A timed construction
Since January 2017, Team Charal's design office has been working in collaboration with the VPLP architectural firm on the development of the future IMOCA monohull Charal. The objective? "taking an important architectural leap forward from the last generation." Construction of the hull and deck moulds began this summer and the boat will be launched in the summer of 2018 to take part in the Route du Rhum.
Timing must therefore be respected imperatively. "Construction of the hull mould began on July 19 at SRG in Spain, and the deck mould on August 14 at Green Marine in Southampton. The keel was ordered from AMPM, the mast from Lorima, and production began at the beginning of September" explains Pierre-François Dargnies.
From September, the design office in relation with VPLP and Gurit, which is in charge of the structure, will focus mainly on two issues: the interior layout, including the positioning of the partitions, and the shape of the foils (construction of which will begin in January 2018 with a service provider that has not yet been chosen).
"We have an initial idea of what our version 1 can be, we're also relying on the good work we did before the Vendée Globe with New Zealand's Nick Holroyd, who made us a great pair of foils. With VPLP's experience (and that of hydrodynamic engineer Giorgio Provinciali) and our own, we hope to make the foils as optimised as possible" explains the technical director.
VPLP for the hull
The design of the hull was entrusted to the pencil of Daniele Capua, from the firm VPLP. She proposed nine hull plans, all tested in a digital tank, to finally find the adapted hull which will be "more suitable for operation under foils" according to Jeremie Beyou. In fact, Team Charal's design office has decided to design "the boat around the appendages" and "to take more risks with the shape of the hull." after validation of the possibility of a round-the-world voyage with a hydrofoil boat in the Vendée Globe.
North Sail for sails
The design office also worked at length on the deck plan, in particular the positioning of the foils, the mast foot, props, stays and chain plates, all of which depend largely on the sail plan. They therefore approached North Sail, who carried out studies on different sail configurations. "We're on a standard mast, but we've got a little bit of freedom on its longitudinal position and on the position of the props." explains Jeremie Beyou.
The Vendée Globe for the cockpit
For the design of the cockpit, the skipper drew on his experience in the Vendée Globe. "We made a model in our hangar to scale 1 to model the cockpit, to put it in my hand and to my size, to define the helming, watch and manoeuvring positions, but also all the angles of view of the sails via the portholes and the best way to manage the battening of the sails... We made a bunch of versions, the carpentry workshop worked at full speed! The aim was to make it easy and light, because we have a (big) weight objective because the boat is a foiler and we don't want to take any risks on the structure" explains Pierre-François Dargnies, Technical Director of Team Charal.
"We sought to optimise the ratio of centre of gravity to boat stability and ease of mastheading in the cockpit. The studies carried out by Nicolas Andrieu and Guillaume Dupont (VPLP) resulted in an original shape, far from all the cockpits seen on the six boats of the previous generation"
