Volvo Ocean Race announces foiling yachts and flying catamarans

As the cutting edge of global yachting media, the 44-year-old Volvo Ocean Race has revealed its bold vision for the next decade and beyond, despite final preparations being underway for the 2017-18 event starting October 22 in Alicante in Spain.

The new vision includes the choice of a new 60-foot (18.29 metre) foil-assisted One Design ocean racing monohull designed by France’s Guillaume Verdier, plus the introduction of a challenging 32-50 foot (10-15m) One Design ‘flying’ catamaran for In-Port Races, for which a new design and build tender process has now been launched.

The offshore legs will remain the key to winning the Volvo Ocean Race, but the inshore racing will count more than the current situation, where it acts only as a tiebreaker. That means winning the race in future will demand expertise in both monohull racing offshore and multihull racing in the In-Port Series, as both platforms will be raced by essentially the same crew.  

"We had a lot of debate about multihull versus monohull and, in fact, the final solution for us is to do both, so there will be three hulls in future editions — a foil-assisted monohull and a ‘flying’ catamaran," said Volvo Ocean Race CEO Mark Turner.

The combination of a 60-foot foil-assisted monohull for the ocean legs and a 32-50 foot foiling catamaran for use in the In-Port Race Series is intended to establish the Volvo Ocean Race as sailing’s ultimate all-round test for professional sailors. It will also guarantee a spectacle.

FOIL-ASSISTED MONOS AND CATS
The One Design monohull from the in-demand French naval architect Guillaume Verdier will use the latest generation foiling technology to make it incredibly fast to sail and spectacular to watch.

Crew numbers are likely to be five to seven, with incentives continuing for mixed male-female crews and youth sailors. The race will build eight of the new monohulls and deliver them from January 2019 onwards. The Notice of Race and Commercial Participation Agreements are published this October.

IMOCA compatibility: Uniquely, the design brief retains an option to allow the boat platform to be converted, inexpensively and quickly, to a fully rules-compliant short-handed IMOCA boat. The 60-foot IMOCA class boats, used in iconic races such as the solo Vendée Globe, have been the drivers of some incredible technical innovation over the past few decades.

The flying inshore catamaran program is undergoing a tender process for a new One Design 32-50 foot ‘foiling catamaran that will use some of the technology familiar from the America’s Cup and other new multihulls, albeit in a non-development One Design mode.

BIG VISION FOR SUSTAINABILITY
The Volvo Ocean Race intends to reduce its own footprint, to help turn the tide on 'plastic', while adopting a long-term ambition to eliminate the use of fossil fuels on future boats.

Some future races could start and finish outside Europe, and potentially feature a non-stop leg around Antarctica or even a non-stop lap of the planet. But while routes may vary, the race will commit to visiting North America, South America, Australasia, Greater China, and at least five major European markets at least once every two seasons.

The Volvo Ocean Race Board has asked race management to look into the feasibility of shifting the race to a two-year cycle, with race activity of some kind in every calendar year.

The Volvo Ocean Race began life in 1973 as the Whitbread Round the World Race and 2023 marks its half-century. The race is considering plans for a special 50th anniversary race that will honour the sailing legends who have taken part.

Meantime, the next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race starts from Alicante on October 22, 2017, and will visit a total of 12 Host Cities on six continents (not Australia). The teams will compete over 46,000 nautical miles to the finish line in The Hague at the end of June, 2018. The racing is in VO65s.

More at Volvo Ocean Race.