In this 2019 Transat Jacques Vabre, all eyes will be on the IMOCA Class. Firstly, because it will be the most represented, with 29 boats at the start - l' IMOCA Fortil victim of a fire is giving up the race. But above all, because this will be the first transatlantic race for some new foilers.
With a heterogeneous fleet of boats designed between 1998 and 2019, the sporting ambitions and technical capabilities are different for each duo. Thus, we can now classify the IMOCA boats in three categories: the new generation foilers, the upgraded foilers and the IMOCA boats with daggerboards.
Since the beginning of 2019, the IMOCA class is in full emulation. 5 new boats have been launched in the last three months. With their huge foils and their sharp design, they make you dream, even if it is still a bit early to validate their performances. But if we base ourselves on the performance of Charal, launched a year earlier than the other foilers, the foil is the future of the IMOCA class . An innovation that we confirmed Vincent Lauriot-Prévost in September 2018 .
"These new projects pull the whole class up, the sponsors, as well as the preparers and the teams. In this sense, this winter, the boats have evolved a lot, both the new ones and the older ones. The fleet is really diversified, with very nice projects and beautiful boats." says Arnaud Boissières, skipper of the IMOCA "La Mie Caline euros Artipôle.
This emulation is confirmed by Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, skipper of the Multi50 Solidaires en Peloton ARSEP: "Sailing alongside exceptional boats like the IMOCA boats that have recently been launched is great. It's interesting to be able to exchange on technologies with their skippers.
While it may not be right to establish three different rankings, within the same category of euros after all the last winner of the Route du Rhum 2018 is SMA we have nevertheless decided to separate the fleet into three.
The latest generation of foilers
If the new foilers are dreaming, they are also very recent and euros proof with Jérémie Beyou's Charal, first-born of this new generation euros require a long reliability. The 2018 VPLP design had encountered several technical problems following its launch, but shone by its performance in 2019.
The older generation IMOCAs, also equipped with foils, are more proven and often more versatile, but adding foils to an existing hull always presents a risk in terms of structure.
Finally, the daggerboard IMOCA boats, if they are less efficient in reaching, are much more at ease upwind since they are versatile. Let's not forget that in 2018, Paul Meilhat won the Route du Rhum on board SMA ( now Banque Populaire X ), a monohull without foils.
