Merfyn Owen, from the Owen Clarke design team is the man behind some of the fastest 60-foot Open boats (Ecover, Aviva,..) and has spent fourteen years of his life designing boats for the Vendée Globe. He agreed to meet up with us and tell us about his projects, as well as giving us his opinion about the recent changes to IMOCA class rules, which apply to the 60-foot monohulls. Rules that in his opinion are likely to create a division between the boats launched before 2010 and the new boats.
In what way do the changes to IMOCA rules affect the work of the designer?
Merfyn Owen : “It is a completely different kettle of fish now. The result is that, because of the new rule, the areas from which we have been able to improve the boats’ performances in leaps and bounds over the years are now closed to us. So now it has two effects. The boats are more expensive to build. The other one is that there is now an ever greater demand to make the masts and the boats themselves lighter. And by driving the weight question as a fundamental, as well as being more expensive it has got the potential to push the designs and structures in areas where we haven’t had problems before. The trend up until 2010 has been to keep the coach roofs big to try and make the boats more comfortable, to protect the sailors. But you can see with the launch of the new Verdier boats that actually the drive to save weight is actually imperative in order to get the performance of a new boat to be faster than an ‘old’ boat.”
What lessons were learnt from the last Vendée Globe?
Merfyn Owen : “There was a comprehensive de-brief with all the sailors. I have had a few sails on Ecover since, and we have had de-briefs with the sailmaker since, and spar makers. The first person we always get talking to about a new boat is always the spar maker.
I have spent two days already with SP structural engineering on where we are going from there. And just gathering statistical data. I know that we lost 19 rigs in 24 months from IMOCA Open 60s. We concluded that the highest attrition rate was in deck spreader rigs by a margin of more than 2:1, and with any rig with rotating spreaders and that the most reliable is a fixed, classic spreader.”
What about the keels?
Merfyn Owen : “They have gone some way with the keels, there is now a keel structure criteria. Unfortunately though, it is not actually policed apart from the details going into an envelope, and if there is a problem then they pull out the envelope. To me that is a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
Have you any new designs on the drawing bord at Owen Clarke?
Merfyn Owen : “We are talking with quite a few people. One is advanced but as yet we don’t have a contract. We would like to see the boat in the water for next summer. In fact by creating two classes, it has made it very difficult (for designers) to get a new boat anyway. Jean-Pierre (Dick) was already committed because he had already sold his boat. But we when we sat down with Dee and Mike it was a no-brainer – so that is two clients you might have sold a new boat to, who are certainly not going to sell their optimised boats.”
How do you see the next Vendée Globe, in terms of speed and the standard of the competition?
Merfyn Owen : “I think you can see the next race being very much the same as the last race in terms of the level of competition and the speeds, if not faster. The new boats will be quicker than the old boats, not in leaps and bounds as they were before. They will be quicker, for sure. It is not just a matter of them being new, designers have new ideas and we move on, in designing, in building and sailing the boat afterwards, we move on all the time. You develop your ideas for a new boat over time. During the actual design process you don’t have all the money to investigate all the avenues that you would like to, and some avenues you don’t want to investigate all the way. So, in essence, it will be very much like the last race. An absolute ripper! But it won’t be like last time. I don’t think we will see more than half a dozen new boats. I would be quite happy with one new boat for next time. More to the point I still have aspirations to win the Vendée Globe. I’ve dedicated something like 14 years of my life to it, and it is still the goal!”
