The Hugo Boss

[SloopJohnB 322]

From Daily Sail

 

 

 

Following on from Roland Jourdain’s Lombard-designed Sill, then his Finot-Conq designed black, twin companionwayed monster for the last Vendee Globe, so Alex Thomson has unveiled his third IMOCA 60. The latest Hugo Boss is the Juan Kouyoumdjian design that Brian Thompson sailed in the last Vendee Globe as Bahrain Team Pindar.

 

Thomson acquired his new boat last year on the basis that he believes it to be a more competitive option than building anew. While older generation boats like the ex-Pindar have been grandfathered, the latest amendments to the IMOCA 60 class rule limit the power of new boats by for example having a 29m maximum rig height and a maximum righting moment of 32 tonne metres. Pindar is acknowledged as the IMOCA class’ most powerful boat and not in a minor way – it is substantially heavier, more beamy and with a taller rig, etc. Compared to the 32 tonne metre righting moment of the latest IMOCA 60s, it is 44 tonne metres!

 

Over the winter the new Hugo Boss has been in the shed at Green Marine being substantially reworked. Most evident is that deck has changed radically. No longer is there the conventional cabin top. At Green’s the original deck was cut off from the mast aft and its replacement is now effectively flush back to the last 15% of the boat where there is a short (fore and aft) cockpit and twin ‘pods’, the aim being to change the boat from being one aimed to be sailed across the Atlantic doublehanded or with crew to a configuration better suited for single or doublehanded racing.

 

The pods are a development of Thomson’s ground breaking catamaran-style twin companionway arrangement on the previous Hugo Boss, with all the lines running back from the mast in between them. Having seen them last night, it doesn’t make for the prettiest of boats...

 

“The two coachroof idea I think worked pretty well,” says Thomson. “It is interesting JP [Dick] has done it as well [on his new Paprec Virbac]. The idea is to create somewhere where you can never be out of touch with what is going on. I live, sleep, eat, telephone, video conference – everything happens from one of those pods. When I am asleep, I am not even 3ft from the main sheet. I can put my hands on the wheel when I am sat at the computer on the phone.”

 

So two deck saloons? “No, we call it a pd. I am a pod dweller,” he corrects us.

 

 

 

With a flush deck the interior is believed to be minimalist in the extreme with the chart table removed. Now Thomson says he can stand up but has to cock his head (much of the floor in the central of the area of the boat remember is taken up with ballast tankage), but he reckons this isn’t as bad as some of the other new 60s. “On PRB it doesn’t look like you can stand up and its the same with JP’s boat.”

 

The rig has also been changed. When the boat was originally launched as Pindar it featured a rotating wingmast rig with deck spreaders - the whole deal able to be canted fore and aft, like ORMA 60 rigs. This was rapidly outlawed by the IMOCA class and after a couple of dismastings, one of which we were on board for, the wingmast rig was fixed. Now the boat has a fixed four spreader conventional rig from HallSpars and the deck spreaders have been removed.

 

While the new IMOCA 60s have rigs limited to 29m tall on Pindar the mast is 31.65m, so 2.65m or almost 9ft taller... The new rig is also substantially lighter than the previous wing and Thomson says it is almost identical in dimensions to the rigs used on the Telefonica VO70s.

 

“The rig was designed by Scott Ferguson and it is a four spreader jumpless rig,” states Thomson. “It is out of a different mould, but it is lighter, because with the Volvo rigs you aren’t allowed to use M46J, so we are using a higher modulus carbon.”

 

With the new rig the boat has the same massive righting moment as before (that too was grandfathered) and remains the heaviest IMOCA 60 with a new bulb, a long thin torpedo affair, that remains 1.5 tonnes heavier than that of any other Open 60.

 

So this will be in stark contrast to the new boats which with their power limited, Thomson reckons will be looking to improve performance but reducing overall weight as much a possible. “When you look at the new rule and what these guys are doing - the only advantage is to build light, and I don’t know if that is a good thing. Some of these boats will be getting down under 8 tonnes, so they are saving 200-300kg from our generation. My boat [the last Hugo Boss] weighed in at 8,300kg and we were a 37 tonne metre boat so to get 32 tonne metres at 7-8 tonnes...” We agree. This is definitely not a good direction for the class to be headed.

 

In possession of the heaviest most powerful IMOCA 60 in the fleet, Thomson acknowledges that the challenge now is how to sail it efficiently. “It is an interesting problem. You have to think outside of the box a bit and not do stuff everybody else has done.”

 

As a first step they’ve removed all the ABN AMRO One-style rope strops and replaced them with hydraulics. According to Thomson they have increased from three to 10 hydraulic functions. So this is everything from sheet lead positioning to hydraulic downhauls for the headsails, which are on halyard locks.

 

We reckon this would result in a weight penalty and Thomson acknowledges that you do initially because a hydraulic reservoir has to be fitted. “But then on top of that all you are doing is adding rams. Each one you add it gets lighter. Compare that to the amount of rope you are carrying and if that rope gets wet... Personally I think it is significantly lighter than if you had the rope equivalent. Plus with the change in the rig we think it improves the compression a bit. Having block and tackle downhauls on the jibs - I was a bit nervous about that.”

 

As is the modern way, the hydraulics can be operated by a rotary pump driven from the coffee grinder. The hydraulic rig controls were originally on the boat when her rig could be canted but was thrown off prior to the Vendee Globe. Now it has been reinstated.

 

As to how the new Hugo Boss compares with the previous one, Thomson observes: “Obviously the gear is bigger and heavier, so it is physical. We have made it simple already and we’ll end up refining that further to make it easier. And that is the number one priority – the boat is as it is, we have changed the rig, but the priority is to make it easy to sail.

 

“The second thing is that you can definitely feel the righting moment of the boat and it feels like that could make it easier, rather than with the previous boat being fairly quickly underpowered to fairly quickly overpowered, it feels like when this is a little bit underpowered, it doesn’t feel quite as bad and then when the wind picks up she leans over a little bit more and goes fast. It feels much more stable.”

 

In terms of sails compared to his previous boat, the new Hugo Boss has a mainsail some 20sqm bigger while the kites are 100sqm bigger... and with this comes extra weight making them harder to hoist, lower, move around and stack.

 

Changes at Alex Thomson Racing

 

Cruel observers, particular in Thomson’s case, would point out that having the fastest most powerful boat is all very well, but first he needs to start finishing races. This comes after Thomson’s spate of disasters, from being run down by a fishing boat prior to the start of the last Vendee Globe to having to pull out of the race itself early on when the hull was punctured. He lost the first Hugo Boss in the Velux 5 Oceans in the Southern Ocean when the keel fell off, pulled out of the previous Vendee Globe when the gooseneck came adrift. Certainly there are technical issues with the ground breaking IMOCA 60s, but when it comes to boat breaking Thomson’s record is statistically worse than average.

 

This is something Thomson acknowledges and is keen to address. “We have looked at what we did in the last four years and a lot of people say ‘Alex is unlucky’ and some bad things have happened and the reality is that we have lost masts, lost keels, lost a boat, being hit by a fishing boat. You can regard that as unlucky, and it is easy to say that, but I think the reality is that you can avoid a lot of things that have happened before and to avoid it I think we need stronger and more structured management.

 

“When you look at the technology that involved in these boats, anyone who has got anything to do with them will say that they are more technical and complicated and more state of the art than America’s Cup or Volvo boats, almost any boats on the planet because there aren’t any restrictions. So what we are trying to do is to manage it more professionally than anybody else is doing.”

 

Thomson cites the example of Roland Jourdain, who 2000-1 Vendee Globe was hampered when he had to stop his boat near Cape Horn to repair his mast track. “Arguably he lost the race because some guy put the wrong screw in the mast track where it was reinforced for the head – how do you stop that? If the guy who is putting the screws in is sick one day and you bring in someone else in to do it, how do you make sure he puts the right stuff in? You have to try and set a way of operating that captures all that detail. We are putting that in place, at the moment.”

 

This doesn’t just apply to the boat building and the shore team but the way the whole team operates.

 

This is why they have brought in someone new to run the team in the form of Stuart Hosford, previously Head of Procurement at RBS. “I get excited about being creative, he gets excited about systems and procedure!” says Thomson. With Hosford on board it will also free him up to concentrate on sailing the boat without having simultaneously to run a team.

 

This, we wonder, sounds very much like input from Thomson’s mentor and ATR business partner Sir Keith Mills? “Keith is more involved in different areas of sport than the rest of us and if you speak to him about sport, whether it is Tottenham, the Olympics or TeamOrigin, he will say the guys who captures more detail is more likely to win. So that is what we are trying to do.”

 

In addition they have new recruits to the team. South African Anthony Spillebeen is the team manager having previously been with Ericsson, while the familiar figure of Volvo sailor Andy Meiklejohn has been brought on to be in charge of performance, including mast and sails. Hamble’s own Rachel Howe, who works for Diverse is now with the team running the electronics, data, etc.

 

Alex Thomson Racing is now up to 10-11 personnel, which Thomson reckons is now the normal size for an IMOCA team. “I think we do more marketing than everyone else does. For a team operating like we are that is probably as lean as you can get.”

 

Over the course of this year the new Hugo Boss has a full schedule, heading off the US in two week for Hugo Boss corporate work in New York and the Hamptons before heading back to the UK, then down to the Med for events in Naples and Ibiza with the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in between. It will then be back to the UK for a quick refit prior and then back down to the Med for the Barcelona World Race start on 31 December.

 

“The priority is the racing, but the nice thing about the PR is that it forces us to do a lot of miles. We’ll be doing something in the region of 12000 miles this year, and we’ll use that for a performance point of view a lot more than we have done before,” says Thomson.

 

As to his Barcelona World Race crew Thomson says they had someone chosen who has had to stand down and they are now looking for a replacement, ideally someone with Volvo and shorthanded experience. “They have to be fit and strong, and buy into the ethos of the team and be prepared to be more numbers-orientated and who can bring something to the party as well.” So probably about six people in the world...

 

As to Thomson’s personal development, we wonder if he has done analysis of Michel Desjoyeaux and what he has done right to win two Vendee Globes.

 

“He is a character on his own, there is no one quite like him and fundamentally he makes very good choices,” says Thomson. “But we don’t really know what happened on his Vendee. Also I don’t think we are interested in becoming Michel Desjoyeaux. For the Anglo-Saxons the best way to go and win the Vendee Globe is to start with the Minis and Figaros, but we are not trying to follow people we are trying to beat them. We have to be at the start of the next Vendee Globe better than Michel Desjoyeax’s ever been. That is what the goal is.”

 

Any comments about the boat - us the comment box below...

 

Hugo Boss last night prior to her christening party (photos James Boyd/www.thedailysail.com)