast, restrictions on materials and so on. We knew that we couldn’t be as efficient in terms of sailing weight as we are with the old boats, so we moved onto the concept of how to use the dynamic system to lighten the boat,” explains designer Lauriot Prévost.

“Now, when they are sailing at say 10-12 tonnes they have something like half of the weight taken by the dynamic lift from the keel and foils, so it is as if the boat is sailing at 5 tonnes hydrodynamic weight.”

23.  Damien II

Built:  1974 Design:  Michel Joubert

Jérôme Poncet commissioned  Damien II  in 1974, having already sailed below the Antarctic Circle and around the world. He, his wife Sally and family, lived aboard  Damien II  for 12 years, exploring everywhere from Europe to Brazil, Polynesia, Tasmania and New Zealand, as well as the sub-Antarctic islands, becoming the first yacht to winter in Antarctica in 1978-79.

“For me it is without doubt the  Damien II , a 15-metre steel hulled, lifting keel schooner that has been the major influence for opening up high latitude sailing for generations that followed,” comments Skip Novak.

“Jérôme and Sally Poncet commissioned the Michel Joubert design and for the next 25 years routinely sailed in the far south on the Antarctic Peninsula, to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia and around the Falkland Islands.

“A few boats had dipped in far south around the same time – David Lewis on  Icebird  comes to mind, as does Bill Tilman years before on his Bristol Channel Pilot Cutters – but they were very much one-off voyages by vessels ill suited to the region. It was the  Damien II  that created a design type that was found to be a useful tool for remote cruising in cold, sometimes ice bound, conditions.

“This meant a robust steel hull, a lifting ballast keel to beach or access shallow water to avoid ice, the unmistakable French camber on the otherwise flush deck and the plexiglass bubble with a 360-degree view for inside piloting. The interior was cozy enough to raise three children aboard: son Dion was born on the saloon table in winter, on South Georgia. Otherwise systems were basic for ultimate reliability.

“This design, and not least of all what the Poncet’s achieved in pioneering voyages which included science surveys and supporting some of the best known BBC wildlife extravaganzas like  Life in the Freezer , encouraged others to follow in various fashions.

“Thirty Damien hulls have been built along the same lines. My own original  Pelagic , built in 1987, was an evolution with a sloop rig but modelled on the same concept and can be considered a ‘Damien type’ – as are any 45-55ft steel hulled lifting keel boats. Quite a legacy.”

24. Extreme 40

Built:  2005 Design:  Yves Loday / Tornado Sport

The carbon fibre catamaran used in the Extreme Sailing Series (2007-2015) showcased the short-course, close to shore, ‘stadium’ style of racing which many events, including the America’s Cup, now seek to emulate.

It wasn’t the first class to capture the public imagination – in its 1990s heyday the Ultra 30 class, , with its multiple trapezing crew, attracted mainstream broadcast television rights and big cash sponsorship. However, with the Extreme 40, organiser OC Sport took the concept of sailing as a spectator sport and marketing vehicle, and expanded it into a global phenomenon.

Navigator Michael Broughton comments: “It seems longer, but when the Extreme 40s were being built only 15 years ago, the America’s Cup was still sailed in 24-tonne monohulls with 17 crew. These boats have helped to make the careers of many elite sailors of today.”

25.  Mirabella V

Built:  2003 Design:  Ron Holland

Launched in 2003, and now refitted as  M5 ,  Mirabella V  has the tallest single mast in the world.

With an air draught of 290ft she cannot pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, but flies the largest jib ever made at 1,830 square metres from a huge carbon spar. Such vast loads required special battens which compress under shock load.

26.  Tangaroa

Built:  1965 Design:  James Wharram

James Wharram sailed the self-built 23ft plywood catamaran  Tangaroa  from Las Palmas to Trinidad, arriving two days before Christmas in 1955.

“It is impossible to conceive of a vessel further removed from today’s high-tech racing multihulls or luxurious cruising catamarans which now sail the oceans of the world, yet without her it is arguable that many of them would never have been built,” comments Tom Cunliffe.

“A true pioneer of western multihull voyaging, Wharram designed and constructed the affordable, effective  Tangaroa  himself. His crew were two German girls and Pepe the dog. This remarkable boat followed the philosophies of the traditional Polynesian seafarers, with her tiny plywood hulls connected by flexibly mounted beams and an open slatted platform.

“His team made no claim to be ‘ocean heroes’. Rather, they reflected early settlers discovering new worlds for themselves. Sixty years on, James Wharram remains an independent spirit whose refusal to compromise with the increasing bureaucracy that blights our times has made many a modern sailor ponder on what really matters in life. His stream of subsequent designs has set three generations free.”

27.  Marigold

Built:  1892 Design:  Charles Nicholson

Nicholson was just 22 when he created this elegant 59ft gaff-rigged cutter with a plumb bow and distinctive stern.

German Frers on  Stealth : “The brief was: ‘I want a boat that will give me pleasure. It’s going to be called Stealth. It’s going to be black with black sails.’ It was high-performance, good looking and pointed the way towards a new type of yacht.” Photo: Gilles Martin Raget

28.  Stealth

Built:  1996 Design:  German Frers

Launched 24 years ago,  Stealth  was intended to be avant garde in styling and still looks remarkably contemporary now, with her much emulated minimalist teak deck, black hull and sails, and brooding interior.

Designed by German Frers for Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli, the 93ft  Stealth  was one of the earliest high performance cruising designs to use water ballast to good effect, taking line honours in the 2001 Fastnet Race and America’s Cup Jubilee.

29.  Ranger

Built:  1937 Design:  W. Starling Burgess/Olin Stephens

Ranger , the 135ft ‘Super J’ which won 32 out of her 34 races in 1937, was the first to be designed using tow-tank tests, and the last time the J’s would contest the America’s Cup.

Designers Burgess and Stephens each presented four designs, which were built to a 1/24 scale and tank-tested.

Analysis showed that the curious-looking model ‘77-C’, with her snub-nosed barrel bow, was top performer. The yacht was built as  Ranger .

30. Lagoon 55

Built:  1984 Design:  VPLP

Jimmy Cornell says: “One aspect that has influenced long distance cruising in my lifetime, is the increasing popularity of cruising catamarans.”

Designer Marc van Peteghem comments: “Catamarans, which were considered a real niche market 30 or 35 years ago, are now something really big.

“The Lagoon 55 which we designed was a big change in that field, the first to really mix performance and control.”

31.  Australia II

Built: 1983 Design: Ben Lexcen

Few yacht design innovations are both radical and immediate in their improvement.  Australia II , the 12-metre that became the first yacht ever to wrest the America’s Cup from its American defender, was famously such an innovation.

Australia II  defeated Dennis Conner’s  Liberty  in 1983 despite repeated efforts by the New York Yacht Club to prove its illegality (and attempts by the Australian team to keep it secret).

Lexcen had turned to aeronautical engineering techniques. When heeled over his innovative winged keel gave  Australia II  increased lift and a lowered centre of gravity for a significant upwind advantage.

The trade-off was an increase in wetted surface area, which had a detrimental effect on downwind performance, but  Australia II  was able to lead  Liberty  around the top mark to gain an early advantage.

Winged keels remained a feature of the America’s Cup – and were also prevalent in many more mainstream designs for a period – until the last IACC class races in 2007.

32.  Independent Bear

Built:  1997 Design:  Corby Yachts/Mark Downer

IRC is now a global rating, but in the 1990s it was known as CHS (Channel Handicap System) to reflect its Anglo-French focus.

Isle of Wight designer John Corby built a 41ft one-off, known as  Independent Bear , which was so successful under the rule that she demolished all opposition in her first season.

Built of glassfibre and Kevlar with a lightweight foam core and carbon deck, she had a narrow beam but gained her stability with a very large keel bulb.

Independent Bear ’s rating was raised a whopping 28 points the following year, but she still proved tough to beat. The CHS rule was adjusted, and saw a trend for wider IRC designs develop over subsequent years.

The ‘Bear’ programme also had a long-lasting effect on British racing, developing many young talented sailors aboard its successor  Bear of Britain  who have gone on to carve careers in professional yachting.

33.  Club Med

Built:  2000 Design:  Gilles Ollier/Multiplast

The first non-stop, no-limits round the world sailing competition, known as The Race, set off in December 2000 from Barcelona. The event, and the enormous catamarans that competed in it, certainly had detractors.

Team Philips,  Pete Goss’s experimental wave-piercing design, was launched to great fanfare but broke up before the race had even started.  Yachting World  magazine was among those uncomfortable at the time with how high the stakes had been raised.

“Of all the round the world races that have ever started, this has the greatest potential for a body count,” then-editor Andrew Bray told  The Sunday Times . In the end, there were no serious incidents, although the skipper of the Polish entry broke his leg on the final approach to the finish.

The boats built for the event, such as  Club Med , proved that not only could giant multihulls get around the world, but they could also set previously unheard of ocean speed records:  Club Med  set a 24-hour record of 625.7 miles before The Race even started.

These designs then directly influenced a whole swathe of ‘G Class’ multihulls and Jules Verne trophy holders.

“The Race and the boat was the brainchild of Bruno Peyron,” recalls skipper Grant Dalton. “It had a semi wing mast, was 108ft long and in its day was fast, very fast. People said we couldn’t get it round, it was too big, too fast and the engineering wouldn’t stand up. They were almost right: after it tore itself apart on a transatlantic we had to totally re-engineer it.

“But not only was it the fastest boat ever round the world at that time, we were the first boat to break 600 miles in a day, which we did multiple times. It remains my best campaign as it was so ‘against the odds’.”

Built:  1992 Design:  Rod Johnstone

The first asymmetric sportsboat, the J/80, was launched almost 28 years ago, one year after her larger stablemate, the J/105, pioneered the sprit concept for cruiser-racers.

Over 1,600 J/80s have been sold and dozens of sub-30ft asymmetric designs have been launched in her wake.

35. Farr 40

Built:  1996 Design:  Farr Yacht Design

With its planing hull, high aspect foils and non-overlapping jib the Farr 40 was athletic, fast, and a whole lot of fun. The one-design attracted crew lists with names like Scheidt, Coutts and Cayard.

However, it was strictly owner-driven, so a category system was developed to establish who counted as an amateur, later adopted by ISAF.

36.  Wild Oats XI

Built:  2005 Design:  Reichel/Pugh

Nicknamed the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ for her many protruding foils, the 100ft eight-time Sydney-Hobart winner has carried various permutations of CBTF (canting ballast twin foil), twin daggerboards, a ‘caudal winglet’ on the trailing edge of the keel bulb, bow canard and DSS system.

37.  Suhaili

Built:  1963 Design:  William Atkin

Suhaili  was the first yacht to achieve the impossible – solo, non-stop around the world – but she was not, herself, a radical design.

The double-ended style was pioneered by Colin Archer. Atkin scaled down lines from Archer’s safety-conscious pilot boats to produce a series of smaller, leisure yachts, one of which became  Suhaili , winner of the 1969 Golden Globe.

38. Foiling Moth

Built:  2002 Design:  Various

Ken Read comments: “In the grand prix world ‘flying’ is becoming more and more standard. The Moth evolved over the years as from a displacement style boat to a full-time flying rocketship.

“For sure the Moth was not the first boat to foil – far from it – but it became the poster child of a new foiling generation of boats. The Moth advertised to the mass market what is possible.”

39.  l’Hydroptère

Built:  1994 Design:  VPLP

Alain Thébault’s extraordinary 60ft  l’Hydroptère  was the first foiling ocean trimaran. It topped 50 knots in 2009, and once hit a peak speed of 61 knots before capsizing.

Vincent Lauriot Prévost says. “ l’Hydroptère  was a long development programme, maybe a 20-year project. It was a revolution. We expect to have flying ocean racing boats now.”

40. Mini 6.50

Built:  1991 & 1993 Design:  Fauroux

With just 21ft LOA to build a single-handed boat capable of crossing the Atlantic, designers are forced to find creative solutions in the Mini Proto class in the search for performance and stability. One development first tested in the Mini was the canting keel.

The first was Michel Desjoyeaux’s 1991 entry: “I made the first offshore racing boat with a canting keel, adjustable bowsprit folding along the sheer line, and a lot of details now common on those boats and bigger,” Desjoyeaux recalls.

“The adjustable bowsprit was for gybing the kite from the cockpit – in those days pilots were poor, and the kites were big.”

Ellen MacArthur then sailed another experimental Fauroux canting Mini,  Le Poisson , in the 1995 Transat. Mark Turner recalls: “Minis are great for development as the loads are ‘hand-held’ level – so the original concept can be developed without the complications of power and hydraulics.

“Uniquely they didn’t get the hull fittings sorted in Ellen’s boat, so there was a totally blocked off area right up to the roof, which made living inside even smaller than a normal Mini. Of course that didn’t bother Ellen too much…

“Simpler to operate than water ballast, especially for the solo sailor (and much quicker to tack), the canting keel, which remains a mainstay system to this day, was an immediate performance leap. Of course it was the boat that started her solo racing career too.”

41.  Jolie Brise

Built:  1913 Design:  Alexandre Pâris/Paumelle

The 56ft gaff-rigged  Jolie Brise  was originally built to do a job of work. Although she appears to be a traditional pilot cutter,  Jolie Brise  was unusual for the time in being built to plans.

She was designed to cross oceans rapidly, and was the last boat to carry the Royal Mail under sail. However, she was too late to really show her worth as a pilot boat, and as steam replaced sail suffered some ignominious years as a tuna fishing boat.

Photo: Paul Buttrose

42.  Dorade

Built:  1929 Design:  Sparkman & Stephens

Designer Olin Stephens was just 22 when the 52ft yawl  Dorade  was launched, built for his father Roderick Stephens as a great gamble on the success of a new business venture, a design house called Sparkman & Stephens.

The yacht, which he described as “a kind of awakening”, was both beautiful and radical from the outset. She was narrower in beam and lighter in construction than her contemporaries, partly due to the hull frames being steam-bent rather than sawn.

Stephens was confident that a slim hull with stability gained from a deep lead keel, would pay off. He was correct – although his calculations were thrown into question at  Dorade’s  launch, when the waterline stripe was three inches below the surface.

Any detractors were silenced by Dorade’s performance in the 1931 Transatlantic Race when she, the third smallest yacht in the fleet, reached the line more than two days ahead of the next. On corrected time, Dorade was almost four days faster. She went on to win the Fastnet Race of the same year by a wide margin.

The yacht became the first in a new generation of deep keeled, slim hulled, powerful racing yachts.  Dorade  was famously restored to once again race in the Transatlantic and Fastnet Races in 2015, scoring podium finishes in both offshores some 84 years after her first win. Sparkman & Stephens, of course, went on to become the most prolifically successful yacht design office of the 20th century.

43. Sundeer 68

Built:  1988 Design:  Steve Dashew

An unsung hero of yacht design, Steve Dashew built small numbers of highly specialised cruising yachts.

Andrew Bishop of the World Cruising Club comments: “The powerful, balanced rigs are designed with sail handling for short-handed crews in mind, which, combined with their easily driven hull forms, make for consistently high speeds in a wide range of conditions. These boats were ahead of their time for modern fast cruising yachts.”

The range began with the 1978  Deerfoot , a 68-footer that featured the first swim platform, fore-and-aft watertight bulkheads, and an aft engine room.

They later launched the Sundeer range, which could comfortably cover 230 miles a day, a distance Dashew describes as “the magic number that keeps you safe and comfortable”.

44.  USA 17

Built: 2007 Design: VPLP

The 33rd America’s Cup pitted a 34m trimaran against Alinghi’s giant catamaran. For BMW Oracle USA designers, VPLP, the project was a golden opportunity to rapidly accelerate multihull development, resulting in the famous wingsail.

Lauriot Prévost remembers: “In the original brief the boat had to be designed and built in ten months, and then there were lawyers and postponements, which meant instead of having ten months we had almost two and a half years.

“So that’s how the wingmast came onto the boat. Having worked on the platform, on the appendages, on everything else, we had to work on propulsion.” The original idea came from design director Mike Drummond.

“It was a crazy project because even at the final finish, when the second leg had been won by USA 17, we still had some modification projects that were on the table, changing the main hull and so on,” recalls Lauriot Prévost.

“It was really, really very intense. But I think the America’s Cup is exactly this: you can have the skills and money to achieve in two years what would take five or ten years on a usual project.”

45. Contessa 32

Built:  1970 Design:  David Sadler / Jeremy Rogers

The gateway for many owners into yacht racing, the Contessa was a one-design, avoiding the vagaries and expense of IOR, and performed just as well as a family cruiser. Its seaworthy reputation was cemented during the 1979 Fastnet, when of the 58 boats in the smallest class, only one finished – the Contessa 32  Assent .

David Glenn explains: “The key to the the Contessa 32’s success was that the boats could perform two roles equally well. They could be raced as a one-design, which meant you didn’t have to adhere to the vagaries and expense of IOR, which was then the predominant racing rule, and perform just as well as a family cruising yacht.

“The David Sadler/Jeremy Rogers Contessa was designed in 1970 and more than 750 were built. At one time they had their own class in Cowes Week and they still race through an active class association. A good looking and very seaworthy yacht, chosen by many who wanted a go-anywhere, reliable and – for her day – fast boat.

“By today’s standards her accommodation is very limited. Nonetheless, a real winner in her time and many people aspired to owning one. They still do! She had that ‘must have’ ingredient.”

46.  Aqua Quorum

Built:  1996 Design:  Adrian Thompson

Ocean racer Dee Caffari nominates Pete Goss’s  Aqua Quorum.  “Most of my racing offshore is spent on boats with canting keels,” she explains, “but if we go back to 1991, Michel Desjoyeaux sailed the first distance offshore with a swing keel in a mini 6.50. This then led onto Pete Goss sailing  Aqua Quorum , an open 50, in the 1996 Vendee Globe becoming the first to sail round the world with a canting keel.

“From this moment the world stopped questioning the canting keel concept. We agree that there are risks and as a result many races have adopted the one-design rule to try and reduce the risk factor, but no one has moved away from the extra stability and power this design can produce. It sure beats having 15 people on the rail to act as ballast!”

47.  Jester

Built: 1953 Design: Blondie Haslar

With her unstayed Chinese ‘junk’ rig set on a modified 25ft Folkboat hull,  Jester  is unique. She was created by Herbert ‘Blondie’ Haslar, who believed that one did not need a racing machine in order to cross ocean miles.

He then sailed her in the 1960 race which he established for fellow singlehanded, Corinthian yachtsmen, from Plymouth to New York – at the time a revolutionary concept and the first solo ocean race.

It was won by Francis Chichester in  Gipsy Moth II , with  Jester  second, and the race became the hugely successful OSTAR, held on a four-yearly cycle in various incarnations for many years since.

Jester  competed in each one, until finally damaged by a rogue wave and abandoned in 1988. A replica  Jester  was built – and again raced in the OSTAR – in 1992.

Technically Jester was also very innovative, thanks to Haslar’s wind vane self-steering and rudimentary trim tab system, which he refined further over four Atlantic crossings – claiming to only take the tiller for an hour during the 1960 race. By 1970 over 600 units of Haslar’s Pendulum Servo Gear system had been fitted to yachts around the world.

Many other developments in short-handed racing were first tried during runnings of the OSTAR, such as the earliest weather routing in 1968 (it was subsequently banned).

48. Westerly Centaur

Built: 1968 Design: Jack Laurent Giles

“Designed in 1968 by Jack Laurent Giles, this was the people’s cruising boat, the ‘floating country cottage’,” comments David Glenn.

“She was a motor sailer really but she changed yachting by getting families afloat in their thousands and she is a still much loved second-hand yacht. Westerly built (I think) some 2,500. Those numbers speak for themselves.”

49.  Istria

Built: 1912 Design: Camper & Nicholson

The 15-metre was the first yacht designed with a Marconi topmast, which was fitted with a track which meant the topsail could be hoisted from deck.

With 72 wins out of 81 starts for  Istria , the gaff rig was rapidly demoted to the history books.  Istria  was also the first large yacht to be built using laminated materials to save weight.

Photo: Jean Jacques Bernard.

50.  Ceramco

Built:  1980 Design:  Farr

Peter Blake’s 68-footer with a bulb keel and flat stern was designed to surf around the world in the 1981-82 Whitbread, but she was dismasted on leg one. The crew set a jury rig and sailed 4,400 miles to rejoin the race and resume battle with  Flyer .

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Le trimaran autrefois couvert d'une peinture couleur or en aura parcouru des milles avant d'arriver à Cannes, ce dimanche 3 juillet. S’il fait escale dans la cité des festivals jusqu'à demain mardi, ce n’est pas pour entamer une retraite dorée, mais pour saluer la mémoire de Florence Arthaud, celle qui a remporté la "Route du Rhum" en 1990 à son bord.

Philippe Brillault est celui qui rendu ce retour possible . Il est le nouveau propriétaire du bateau et a traversé mers et océan pour ramener dans les eaux françaises cette pièce d’histoire de la navigation tricolore. Les skippers Bernard Stamm et Philippe Poupon contribuent aussi à cette aventure . Le premier a tenu la barre entre Djibouti et Cannes, le second le ramènera à Lorient.

Parti des Philippines il y a 4 mois, Philippe Brillault s’est livré à un véritable périple. Escales techniques et actes de piraterie ont émaillé le voyage du trimaran qui porte désormais le nom de "Lakota".

Un voyage que le septuagénaire, ancien maire d'une commune dans les Yvelines, a entamé il y a déjà longtemps : "L'histoire a commencé dans une brasserie parisienne. J'ai rencontré par hasard Philippe Poupon, en train de déjeuner seul, avec son café. Je cherchais un parrain pour la Medica Cup que l'on souhaite organiser à Cannes, voilà le parrain idéal. J'ai été le saluer. Il m'a raconté sa vie, son projet, Florence Arthaud, et le bateau. J'ai racheté par un coup de passion car j'avais envie de contribuer à ramener ce bateau mythique en France."

On a fait à peu près huit mille nautiques, ce qui représente plus de 15.000 kilomètres, en traversant la mer de Chine, l'Océan indien, la mer Rouge et la Méditerranée. Philippe Brillault, propriétaire de "Pierre 1er"

"Pierre 1er" a jeté l'ancre dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche à proximité du lieu où les cendres de la navigatrice ont été déposées après sa mort dans un accident d'hélicoptère en 2015 .

"Je voulais faire un hommage à Florence Arthaud qui est une femme d'exception" commente Philippe Brillault. "J'ai porté le bateau, je l'ai surtout transporté, je n'avais jamais imaginé une telle aventure dans ma vie" ajoute-t-il.

Pirates en vue

Philippe Brillault est passionné par la navigation, il a déboursé quelque 250.000 euros pour racheter le navire, mais ce voyage aurait pu lui coûter la vie.

Au large des côtes africaines, le trimaran subit à plusieurs reprises des tentatives d'abordage de pirates, et des attaques. Le mât garde même la trace d'un impact de balle tiré par une Kalachnikov.

Menacés à trois reprises, Philippe Brillault et l'équipage ont dû ruser. Le pistolet à air comprimé à servi à dissuader les pirates, ils ont feint à l'intervention de moyens militaires en leur faveur ou encore su mettre la poudre d'escampette pour éviter des intrusions sur le navire.

Au large du Yémen notamment, un matin, au départ de Djibouti. "Trois bateaux de pêche, avec entre 4 et 7 personnes à bord de chaque embarcation, armés jusqu'aux dents, avec Kalachnikov et lance tubes. J'ai tout de suite sorti mon flingue, je me suis levé en slip de bain avec ma Go Pro, et un téléphoné, je leur ai dit 'je vous tire dessus si vous m'emmerdez'"  se remémore Philippe dont le bateau finira par bénéficier d'une escorte militaire après cet incident. "Ils ont flingué le mât" témoigne t-il, montrant un vaste impact de balles sur ce tube longiligne qui a du être réparé après cet accrochage.

Une première pour la Route

En 1990, Florence Arthaud signe la première victoire féminine de l’histoire de la "Route du Rhum" à la barre de "Pierre 1er". Le trimaran, livré un an avant la course, mesure un peu plus de 18 mètres en longueur, contre 15 en largeur.

Cette année-là, elle devance un certain Philippe Poupon, qui a remporté l’édition précédente en 1986. Il se souvient de la victoire de cette "amie" mais aussi "concurrente" :  "Je connais bien le bateau, même si je n'ai jamais navigué dessus. Florence est arrivé devant moi, proprement, pas de quelques minutes, mais de quelques heures. Bien sûr que je suivais Florence et ce bateau".

Philippe Poupon se souvient avec émotion de celle qui faisait partie de "sa famille" :  "C'était un très bon marin, elle avait déjà fait du multicoque avec Biotherm, avec un autre catamaran sur la "Route du Rhum", elle a eu un autre 'Pierre 1er' avant celui-là."

Cap sur Lorient

Arrivé par voie terrestre samedi 2 juillet, Philippe Poupon prend le relais dès ce mardi pour ramener le bateau à Lorient. Là, il doit rejoindre les ateliers de Michel Desjoyaux, le fameux "professeur", victorieux sur la Route du Rhum, la Transat Jacques Vabre, le Vendée Globe, notamment.

C'est un check-up complet qui attend le trimaran, et pour cause, Philippe Poupon l'assure, il sera bien inscrit à la prochaine Route du Rhum, en novembre prochain, avec "Pierre 1er" . Une nouvelle odyssée pour ce bateau livré en 1989, et qui a subi les assauts du temps, nécessitant réparations et nouveaux équipements.

Ce navire qui a eu plusieurs vie, a navigué par exemple avec le milliardaire Steve Fossett qui l'a racheté ou pour les besoins d'une super production hollywoodienne : "Waterworld" . Dans cette oeuvre de fiction, Kevin Costner parcourt un monde submergé par les océans. Au pied du Palais des festivals, le départ de mardi vers la façade atlantique ne sera peut-être qu'un au revoir, et pas un adieu.

Pour aller plus loin :

Notre sélection d’articles à explorer sur le même thème.

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Yachting World

• Digital Edition

The Yachting World hall of fame: 50 yachts that changed the way we sail

• Helen Fretter
• May 13, 2020

We asked historians, round the world race winners and legendary sailors to name the yachts that changed the sport for good. In no particular order, these are the 50 yachts that shifted how we sail...

Built: 1977 Design: Bill Lee

Weight saving is the holy grail of yacht design today, but it wasn’t until the late ’70s that the first Ultra Light Displacement designs, or ULDBs, were launched.

Among them was Bill Lee’s 67ft Merlin, at 12.5 tonnes and just 12ft wide. Merlin smashed the 1977 Transpac course record, setting a time which stood for 20 years.

Officials, concerned that ULDBs were not robust enough for ocean racing, changed the Transpac rule in an attempt to limit it to slower IOR designs.

Merlin was heavily modified, but still managed to win the ‘Barn Door’ trophy for the fastest crossing twice more. The record was finally broken by the sled Pyewacket , also designed by Lee, two decades on.

12. Monitor

Built: 1955 Design: Gordon Baker

Legendary offshore sailor Loick Peyron nominates this futuristic design from the ’50s: “I think Gordon Baker’s Monitor is the one, which in the 1950s did a lot for the present and future of sailing.”

The 26ft Monitor is quite unlike anything else, made of glued mahogany with hollow, stainless steel hydrofoils which look more like windmill vanes than yacht foils – unsurprisingly, as that is what Baker Manufacturing had previously focused on. The early hydrofoiling yacht was reported to have a top speed of around 30 knots, using battened cotton sails.

13. Infiniti 46

Built: 2015 Design: Hugh Welbourn/Gordon Kay

The DSS-enabled Infiniti 46 is the first yacht to be designed around the twin retractable foil system (rather than have them retrofitted) to increase lift, reducing drag and heeling angle.

Since 2016 she’s been campaigned hard, winning class in the Middle Sea Race and RORC Transatlantic Race.

14. Vestas Sail Rocket II

Built: 2011 Design: Malcolm Barnsley

For two decades speed sailing was dominated by the race to top the 50-knot barrier. Yellow Pages Endeavour got to 46.52 knots over 500m in 1993, then ten years later windsurfers and kitesurfers upped the ante, finally pushing over 50 knots in 2008.

Macquarie Innovation became the first sailing vessel to nudge over 50 knots in 2009. Then in 2014 Paul Larsen on Vestas SailRocket II knocked all previous attempts out of the park with an incredible 65.45 knots in Namibia. Nobody has even got remotely close since.

15. Maltese Falcon

Built: 2006 Design: Dykstra/Perini Navi

At the time the most grandiose yacht ever to be built, the 289ft Maltese Falcon was a technical triumph. Her three-masted ‘Dynarig’ system was created by Perini Navi at the behest of technology investor Tom Perkins , and  is a modern day development of a 1960s concept created by Wilhelm Prølss.

Her gold and granite styling is not to everyone’s tastes, but the 2,400sq m sail area saw Maltese Falcon sail across the Atlantic in ten days. The systems proved so successful she was spotted sailing off her mooring in some venues – quite a feat for a 1,200-tonne vessel .

16. Speedboat

Built: 2008 Design: Juan Kouyoumdjian

Launched as Speedboat  in 2008, this 100-footer was initially designed with the express intention of setting records, specifically the transatlantic record. Following on from Juan K’s successful Volvo 70 designs, she was exceptionally wide at the transom with a deep canting keel and water ballast, but record successes were few and far between.

Re-optimised for IRC as Rambler 100 she had some race victories before losing her keel and capsizing in the 2011 Rolex Fastnet Race , with five crew swept away from the boat.

All were rescued safely, but the incident intensified the focus on reliability in canting keel designs.

When owner George David commissioned the replacement Rambler 88 , his new yacht includes fibreoptic patches on the keel fin and load sensors on the pin, with data continuously fed to the navigation station

17. Pen Duick IV

Built: 1968 Design: André Allègre

“Built by Eric Tabarly, this was the first large ocean-racing multihull, which led the trend towards large multihulls in ocean races,” Robin Knox-Johnston nominates Pen Duick IV.

“For example, it encouraged us to ask Rod Macalpine Downie to design the 70-foot catamaran British Oxygen in 1973.”

Pen Duick IV  took victory in the 1972 OSTAR with Alain Colas, who went on to sail her solo around the world – the first solo multihull circumnavigation.

18. Class 40

Built: 2005 Design: Various

The Class 40s have provided a first step into ocean racing for many skippers. Less than a year after the class was formed, 25 lined up for the 2006 Route du Rhum .

Pro navigator Campbell Field explains: “ It would be easy to nominate ‘Swiss Army knife’ foilers, or the super high tech IMOCAs. However, the Class 40s are complete in many ways. Affordable, bulletproof, ultra high performance, safe, and sexy [they can be sailed] one, two or four-up. They are simple, dynamic, rewarding, and guaranteed to thrill.

“A shortfall is their inshore capabilities, however what other class of yacht brings accessibility to top level ocean racing to a broad audience? They outstrip the performance of many much larger yachts offshore .”

Photo: Jacques Vapillon

19. Pierre 1er

Built: 1989 Design: Van Peteghem & Lauriot Prévost

Beautiful and radical, the golden Pierre 1er was the first ORMA 60 and won the 1990 Route du Rhum with Florence Arthaud.

Vincent Lauriot Prévost recalls: “I think in ocean racing the first big change was to fly the hull with a trimaran as if with a catamaran.” Pierre 1er was swiftly followed by Primagaz , the first big tri to sail on one float.

20. America

Built: 1851 Design: James Rich Steers & George Steers

The yacht which famously won around the Isle of Wight one August day some 169 years ago, America was also radical. Marc van Peteghem comments: “The schooner America brought something new. She was the first really wide beamed racing yacht to win against really narrow boats. It was a first really big step.”

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Article published on 08/11/2012

By Jean-Christophe Guillaumin

published in n°Previous issues jan. / feb.

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Chateau Pierre 1er (Chateau Croix Figeac) Saint-Émilion Grand Cru 2018

Groupe Pierre 1 er puis Lakota puis Flo.

A la fin des années 1980, le circuit des Formules 40 incarne une petite révolution dans le monde des multicoques. Ainsi Biscuits Cantreau , conçu par VPLP pour Jean Le Cam, est le premier trimaran de 40 pieds à naviguer sur un seul flotteur.

Fort de ses succès sur le circuit, le cabinet décide de transposer le concept à la course océanique en lui donnant 20 pieds de plus, et conçoit un multicoque plus large et plus puissant que les trimarans océaniques des générations précédentes.

Pierre 1er , conçu pour Florence Arthaud , est donc le fruit de la saga des Formule 40 : un mât-aile, trois coques à la longueur maximale de 18,28 m, trois safrans. On ne reviendra plus en arrière.

Construit par Jeanneau Techniques Avancées et mis à l’eau en 1990, Pierre 1er remporte avec Florence Arthaud la victoire dans la Route du Rhum 1990 , au coucher du soleil, dans une lumière inoubliable. C’est la première victoire de VPLP sur le Rhum.

Après son chavirage sur la Transat anglaise 1992, le trimaran passera sous pavillon américain, racheté par Steve Fossett , qui remportera quelques victoires à sa barre, puis suédois, avant d’être utilisé pour le charter.

Le bateau est racheté par un particulier qui le met à disposition de Philippe Poupon, pour prendre le départ de la Route du Rhum 2022, sous le nom de Flo, en hommage à Florence Arthaud. Il permettra ensuite de réaliser un film sur la vie de la navigatrice réalisé par Géraldine Danon.

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Les Cartographies

Charente Maritime 1 / Pierre Follenfant

Caractéristiques :

Longueur : 20.00  m  

Largeur : 10.40 m

Poids :  6.00 t

Hauteur du mât :  29.50 m

Corde du mât :  m

Tirant d'eau : 2.70 m

Matériaux : Epoxy/verre/Klégécel/Polyester

Surface de voile au près : 169 m²  

Surface de voile au portant :  675 m²

Architectes : Joubert/Nivelt

Chantier :  Fountaine-Pajot/Technicoque

Mât :     - Voiles :  

Mise à l'eau :   avril 1982  

Histoire et palmarès :

Le projet en 1980 est monté à partir d'une association qui sera propriétaire du bateau. Les collectivités vont donc versées les subventions à l'association et comme le projet doit emmener avec lui les entreprises du département, ces dernières vont "donner" leur temps ou de la matière à tarif préférentiel. L'idée sur le papier est de construire un gros Tornado, le Baulois Yves Loday, aura une part de responsabilité dans la philosophie de départ. La voilure de Charente Maritime premier du nom, bénéficiera de toute la science de Philippe Pallu de la Barrière et de son ordinateur, avec pas mal de nouveautés sur la grand voile.

Dès les premières navigations le bateau se montre très rapide. Les victoires vont s'enchaîner, aussi bien en grand prix qu'en courses au large. Après la victoire dans La Baule/Dakar 2003, le bateau traverse l'Atlantique jusqu'à la Martinique, à grande vitesse. Il est démâté et doit être gruté sur un cargo direction le Canada. En effet, la société pétrolière Sofati-Socanav, vient de l'acheter pour participer à la future transat Québec/St Malo. 

Les opérations de manutention à Fort de France débutent, le catamaran s'élève dans les airs. Arrivé à hauteur du pont du cargo à 20 mètres du sol, la sangle à l'avant du catamaran cède, ce dernier vient frapper contre la coque du cargo, sous le choc et le poids la sangle arrière rompt à son tour et Charente Maritime 1 s'écrase sur le quai ! Les coques sont éventrées et les bras cassés.

Stupéfaction aussi bien du côté Charentais que Canadien. Pour les Charentais, un catamaran de 25.95 est en cours de construction : Charente Maritime 2 . Mais pour les Canadiens tout est remis en question. Gilles Ollier et son chantier, dont le carnet de commande est plein, refuse la commande d'un nouveau plan Joubert/Nivet. C'est finalement en Charente que sera mise en place, en urgence, la construction de Sofati-Soconav .

1982 : 1er du Trophée des Multicoques

1982 : 1er de La Rochelle/La Nouvelle Orléans

1982 : Tentative de Record de l'Atlantique Nord en équipage échouée petit temps à l'arrivée

1982 : Route du Rhum 18ème après une escale 

1983 : Trophée des Multicoque 2ème

1983 : 1er de la Transat en Double

1983 : Multicup à la Baule 3ème

1983 : Grand Prix de la Rochelle

Philippe Pallu de la Barrière 

1983 : 1er de La Baule/Dakar

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How German prisoners of war lived and died in the USSR

1941. The Western front. Hitler's soldiers surrender to the Soviet military guard.

“If I do survive, I will be able to find out what the Bolsheviks are. Perhaps communism really is the ideal way out for the people. After all, we also do a lot of things wrong,” Helmut Bon thought as he was captured by Soviet soldiers somewhere in the Pskov region in February 1944. Bohn would spend 1944-1947 in the USSR as a military prisoner and later describe this in a book titled ‘At the Gates of Life’. Not all Germans interned in the USSR lived to write a book, however.

‘Replacement element’

December 7, 1943: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin during a conference at Tehran. Stalin greets Sarah Churchill.

“Prisoners of war were regarded by the USSR not only as a source of labor, but also as a resource intended for use in the country’s economy not just during the war, but, most importantly – in the postwar period,” historian Vladimir Vsevolodov writes. Inhumanly enough, the Soviet authorities saw German war prisoners as means to compensate for Soviet population losses.

Stalin defined the number of prisoners USSR “needed” in 1943 at the Tehran Conference. Stalin argued that the USSR needed a “replacement element” – about four million German citizens, who would restore destroyed Soviet cities and raise industry. This number, historian Elena Shmaraeva notes, was derived from the approximate numbers of Soviet soldiers perished and lost without trace by the time the Tehran Conference was held – also about four million.

By 1944, the Soviets had devised a labor program for German war prisoners. “Withdrawal of several thousand working units from the German national economy every year must inevitably have a weakening effect on its economy and on its military potential,” foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov wrote to Stalin. But, indeed, eventually during the war, over three million Soviet citizens were taken to Germany to serve in hard labor, so the USSR wanted to compensate for that – and also for the tens of millions of people who perished during the war.

December 1941, Moscow region. Soviet soldiers convoy a column of captured German soldiers.

The Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees was organized in the USSR even before the war started. By 1941, there were eight labor camps for war prisoners in the USSR, but the number of prisoners grew slowly: about ten thousand in 1941 and 1942. But, after the Stalingrad battle and the Soviet onslaught in the Don region, the number of prisoners grew quickly: over 200 thousand in 1943, and over 800 thousand more by the end of the war.

Formally, a German prisoner’s route was as follows: From the place they were captured at, they were taken to the front line receiving and forwarding camps and, from there, transported to the mainland camps. But, in reality, during the war, most prisoners stayed at the front line camps that often were just huts and dugouts. “Until we arrive at the camp, the daily ration is about a liter of liquid soup and three hundred grams of stale bread. Those days when we were ordered to chop wood for the Russian field kitchen, we were given some hot tea for dinner. We, about a dozen prisoners, were kept under lock and key in a goat pen, overseen by a junior female Red Army lieutenant,” Helmut Bon wrote.

After the war

A propaganda still from Soviet POW camp, 1943. An appointment in the dental office of camp No. 165. Doctor S.A.Bunimovich, the patient is German non-commissioned officer Stefan Schulte.

By 1946, there were 240 labor camps for prisoners of war of different nationalities in the USSR that held over a million prisoners. However, this wasn’t enough to fill in the desirable four-million goal, so the USSR started interning prisoners from abroad.

In 1944, after the entry of the Red Army into the territories of Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, an order was issued by the Soviet War Ministry “to mobilize and intern all Germans living on the territory of these countries, men from 17 to 45 years, women from 18 to 30 years, regardless of their citizenship.” Historian Pavel Polyan writes that over 112 thousand people were interned from these countries to work in the USSR. The mobilized persons were allowed to take up to 200 kilograms of personal belongings with them.

READ MORE: How German soldiers marched through Moscow during WWII

After the war, Elena Shmaraeva writes, up to 3.8 million German war prisoners were interned in the USSR. About 2.4 million were soldiers and officers, who were held in POW camps, while the rest – mostly ethnic Germans interned from European countries – were assigned to “working battalions”. What did they do?

A propaganda shot from a Soviet POW camp, 1944. Captured German soldiers decorate the Christmas tree in the camp club.

Prisoners of war rebuilt factories, constructed dams, railways, ports and so on. They also built and restored houses, including apartment houses for workers of the Interior Ministry. For instance, German prisoners built the ‘Dinamo’ stadium in Moscow. They also worked in a glass mill in Lytkarino, a Moscow suburb. An archive building in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, was constructed following the project by Paul Spiegel, a German architect.

Qualified specialists like Spiegel were selected by the Soviets to perform complicated tasks. Historian Stefan Karner writes that by 1946, over 1,600 high-profile specialists were assigned to different Soviet industries: “Five hundred and seventy engineers, 260 civil engineers and architects, about 220 electrical engineers, over 110 doctors of physical and mathematical sciences and technical sciences.” These people enjoyed better conditions than in the labor camps or “working battalions”. They lived in the cities, near the industries or institutions they were working at, and were paid salaries, half of which came in Deutsche marks. However, any specialist could be taken back to a camp if his work didn’t satisfy the authorities.

German prisoners of war captured by Russian forces are fed bread by the Russian soldiers during the Second World War. 9th August 1941.

Ordinary German workers and former soldiers, who worked at construction sites and elsewhere, also received salaries, so that they could support themselves in the Soviet Union. For example, former privates were paid seven Soviet rubles a month, former senior officers – from 10 to 30 rubles. These numbers were tiny – a jug of milk cost two rubles and a pair of good shoes was over 150 rubles, so ordinary POWs, who didn’t possess any special skills, really had to find ways to survive.

Working conditions in the camps were, of course, dire. “At first, we had to load two train cars with wood during one work shift, then the norm was increased to three cars. We were forced to work sixteen hours a day, on Sundays and holidays, also. We returned to the camp at nine or ten o'clock in the evening, but often at midnight. We received watery soup and fell asleep, so that the next day at five in the morning we would go to work again,” Elena Shmaraeva quotes Reinchold Braun, a German POW.

“The stomach problem was above all,” officer Heinrich Eichenberg wrote. “Soul and body were sold for a plate of soup or a piece of bread. Hunger spoiled people, corrupted them and turned them into animals. The theft of products from their own comrades has become common.”

Captured Germans were used in logging, construction of roads and railways in remote and hard-to-reach areas, as well as in the extraction of minerals — for example, uranium, coal, iron ore, especially in the mines of the Don river basin.

Death rates were high among the Germans in the labor camps. According to Soviet statistics, from 1945 to 1956, over 580,000 people died in prison camps, over 356,000 of them Germans. Almost 70% of deaths occurred in the winter of 1945-1946. In comparison, as historian Viktor Zemskov wrote, about 1.8 million Soviet citizens died in German captivity during the years of war.

The way back home

March of captured Germans in Moscow ("The Great Waltz"), July 17, 1944. Columns of captured German soldiers on the Garden Ring.

The official Soviet statistics from 1956 says two million German prisoners were repatriated after WWII ended. However, with such vast numbers, statistics lack certainty. Other sources say up to 680,000 prisoners were released during the war, but that number included prisoners from Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, etc. Soviet stats say 356,678 prisoners died in the Soviet camps and about 37 000 of them were condemned for war crimes.

In fact, the repatriation started as early as June 1945, when the first 225,000 “ill and weakened” prisoners were sent home, 195,000 Germans among them. In August 1945, 700,000 more, 412,000 of them Germans, were “discharged” from Soviet captivity. They were not allowed to carry money with them, Elena Shmaraeva writes, so the repatriated tried to buy sweets, tobacco with their saved salaries – anything they could trade en route home. Wilhelm Lotse, repatriated in 1949, carried with him almost 6 kg of cookies and sweets, 2,355 cigarettes and 600 grams of tobacco.

Germans returning from Soviet captivity arrived at the Friedland border transit camp in 1955. From the photo catalog of the exhibition "Germany's War against the Soviet Union".

The transportation conditions were labor-camp like – the last farewell of the Soviet repressive system. Sometimes, repatriated people didn’t receive food and water for days while moving in train echelons from the Russian mainland. The first place German prisoners got to in Europe was the Soviet relocation camp in Frankfurt (Oder), where they would spend 2-3 days, before being sent to their respective locations. As of 1947, 70% of the prisoners in this camp were ill.

The repatriation of German war prisoners from the USSR officially ended on May 5, 1950. TASS stated that 1,939,063 German prisoners of war had been repatriated since 1945. But, in reality, there were more captured Germans left in the USSR – somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand, who left in 1950-1956. “This house was built by German war prisoners” – Russians still say with respect about 1950s buildings, some of them really built by Germans. Even in captivity, German workers still did their best.

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The prosecutor’s office announced the elimination of heating emergencies in the Moscow region

Moscow Region Prosecutor’s Office: the consequences of heating emergencies have been eliminated

The consequences of emergency situations with heat supply in the cities of the Moscow region have been eliminated. This was reported on the official website of the regional prosecutor’s office.

“After the intervention of the prosecutor’s office, the consequences of emergency situations were eliminated and the necessary repair work was carried out in Lytkarino, Solnechnogorsk, Voskresensk, Sergiev Posad, Balashikha, Khimki, Shchelkovo and other cities of the Moscow region,” the statement says.

It is noted that city and district prosecutors visited accident sites, received injured citizens, and also monitored the restoration of boiler houses and the heating.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered to check all the facts of restrictions on heat supply in the Moscow region.

Source: Lenta.ru

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Explosions occurred in Moscow region, several settlements lost power

E xplosions were heard in the town of Lytkarino, Moscow region, tonight, November 23. Several settlements in the Moscow region are without power, according to Baza.

Around 1 a.m., local residents allegedly heard a bright flash from the substation. Afterward, the lights went out in the Lytkarivsky district. A fire reportedly broke out at the site of the explosion.

According to Russian media, power was lost in several settlements in the Moscow region.

It should be noted that Lytkarino is situated 30 kilometers from the Russian capital.

Shots fired in Russia

In 2023, the number of attacks in a number of regions of the Russian Federation by attack drones increased. Also, something often burns and explodes on the territory of Russia. Different regions, including Moscow, are under attack.

At the same time, Ukrainian intelligence has already warned residents of the Russian capital that they should hardly relax, as the number of drone attacks will only increase.

In particular, on the evening of November 10, explosions occurred near the Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering corporation in the Moscow region, where Kinzhals and Iskandars are manufactured.

One of the largest attacks took place on the night of July 30, when unidentified drones struck the business center of the Russian capital, Moscow City. The drones hit the so-called "government tower," which houses the offices of the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade, and Ministry of Communications.

Brigadier General Sergei Baranov recently said that Ukrainian troops are preparing for a large-scale winter attack on various regions of Russia with the help of kamikaze drones.

Extraordinary boats: Flo an iconic trimaran

Flo, formerly Pierre 1er, is the iconic 60ft trimaran which Florence Arthaud sailed to win the 1990 Route du Rhum, now returned to its golden glory and racing again

There are many iconic raceboats, but few capture the feeling of an era as much as the 60ft trimaran in which Florence Arthaud won the 1990 Route du Rhum. She beat Philippe Poupon, winner of the previous edition, by eight hours to become the first woman to win a major offshore race, inspiring a new generation of young women to follow in her footsteps.

Arthaud had already broken the west to east transatlantic record earlier that year, taking a whopping 20% off Bruno Peyron’s existing time. She also became the first sailor to be awarded the title ‘Champion des Champions français de L’Équipe’. It was a remarkable turnaround for someone who, only four years before her first Route du Rhum, had been gravely injured in a car accident that left her in coma and hospitalised for six months.

The pace of change in yacht design in the 1980s was as breathtakingly fast as it is today. Although they’re separated by only 12 years, this boat could hardly be more different to Mike Birch’s 39ft plywood Walter Green trimaran Olympus Photo in which he won the inaugural Route du Rhum in 1978. Birch’s boat, for example, had little more than half the beam of Arthaud’s.

The ORMA 60 trimarans that quickly came to dominate the scene from the mid-1980s were huge vessels by comparison, built of the most hi-tech materials available, while their creators pressed hard against the boundaries of design and engineering knowledge. Pierre 1er , as the boat was originally named, was built to a VPLP design of fibreglass and Kevlar by Jeanneau’s former JTA (Jeanneau Techniques Avancées) division.

iconic image of Arthaud at the finish of the 1990 Route du Rhum in Martinique. Photo: Thierry Martinez/ Sea&Co

These boats had an unprecedented power to weight ratio that, despite their enormous inherent stability, led to a number of capsizes. This came to a head in the stormy 2002 Route du Rhum in which five boats capsized and only three of the 18-strong fleet finished. As a result sponsors rapidly quit the class, which collapsed within three seasons.

Nevertheless, Pierre 1er went on to have an illustrious 20-year history of racing and record breaking. American billionaire and adventurer Steve Fossett, who renamed the boat Lakota , became her second owner in 1993.

He picked up 5th place in the 1994 Route du Rhum, despite a lack of experience at the time, before taking line honours in the Transpac the following year. In a seven-year period he broke 12 world records with the boat, including Round Britain and Ireland and around the Isle of Wight.

Poupon reduced the size of the staysail for heavy weather work and added a furler. Huge asymmetrics are flown from the bowsprit. Photo: Jean-Marie Liot

Her next owner was Atlant Ocean Racing in Sweden, with the boat again breaking records under several different names. Andrew Pindar chartered her in 2001, when she was renamed Pindar Systems for Emma Richards to race in the Transat Jacques Vabre. She finished 9th, with Miki von Koskull, who had sailed with Richards on Tracy Edwards’ 1998 Royal Sun Alliance Jules Verne attempt, as co-skipper.

The boat picked up line honours in the 2003 Cape to Rio race, before heading east under the ownership of an experienced French multihull sailor from 2011-2021 who was based in Hong Kong and kept the boat in Subic Bay in the Philippines, using her primarily for fast cruising and ocean voyages.

Flo – Golden girl

Despite all the different owners and skippers, when I visited Flo in Saint Malo, just before the start of the 2022 Route du Rhum, it was striking just how original the boat remains. There’s a huge curved mainsheet traveller on the aft beam, while the giant winches in the small cockpit are physically much larger than today’s equivalents. And, despite the boat’s awesome power, there are no pedestal grinders.

Both amas have helm seats in a similar way to MOD70s, but without the foot pedal to dump the mainsheet in a hurry. Photo: Jean-Marie Liot

Equally, Flo still has both a central tiller in the cockpit and helm seats perched precariously at the aft end of each ama.

Below decks the boat is surprisingly small, with a vestigial galley, just one berth, plus a navstation tucked in the corner between the daggerboard case and the main bulkhead.

Article continues below…

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The original striking gold colour scheme on the hulls and spars was reinstated earlier this year, when she was renamed Flo by Poupon, who skippered her in the 2022 race, 36 years after his 1986 victory.

Surprisingly, he told me very few changes were needed to prepare Flo for her latest transatlantic: “Almost nothing has changed, the electrical system and electronics are new, but the deck gear and layout are almost all original.”

Relatively minor alterations included lowering the head of the staysail and adding roller furling for it. “I prefer a smaller sail that’s easier to handle and has better shape for this purpose,” says Poupon. He also added a fourth reef to the mainsail, “which has a lot of surface area.”

Philippe Poupon, runner up to Florence Arthaud in the 1990 Route du Rhum, now skippers Flo. Photo: Jean-Louis Carli

Dramatic new role for Flo

What led to Poupon’s current involvement with Flo ? “Me and my wife [film maker Géraldine Danon] were very close to Florence Arthaud,” he told me. Indeed, in French media interviews he has even described her as “part of the family.” Poupon and Arthaud competed together as co-skippers on a later Fleury Michon in the 2000 Transat, and Arthaud also took part in a Figaro ll and Transat Jacques Vabre campaign with Poupon’s brother Luc in the mid-2000s.

“Géraldine started working on a script for a film about Florence two years ago,” continued Poupon. “We started to talk about what boat to use for the film and of course it had to be this one.”

The trimaran turned out to be easy to find, as Vendée Globe veteran-turned yacht broker Bernard Gallay was listing the boat for sale at the time. However, Poupon and Danon lacked both the €250,000 purchase price and the time to sail her back to France. Poupon says those problems were “… solved in a bar,” and the deal was completed in December 2021.

Controls for the wing mast. Daggerboard needs to be fully lowered to clear the boom in tacks and gybes. Photo: Rupert Holmes

The new owner, Philippe Brillault, took a crew that included Bernard Stamm as skipper out to deliver the boat back to France, via the Red Sea. The four-month trip was not without incident. New batteries were needed in Thailand, engine problems forced a stop in Sri Lanka, and having strayed too close to the coast of Yemen after departing Djibouti, the delivery crew was attacked by pirates.

“There were bullet tracks on the mast!” Fortunately they were able to escape and return to Djibouti, before proceeding with a military escort.

Poupon took over the boat in Cannes in July last year, where shooting for the film started. Flo took pride of place in the Vieux Port and anchored overnight off Île Sainte Marguerite, where Arthaud’s ashes were scattered after her 2015 death in a helicopter accident while filming a reality TV programme in Argentina.

Return to Rhum

The final leg took the boat to Michel Desjoyeaux’s Mer Agitée yard at Port La Forêt, where Flo had a short refit ahead of an opportunity for Poupon to complete the 1,200-mile solo qualifier needed for the 2022 Route du Rhum.

I visited him on board just before it was announced the race would be postponed by three days to avoid a dangerous sea state in 7.5m waves with a brutal 12 second period. How concerned was he at the prospect of sailing an old boat in such conditions?

“I have sailed a lot before on this type of boat and I am sailing more than six months a year on my own boat [a 66ft high latitude expedition yacht] so I will know what to do – maybe it will be to wait in Finisterre. I don’t have sponsors and I am not out to win overall, so I can decide for myself. I am here just to pay homage to Florence and for the movie.”

Poupon was also quick to point out that when he did the first race back in 1978 medium range weather forecasting didn’t exist and all that could be expected was a rough idea of what to expect the day after the start.

Flo’s small cockpit has most of the original winches and no grinder, despite the boat’s enormous power. Photo: Jean-Marie Liot

Poupon finished the race in 7th place in the 17-strong Rhum Multi class, crossing the line in 18 days and 19 hours, more than three and a half days slower than Arthaud’s 1990 time. Her Route du Rhum victory was just months after Tracy Edwards’ all-woman team on Maiden finished the Whitbread Round the World race 2nd in class, having won two legs, including the gruelling 7,260 mile Southern Ocean section. Back then there was real hope that professional sailing was changing from its entrenched position of male dominance. Yet three decades later only seven of the 138 Route du Rhum skippers were women.

It’s a concern Volvo Ocean Race winner and ex-race organiser Knut Frostad (now CEO of marine electronics and equipment conglomerate Navico Group) highlighted in his keynote speech at the most recent Yacht Racing Forum – not just for the sake of fairness, but also for the threat it represents to the sport in the longer term. Frostad warned: “Our industry will die in a generation if carry on as we are…”

Flo specifications

Design: VPLP Launch: 1989 LOA: 18.28m / 60ft 0in Beam: 15.10m / 49ft 6in Draught: 1.54m-2.88m / 5ft 1in-9ft 5in Displacement: 6,000kg / 13,230lb Upwind sail area: 230m2 / 2,475ft2

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