Fundació Navegació Oceànica Barcelona

The Istanbul Europa Race is a regatta with crews of five sailing the IMOCA Open 60s; an unusual set-up on this class of boat that is more traditionally used for single or double-handed races, but one which is allowing some interesting technical conclusions to be made.

In fact according to some of the sailors, one of the biggest attractions of this race has been the possibility to really put the boats to the test, as many will go on to compete in the coming Transat Jacques Vabre, Route du Ron and Barcelona World Race.

In the Istanbul Europa Race, Estrella Damm is sailing with the crew Guillermo Altadill, Pachi Rivero, Antonio Cuervas-Mons, Antoine Mermod and Wouter Verbraak. After brilliantly winning the first leg to Nice and arriving third in Barcelona, the Spanish team is currently tied even on points with Kito de Pavant’s Groupe Bel and the ‘professor’ Michel Desjoyeaux’s Foncia.

The boat that Guillermo Altadill and Pachi Rivero will sail in the 2010/2011 Barcelona World Race has shown that the preparation process is heading in the right direction.

In Barcelona we had the chance to chat to Pachi about the differences in sailing an IMOCA Open 60 with a crew of five and the conclusions that can be made.

How would you evaluate the preparation process that has been undertaken up until now?

We have put in a lot of hours of work to prepare the boat, and many sailing hours, and the last two legs have shown us that we are definitely on the right road. The boat is performing really well and we are continually improving its fine ‘tuning’.

From a technical point of view, how does sailing an IMOCA Open 60 differ with a crew of five?

Firstly you can sail a lot faster. In single-handed races such as the Vendée Globe they say the boats are sailed at 70% of their potential. In the double-handed Barcelona World Race it is 85% and in a regatta like this with five on board you can race at 100%. However what is most noticeable from an outside point of view is in the manoeuvres.

For example?

In the sail changes; with five people you have more pairs of hands! But you particularly notice that the work is distributed much more evenly from bow to stern, and trimming its much less tiring.

Have you made any important technical discoveries?

We have made a lot, and they are all very valuable. As we can sail the boat at its full potential we are obtaining an enormous amount of data that in any other situation would not be possible, such as sail configurations, filling the tanks, and the keel angles for example. It is really productive for the future and in the next leg we will have more and even more important.

When these boats are sailed at their full potential it often seems that the design differences are minimal when it comes down to speed. At least it seemed the case in the light breeze you had from Istanbul. Is that how you see it as well?

Our boat, Foncia and Paprec-Virbac 2 are practically identical, and we are seeing all kinds of differences, with some at times imperceptible. The secret is the sailor. Desjoyeaux is famous for having his boats incredibly well-tuned for each regatta, and I think his success has a lot to do with this particular consistent characteristic in his preparation. It is what we are trying to do now in view of the coming Barcelona World Race, where we don’t want to have left any job undone.

Santi Serrat