French legend

Franck Cammas on the Jules Verne Trophy, the 33rd America's Cup and Extreme 40s

Following their structural failure on Sunday, Franck Cammas and his crew are at present nursing their 105ft long maxi-trimaran Groupama 3 towards Cape Town where the plan remains to spend a week fixing her, before sailing her back to France and start out again in January or February.

On Monday the crucial bulkhead in her port float, where the aft cross beam joins the float, broke and this started to affect the integrity of the float in this area. At the time the float was on the weather side and out of the water and while the team are considering the causes, it was almost certainly caused by wave impact. As the video here, shows beforehand in the seaway, the float was being repeatedly bashed around by waves underneath and on the side, although this is to be expected on a racing trimaran.

This time around Cammas and his team had hoped for a more fortunate ride around the planet following their hull breakage two years ago that very nearly resulted in the total loss of Groupama 3 off New Zealand.

On his second attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy Cammas went on stand-by early - 1 November - and left just five days later, on what proved to be a blinder of a weather pattern, allowing them to reach the Equator in a new record time from Brest, of 5 days 15 hours and 23 minutes.

The reason for the promptness of their departure may have been partly due to the ominous presence of their next door neighbour in Lorient’s submarine silos - Pascal Bidegorry’s Banque Populaire team. The Banque Populaire maxi-tri is newer than Groupama 3, some 20ft longer and a demonstration of her incredible potential came this summer when she demolished the west to east transatlantic record. Groupama 3’s W-E transat record from 2007 stood at 4 days 4 hours and Bidegorry’s monster blue and white tri stripped 12.5 hours off this, a whopping 12.5% improvement. In fact Groupama 3 crossed at the same time and took 3 days 18 hours 13 minutes, demolishing her record too, but she was still some three hours slower than Banque Populaire.



So what will happen in the Jules Verne? “I hope the opposite will happen!” Cammas told thedailysail before he set sail this time. “For sure I think they have an advantage with their boat. It is a new boat, a longer boat. When we designed our boat the goal was to be faster than Orange 2. I think we achieved that. For them the base was our boat and they achieved that also. It is bigger and more expensive also!

"But I think that difference isn’t the main thing - I think the strategy, the meteo/routing and the crew handling is maybe more important round the world than on the transatlantic, because the transatlantic is in the trades. On that the wind angle was 20deg above the VMG so it is good for the big boat with big righting moment. I think in this case [the Jules Verne], it will be closer than in the Transat.”

Cammas adds that throughout this year, all the sailing they have done has been training for the Jules Verne, even the transat record – the crew, the watches, the systems and gear were the same as they were using on their latest attempt - which he says wasn’t the case with Banque Populaire. He also feels that it is an advantage Groupama 3 being shorter because she is easier to handle and only needs a crew of 10, compared to the 13 who sail Bidegorry’s big beast.

But in fact, as their Jules Verne Trophy attempt in 2007 and her latest breakage demonstrates, there is way more to this gruelling record than simply having a fast boat. The present mega-trimarans are certainly faster than Orange 2, but significantly - as Bruno Peyron sits smugly looking on from his home in La Baule - they have yet to make it around the planet in one piece. If Groupama 3 has had problems, twice - what are the implications for the bigger, more powerful Banque Populaire? With Bidegorry having gone on ‘stand-by’ on Sunday, his crew awaiting a suitable weather window to leave, his shore team are certain to be checking the integrity of their bulkheads.

Cammas points out that while Banque Populaire demolished the transatlantic record without incident, that is only four days long and is the one and only record the boat has done. "Even us, we had no problem before the Trophee Jules Verne and we sailed more because we did three records before,” he refers to their abbreviated 2007 attempt.

In the meantime the Jules Verne Trophy remains resolutely with Bruno Peyron and the crew of Orange 2, a boat vastly different to both the current contenders. For starters she is a catamaran which means she behaves differently in waves. But she also is also a monster, 125ft long with huge freeboard, particularly forward. Cammas reckons that comparing these boats, the cat v tri issue is not nearly as significant as weight - Orange 2 weighing around 30 tonnes, compared to Groupama 3’s 18.

Whatever happens with the Jules Verne Trophy, assuming that they don’t total the boat limping in to Cape Town, Cammas has a cunning plan for next year’s Route du Rhum. With race organisers Pen Duick opening up it up with an ‘unlimited class’ to include the big singlehanded round the world record breaking tris IDEC and Sodebo, so Gitana have extended one of their ORMA 60s. Up against them will be Cammas, who is seriously going to compete in next year’s Route du Rhum on board Groupama 3 albeit with a reduced sail plan. “We will change the mast to one which is smaller. The mast is 39-40m tall and we’d cut it down to 35. So we will the same length as Sodebo, but with more sail area,” says Cammas.

As to the prospect of racing Groupama 3 singlehanded Cammas acknowledges “it is a problem! She is 5 tonnes heavier. The weight is a big difference but in the VPPs, Groupama 3 is faster even with the small mast.” So a touch of the Tabarlys sailing his Pen Duick VI Whitbread maxi in the 1976 OSTAR...

AC33

Aside from his team readying themselves for the Jules Verne Trophy, Cammas has also been spending time over the last months over in the States with the BMW Oracle Racing team. He is after all one of the most experienced and successful trimaran sailors on the planet. Unfortunately if all goes according to plan and Groupama 3 does set out on a second Jules Verne Trophy attempt (he wouldn’t be the first to try making two attempts in one season - this was something Olivier de Kersauson regularly did) then it is likely he will miss the 33rd America’s Cup if it does go ahead in early February.

So what is it like sailing the BMW Oracle trimaran? “It is a fantastic boat,” says Cammas. “It is unique. It is like a D35, but three times larger. It is very impressive, the tension on the gear and the structure. At the same time it flies a hull very early and very easily.”

We joke about the crew wearing crash helmets and according to Cammas within the US sailing team some have made the transition from heavy V5 monohulls to their extreme-as-it-gets, lightweight state of the art inshore multihull better than others. Helmsman James Spithill, he says, has fully embraced it.

“It is not the same strategy for match racing also. For the old crew it is difficult to change their minds, but I am sure you can do a match race with a multihull the same. I’m sure the two boats are very close in performance in the end. Maybe it will be a good race.”

As to the relative performance of the black tri and Alinghi's white cat, Cammas reckons it will be down to the weights each team achieved with their respective steeds. He reckons the weights of the boats will be in the order of 13-15 tonnes all up, ready to race, and guesses that the Alinghi catamaran could be something like 1.5 tonnes less than the BMW Oracle tri. For, he says, not only does the tri have an extra hull (although the beam structure running fore and aft on Alinghi 5 is substantial and her crossbeams will be heavier than those of the tri) she is also wider than the cat. Saying this he reckons that if they are at the same righting moment, Alinghi 5 could be the heavier if they bring on board water ballast. “That is the case if you can use the maximum righting moment - BMW Oracle has better numbers, but in very light wind, if you cannot use the total righting moment, for sure it is better to be light. But it depends upon the sail plan too...”

Hull flying and the wind strength in which this is achieved is also important, but Cammas says this is less the case with a trimaran, where the acceleration is not so great when their centre hull emerges, compared to a cat when it lifts its weather float.

“When the two boats are not flying the trimaran is better because of the hull shape. In the ORMA 60, for example, upwind we didn’t attempt to fly the hull earlier, we didn’t put the crew on the leeward side. Even on an F18 upwind in very light wind, the two guys are on the windward side. So it depends upon the shape of the hull. Sometimes on two hulls there is less drag than one hull with more weight on it.”

So BMW Oracle Racing to win the AC33 (but remember who’s side he is on...)?
“Always BMW for now, because they have done a lot of development, and because I think the boat can use its righting moment and the Alinghi boat is very high, the mast, the beam... for windage it is not very good and the mast foot is very high."

“But it depends upon the weight,” he states again. “I think BMW is heavier, but you can compensate that weight with the mast. But if it is only the weight then an Extreme 40 should be faster, and that isn’t the case, so it is not only the weight. It is always a compromise between the weight and power of the boats and the appendages. It is a big job, but BMW had a lot of time for that and I think they are better in that case.”

As to push button sailing, Cammas is against it. “It is a bad idea for the grinders,” he quips. We point out that it might make his Route du Rhum next year a little easier. “It is not the real competition for sure. It is less expensive and it is lighter to do that, but it is not the same...”

Alinghi have been putting forward the idea that if they win the 33rd America’s Cup then the 34th AC could also be in multihulls. Despite being part of the opposition, Cammas is fully in favour of that. We put it to him that it wouldn’t be match racing as we know it at the moment. “We did match race the Extreme 40s with James [Spithill]. It was very interesting. The circling isn’t very efficient, but it is not bad. There were a lot of crashes! It is not the same but it was okay.”

He also reckons that while an inter-multihull match race wouldn’t see the tacking duels of a heavyweight monohull match race, equally the upwind legs wouldn’t be the one tack affairs typical of Tornado races. "For sure you lose more during a tack but it is the same for your opponent, so you keep in mind that it is the same game."



Extreme 40s

With the ORMA 60 circuit now sadly defunct, the Groupama team were looking for something to fill their time between records on their maxi-tri and this year have taken to the iShares Cup for the Extreme 40s. Conversely their rivals at Banque Populaire have instead opted to compete in the D35 circuit on Lake Geneva (as have Foncia), the D35s being a class that Cammas has dabbled in too in the past.

“I think it is not the same circuit,” he states as to the reason he opted for his choice. “The D35 was first a circuit of the owners, but now there are some boats with sponsors. Its spirit is to enjoy the class, to enjoy the races, but it is not open for the public or the media or the sponsors.

“For my sponsor the iShares Cup circuit is better because there is a lot of involvement with the media and it is a show for the public.” In addition to France the Groupama insurance company’s interests also lie in Spain, Italy and the UK, among others. “Maybe the racing is not the same because it is very close to shore, it is not a conventional race, but for the media it is better. Also, the D35s only race around a 50km area [Lake Geneva], whereas with the 40s it is international with a European circuit.”

Cammas acknowledges that courses on the iShares Cup are occasionally too short or confined, but points out that in the end whether the courses are long or short it is always the same teams that seem to come out on top. “Generally it is a good compromise. It is the only race where the public can really see what’s going on.”

The day before setting off on their latest Jules Verne Trophy attempt, Groupama made the enormous commitment to Cammas to back him through two Volvo campaigns, already signing up the winning designer from the last two races, Juan Kouyoumdjian. More on this in due course. In the meantime there is the little matter of setting out on their third Jules Verne Trophy attempt.