France’s in-demand Guillaume Verdier is designing the new monohull, which will use the very latest in foiling technology and is essentially a turbo charged IMOCA 60. The plan is that the design will include an option for the platform to be convertible, relatively quickly and inexpensively, to a short-handed rules-compliant IMOCA boat, able to compete in other major events on the IMOCA circuit such as the solo Vendée Globe and two-up Barcelona World Race.
A tender process opened today for the design and build of catamarans (32-50 foot; 10-15 metre) which will be built to a strict One Design rule like the monohulls, permitting much of the very latest ‘flying’ technology to be built in, but at relatively low cost.
“The America’s Cup, one of the other pinnacles of our sport, will always be at the absolute cutting edge development wise, with incredible technology leaps that we will see first-hand in Bermuda next week which are quite stunning,” said Turner. “We have seen the same technological advances in the IMOCA class with the introduction of foils in the recent Vendée Globe.
“Our goal with the Volvo Ocean Race is to set the bar as high as we can within the confines of existing campaign budgets, and within the context of One Design – where one is obliged to lock the technology level for each race cycle.”
Initial builds will be 8 of each mono and multihull, and will be made available to teams on a lease basis, thereby removing the asset purchase barrier that often prevents teams start-up, with sponsors involved in the upcoming 2017-18 edition getting first option. The first of the new boats will be completed by January 2019, with the whole fleet ready by the middle of that year.
Persico Marine in Bergamo, Italy will lead the construction of the new monohull and the race’s own team of boat builders and experts at The Boatyard will complete the final fit-out, at a location to be confirmed as part of the Host City Tender process.
While it will be strictly One Design, there will be a lot to play with and learn on these new machines – plenty of scope for ‘tinkerability’ by the teams in terms of the way the boat is set up to race. Possible evolutions in between editions will be built in as far as possible to the concept from the start.
“The new boats will be delivered on a lease basis, and along with the growing package of benefits provided centrally by the race, we expect budgets to be at a similar level today,” explained Race CEO Mark Turner.
Those team budgets are at an average of 10-12m euros spread over two years, including several million normally attributable to activation costs.
“The provision of central services and equipment allows the sailors to concentrate on winning the race on the water, rather than duplicating costs across the campaigns,” Turner continued.
“Teams and sponsors are going to have to act quickly because we do expect these exciting new boats to sell out quickly. The Notice of Race, Commercial Partnership Agreement, and Boat Lease for the next edition will be published before this upcoming 2017-8 race starts in October.”