Innovation in ocean racing: five organisations, one shared ambition

Pierre-Yves Mechin, Head of R&D at Southern Spars; Julien Pilate, Head of the Design Office at North Sails France; Hervé Penfornis, Naval Engineer at Guillaume Verdier Architecture Navale (GVAN); Pierre-François Dargnies, Technical Director of the Malizia team; and Nicolas Andrieu, Technical Director of the BeYou Racing team, shared their vision of innovation. Although they come from different backgrounds – sailmakers, racing teams and architectural firms – they all share the same ambition: to push the boundaries of innovation whilst remaining within the established class rules.

Very different organisations, but the same starting point: an idea that can come from anywhere

Horizontal. That is how Julien Pilate describes the way North Sails is organised. Anyone can put forward an idea to a group tasked with reviewing it; this is followed by a feasibility study, prototyping, and a 12- to 18-month process to arrive at the finished product.

At Southern Spars, Pierre-Yves Mechin identifies two sources: projects driven by individuals, with quantified costs and performance gains, and a retrospective analysis of the ‘weak link’ in previous projects. In recent years, this has centred on materials, with a ‘Plan B’ for supply becoming essential and inspiration drawn from the space industry.

At the other end of the spectrum, at the Guillaume-Verdier law firm, Hervé Penfornis describes a way of working without a fixed office, based on remote working, with a weekly meeting and plenty of discussion: “Every idea is a good one.”

As for the teams, Pierre-François Dargnies (Malizia) and Nicolas Andrieu (BeYou Racing) work in small teams where the sailors’ opinions carry a lot of weight. At Malizia, ideas are shared on WhatsApp before being sorted through and then put forward to the architectural firm, sometimes requiring the team to put forward arguments and quantify the difference in figures to win them over. Nicolas Andrieu, for his part, describes his team quite bluntly as “more like assemblers than designers”.

Going faster through the bends

This is the common thread running through the round-table discussion: everyone is investing in tools to carry out more testing, earlier and at a lower cost. North Sails is stepping up its wind tunnel testing and the processing of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data, a measurement technology that uses laser light to measure distances with high precision. Southern Spars is replacing some finite element calculations with pre-trained AI models, which speeds up optimisation. At GVAN, simulators enable numerous hull shapes and foil profiles to be tested ‘in a matter of hours’. BeYou Racing has invested in this technology for a very practical reason: without figures, it is impossible to convince the designer. This is a widely held view: you have to present a well-substantiated case.

Look around you, without losing sight of your goal

The America’s Cup has served as a testing ground: R&D budgets, simulation tools, and tests that are subsequently applied to other areas, from foils to on-board energy systems. No one has a designated ‘observer’, but everyone is watching: Pierre-François Dargnies recounts how he analysed speed record videos frame by frame, often at night, and advises his young engineers to head down to the pontoons on the sidelines of the races.

Pierre-Yves Mechin offers a contrasting view. Focusing too much on others prevents you from making progress in your own field. He prefers to stick to his own vision, even if it means facing failure: “We’ll be more disappointed at not having followed what we believed in than at having copied what others were doing.” ’ Julien Pilate adds that one must remain humble: ‘A good idea rarely comes on its own. Great innovations are born from the accumulation of small gains.’

Client and designer: negotiation, compromise, timing

Innovations then come up against the realities of the situation. Depending on the team, the client may be very open-minded or very controlling. Hervé Penfornis notes that being given free rein is rare: in IMOCA, ‘The concept of free rein does not exist, or only rarely.’

For Pierre-Yves Mechin, a good customer is one who challenges him and knows what they want, whereas giving someone carte blanche often leaves room for doubt as to whether they will ultimately be satisfied.

When it comes to the shipyards, the schedule is the number one enemy: architects rarely have time to explore one more idea when several ships are due for delivery within a few months.

Julien Pilate sums up the prevailing mindset: we take risks together.

To do or not to do? That is the question

Nicolas Andrieu describes a simple method: putting innovation through a series of filters, then comparing expected gains with potential losses. Pierre-François Dargnies adds the question that struck a chord with his team: ‘What is the risk of not doing it? Ending up in the water with a boat that’s one knot slower, or seeing everyone else adopt what we turned down.’ ’ He also humorously refers to the ‘museum of mistakes’ – those components that were built and then rebuilt because the state of the art had moved on.

The bustle: a textbook example

The extension beneath the central hull, tested on the America’s Cup and the Ferrari prototype, is now fitted to the IMOCA yachts Groupe Dubreuil II and DMG Mori Global One. Both teams have given the go-ahead, for different reasons: one team is open to innovation, whilst the other has a very tight timeframe.

BeYou Racing has decided not to go down that route. For Nicolas Andrieu, the bustle is comparable to foils in terms of benefits and risks, but more difficult to remove: replacing a set of foils costs a few hundred thousand euros, whereas grinding down a bustle is a different matter altogether. Pierre-François Dargnies was particularly concerned about drag as soon as the boat heels over, which is a disadvantage for a solo skipper.

A final word to the sailors

The round-table discussion concluded with a virtually unanimous view: technology opens up a world of possibilities, but it is on board that everything is decided. Unlike in Formula 1, in IMOCA racing the boat’s trim, settings and ballast are fine-tuned and adjusted, and it is these factors that make the difference; however, for Nicolas Andrieu, “performance is hugely dependent on the skippers’ talent.”