The Following Article Is Provided Courtesy of Professional Boatbuilder magazine & Steven Callahan Articles are presented exactly as they first appeared in Professional Boatbuilder © Professional Boatbuilder & Steven Callahan; All Rights Reserved Permissions to reprint or otherwise reuse is required. For permissions, please contact the author; email at: steve@stevencallahan.net Or click on the email address on the bottom of the Home Page. To return to Steven Callahan’s Home Page, click below: http://www.stevencallahan.net/schome.html To return to Steven Callahan’s ProBoat Articles Page, which includes links to a number of articles on leading designers, click: http://www.stevencallahan.net/proboat.html To return to Steven Callahan’s Publications Page which includes links to both articles and books, click: http://www.stevencallahan.net/publications.html OR You can go directly to the Articles Page, which links to both the Professional Boatbuilder Articles Page and other sites containing articles by Steven Callahan, by clicking: http://www.stevencallahan.net/articles.html Or You can go directly to the Books Page, which links to books by Steven Callahan and his associates, plus descriptions and links to books recommended by Steven Callahan, by clicking: http://www.stevencallahan.net/books.html

The magazine for those working in design, construction, and repair

NUMBER 64APRIL/MAY 2000$5.95

SEATTLE'S VIC FRANCK YARDLOW-TEMP PRE-PREGS

GROUPE FINOTWEIGHT MANAGEMENT FOR MOTORYACHTS

The firm whose controversial, wide-bodied sailboat

by Steven Callahanean-Marie Finot might just be theworld's most controversial sail-boat designer. Even as his speed-

sters dominate long-distance, short-handed races and continue to influ-ence the realm of cruisers, he battlesthe critics over issues of safety andthe public's tendency to oversimplifycomplex design issues.

"I am not interested in boatdesign," says Finot. "The boat is notthe objective. The objective is to cre-ate something harmonious with the

64 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

sea, the wind, your crew, and you."The harmony in his head, however, isbased on a hissing wake winding outastern at 20-plus knots, and therolling thunder of big waves offshore.Although his 145-plus designs havespawned more than 27,000 boats builtin a half-dozen countries, it is the so-called Finot skimming dish, sled,monomaran, or aircraft carrier—anul t ra l igh t racer featuring a beam athird its length, and a broad,chopped-off stern—that has becomehis trademark as well as the cross hehas sometimes had to bear.

In the 1960s, when modern long-distance shorthanded sailboat racingbegan, few people imagined single-handed skippers effectively drivingboats longer than about 40' or averag-ing more than about 150 miles a day.(Even large yachts rarely exceeded250.) No one envisioned lone sailorspiloting Finot 60-footers around theglobe, routinely doing in excess of350 miles in 24 hours while the boatsremain amazingly well-behaved (usu-ally), even when sliding clown enor-mous seas in the Southern Ocean.

There's no dark secret to gaining

J

designs now dominate the field of shorthanded distanceracing, continues to develop high-speed monohulls—for cruisers and racers alike.

Facing page—Somewhere displays two distinctive features associated with Finot-designed Open-class 60 (18.28m) solo oceanracers: an aircraft canopy-like deckhouse, on an aircraft carrier-like deck. Above—Four views of the virtual Team Group 4, arecent Open 60, invite close study. At upper right, is a photo of the real thing. After winning the first leg of the 1998/99 AroundAlone Race, Team Group 4 had an unlucky grounding off New Zealand, compromising her carbon hull-to-keel-bladeconnection; the boat was pulled from the race. (For a technical discussion of the damage, see "Working with Carbon Fiber,"PBB No. 61, page 34.)

performance: increase power, de-crease drag, or both. Starting early inthe 20th century, offshore-sailboatdesigners began improving rigs andthen lowering centers of gravity byusing external bal last and deeperkeels. They reduced drag by sculpting

narrow hul l s , or they added sail-carrying power by increasing beam,but until recently, they could onlymarginally decrease weight. In fact,boats l ike America's Cup 12-Meteryachts employed more weight to cap-ture more ultimate stability. Until the

1960s, few offshore boats were lightenough to escape the limits of theirgravity waves, which bind hulls indisplacement mode to a narrow rangeof hull speeds.

Since the 1960s, the quickeningpace of change in offshore sailboat

APRIL/MAY 2000 65

Seven years, seven representative raceboats. The Finot Open-60s profiled onthese two pages chart an evolution in design, rigging, and construction. Keelmigration aft, for example, is barely noticeable, except for PRB, where the shift isquite evident. Hers, however, is a less aft-oriented rig; instead, more emphasishas been placed on the daggerboards forward. The first boat in this series isaluminum, while the later boats were built in advanced composites, reducingweight by nearly half.

construction has fostered paral le ladvances in design. For example, inthe United States, Alan Gurney's cold-molded 73' Windward Passage ("thebig dinghy"), with a beam of morethan 19', set records around theworld. Bill Lapworth's light but nar-rower glass boats, like the Cal 40, bal-anced upwind power with low drag,and surfed prodigiously to become aproduction classic. Bill Lee and otherWest Coast designers followed suit inthe 1970s with cored-glass, slim-waisted, ultralight displacement boats(ULDBs) that sacrificed upwind stiff-ness but shattered downwind recordsas they raced far offshore to placeslike Hawaii. New Zealand's BruceFarr, among others, morph'd extremedinghy designs l ike the SydneyHarbor 18s into IOR (InternationalOffshore Rule) winners. These sharp-bowed yet very wide, shallow hulls,with their broad sterns and with bigcrews camped out on the windwardrail, sailed upright while carrying gen-erous sail both upwind and whensurfing and planing off the wind. TheIOR model, though, proved a poorpackage for cruising or shorthandedoffshore racing. When overpoweredand well heeled, these designsshowed little forgiveness; their trian-gular plan-forms nosed down, venti-lating their rudders and often causingthe boats to spin out of control. Moreimportantly, though very stiff at smallangles of heel, these designs lacked alarge range of stability. Indeed, thetrend among racing yachts toward bigbeam, light displacement, and a shal-low hull with a high center of gravitywas widely held responsible for thenumerous knockdowns and capsizesin the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race, in

which 24 boats were abandoned and15 sailors died.

rom France, Jean-Marie Finot hadbeen lending a more measured

influence. After two years under thewing of Phi l ippe Har le , one ofFrance's most prolific boat designers,Finot made a name for himself withEcume de Mer, winner of the 1970and 72 Quarter Ton Cups (she thenspent five years circumnavigating),followed by Revolution, which wonRORC championships in 1976, '77,78, and 79. Revolution showed thateven back then, Finot thought outsidethe box. Whereas the early IORgreatly encouraged pinched sternsand bulbous protrusions, calledbustles, around the rudders, Finot'sdesign featured smooth lines and abroad transom.

Finot recognized that light weight,broad beam, and a shallow hull werenot technical problems per se. Theproblem was with a handicappingrule that penalized a light shallowhull having a low center of gravity(giving it an improved range of stabil-ity), and, in general, hull shapes offer-ing better overall handling characteris-tics. Finot, who had closely studiedhull shapes, derived formulas forattaining good balance; though the"hips" of his boats have grown broaderin the years since, Finot's vessels havealso earned a reputation for remain-ing so easy to handle that 60-footersare fitted with t i l lers that usua l lyrequire only fingertip control.

Finot 's goal has always beenstraightforward: to design boats thatare, in his words, "happy in all condi-tions." The then-new "Open" devel-opment rules provided Finot with a

perfect oppor tuni ty to realize hisdreams. Dreading any repeat of nega-tive results caused by previous handi-capping systems, the organizers ofshorthanded offshore races decided todivide boats into classes determinedonly by overall length, thereby allow-ing designers to explore widely diver-gent paths to victory.

In most of those early races, mono-hulls competed direct ly againstmultihulls. The latter type benefitedfrom low-drag, skinny, lightweighthulls that were incredibly stiff, allow-ing them to carry lots of sail even inhigh winds. Their rigs' power alsobenefited from stiffness. Since lift isperpendicular to a foil, one compo-nent of a heeled sail's thrust pushesthe boat down into the water, increas-ing dynamic displacement and drag.More air also slips up and over thesail's head, decreasing the sail'spower. A deep keel may lend a greatdeal of stability as a boat heels, but itwon't add much stability at the lowheel angles at which a boat most effi-ciently sails. So the only way to gaincomparable power in a monohull wasthrough beam, light construction, andmovable ballast, which significantlylengthens the righting arm even atzero degrees of heel. Overcanvassed19th-century "sandbaggers," withlength/beam ratios of 3, and narrowracing log-canoes of the same period,whose crews hiked out on boards,were among the earliest boats toexploit movable ballast, but theyalmost always sailed in displacementmode. Then in the mid-1960s legendaryFrench offshore sailor Eric Tabarlycommissioned the design of a shallow-bodied 35' raceboat with a novel sys-tem of water ballast that could be

66 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

F

APRIL/MAY 2000 67

Below we see PRB's swing keel, and a detail drawing of its mechanism. The twodrawings on the left at the bottom of the page illustrate the unusual "Tirant" rig wornby Aquitaine Innovations, among other boats. It was conceived by F/not to spreadthe shrouds—much as they might be with a multihull. Conferring at the drawingboard are founder Jean-Marie F/not, left, and Pascal Conq, his partner in GroupeF/not.

dumped when not needed yeteasily picked up again. Tabarly's PenDuick V easily won the SinglehandedTranspacific Race.

By the early 1980s, the "Open"rules for both the MiniTransat single-handed transatlantic and the BOCsinglehanded circumnavigation races(already limited to monohulls) hadclosed significantly. Organizers fearedthat too much water ballast mighthelp capsize a boat caught aback.After the 1979 MiniTransat and the '83BOC, they limited water ballast,which had to be carried within thehull; in the BOC, to an amount thatwould heel the boat at rest no morethan 10°. Designers immediately recognized that the wider the hull, themore form stability it possessed toresist heeling from the movable ballast. They could tuck ballast tankunder the deck edges of very widehulls—the farther from the center-line, the more foot-pounds of right-ing moment they would gain tohold up increasingly large sailplans. The net effect of the rulewas to increase beam and powerwhile el iminat ing narrow, self-righting designs with external bal-last systems.

In view of the IOR experience,however, throughout the 1980smost designers of offshore racersfeared extreme beam. Since single-handed sailors had to trust self-steer-ing in truly horrendous conditions,

68 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

Designed as a fast offshore cruiser, the Cigale 18 is asemi-production 60-footer being built by the Alubat Shipyard inFrance. The low-profile deck is deceiving: down below,accommodations are fairly generous. While Finot's bigraceboats may get a lot of press, the firm's design work forproduction builders has been a staple of the business foryears.

they needed easily handled boats thatalso were capable of sailing efficientlyto weather offshore. This enticeddesigners of the period to drawnarrower boats. But not Finot.

With a maximum length of 6.5m(21.30, MiniTransat boats had alwaysbeen little more than decked-overdinghies. As early as 1979, those boatswith beams a third or more of theirlength clearly claimed the advantage,especially during the second, down-wind leg from the Canary Islands tothe Caribbean, when they were doing180- to 220-mile days. Such speedmore than made up for any upwindshortcomings, but even upwind theycould carry so much sail theyremained very fast, if wet, while bash-ing into waves. When well heeled-out, one of their double rudders, likethose found on traditional Great Lakesracing scows, remained in the waterat a near-ideal angle and kept theboats under control. Finot carefullyobserved the field, beginning in 1977,when his Reve De Mer finished sec-ond. By the time he produced a win-ner 12 years later, which he followed

with wins in '91 and '95, he'd mergedall the successful trends with his ownrefined hullform. He scaled it up to60' with Generali Concorde for the1989-90 Vendee Globe (6th place)and then Groupe Sceta for the1990-91 BOC (1st place; GeneraliConcorde 2nd), quickly solidifying hislead. Since then, Finot's lead has onlystretched as his boats won the1992-93 and 1996-97 Vendee Globeraces and the BOC/Around Alone in1994-95 and 1998-99, as well as the1991 and '95 MiniTransats. His Open50 designs have been just as success-ful , placing first and second in the1998-99 Around Alone.

Designer Olin Stephens has longcriticized light, beamy IOR boats,insisting that sailing hull shapes mustbe balanced from end to end. Finotactually agrees with Stephens, buttypically re-examines the underlyingtruths behind such rules of thumb. Hediscovered early on that good balancedoes not require pinched ends orheavier displacement. While perpetu-ally sketching hull shapes, centers offorces, and graphs and vectors as he

talks, Finot concludes, "Triangularshapes are not good, and immersedbanana shapes are not good exceptfor turning." He balances his hulls byusing firm forward shoulders—again,like lake scows. These hulls roll outevenly, the heeled centerline remain-ing nearly parallel with the uprightone. American designer Rodger Martinrecalls his surprise upon seeing aFinot boat sailing upwind for the firsttime: "The bow didn't roll down," hesays. "It actually lifted!" Martin begandeveloping related shapes for his ownOpen designs.

Finot boats have also re-emphasizedthe importance of sail forces in thebalance equation. A stiff boat keepsthe rig more centered over the hull,decreasing the turning lever armbetween the rig's center of force andthe center of lateral resistance. By thelate 1980s, Finot had got the propor-tions of his winners so right that theyhave not had to change much since.In his Open 60s, for example, a beamof 5.7m to 5.85m (18.7' to 19.2')remains more or less constant. Mastheights reach about 25m (82'). This

70 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

The MiniTransat is an under-reported classof small singlehanded offshore racers,where a considerable amount oftechnical experimentation takesplace. Here's a Finot Mini;she measures 21.3'(6.5m) x 9.7'(2.95m),and draws 6.5'(2m). Notethe dinghyhullform.

envelope's seemingly consistentsize, though, masks its s i gn i f i can tevolution.

omposite-built boats in the Whit-bread and other major offshore

races have a history of delaminationand shear failures. Finot knew that hewould have to confront the huge

beating that his broad, flattish panelswould take offshore. So Finot 'sfirst Open 60, Generali Concorde.launched in 1989, was built of alu-minum. Still, Finot soon recognizedthat only composite cons t ruc t ioncould appreciably lighten his hulls.Groupe Sceta, Finot's first Open 60built of polyester and glass, suffered

delamination in some large panels inthe first leg of the 1990-91 BOC; butrepaired, she carried on to win. PascalConq, Finot's right-hand man since1985 and now his design partner inwhat is called Groupe Finot, explainsthat it was hard to tell what causedthe delam problem with GroupeSceta, though it appeared to be due

72 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

C

Not long ago, Finot was commissioned to develop a family ofboats designated The Fox, all based on Finot's successful,

record-breaking Open 50. There are ketch- and sloop-riggedcruisers (below), with alternate layouts. And there are

"radical" versions that share the same profile (left) andare being marketed for fast daysailing and/or offshoreracing. Two U.S. builders—TPI (Rhode Island) andLyman-Morse (Maine)—have teamed to produce theseboats, utilizing SCRIMP technology.

to outgassing from the foam core. Thenext Finot raceboat. BaggagesSuperior, was built with epoxy andhigher-quality glass; she suffered noproblems going around the world towin the 1992-93 Vendee Globe. Even so.says Conq, "We later found a 'bubble'in the engine compartment, so wedecided to do something about it."

The Finot office has always beenvery computer-oriented, and usesfinite element analysis for engineeringhigh-load areas and details, as onmasts. But Finot himself takes a multi-pronged approach to the generalengineering of his hulls. "Our numberone obsession is to make sure theboat is strong enough," says Finot.

"We looked first at 'old' regulationslike Lloyd's to figure out the size ofstringers, frames, and skins. We couldthen calculate the pressures those arebuilt to handle. Next, we looked atour boats as built. If a stringer broke,we asked what it took to break it.But we also consider the speedof the boat and the wave and calcu-

APRIL/MAY 2000 73

late the energy it takes to slow orstop the boat. Say the boat is going12 knots and the wave 30 knots andthe boat slows to six; that energyforces water away from the hull, andwe can calculate that."

A typical Groupe Finot hu l l isdivided into 30 or more panels com-posed of five or six basic laminates.Photos of a Finot model being tank-tested for surfing and planing, showsheets of light spray near the bow;these shift suddenly to a massivesolid bow wave concentrated justforward of the keel. That's where,Finot notes, "the keel and rig tend totwist the hull and pull the boat into abanana shape. It is also where thehull panels become significantly big-ger, fuller, and flatter." Experienceindicated that the panels most highlystressed withstood a head of sevenmeters or more, "but to me it stillwas not enough," notes Finot. "Wedesign for a working pressure of 15meters, and failure at 30 to 40meters, or about 30 tons per squaremeter of hull. For that kind of loadit's difficult to design a sandwich

structure that won't fail in shear. So,since the 1994-95 BOC, we've beenusing core materials only aft and inthe deck, and pre-preg carbon singleskins with stringers forward."Discounting lost spars and a rupturedkeel jo int (af ter grounding at fu l lspeed—boats with deep narrow finsare designed to survive a groundingat up to 10 knots, but not 20), Finot'sraceboats have suffered no significantstructural failures. It is a remarkablerecord.

For cruising boats, too, Finot nowbelieves that single skins—beneaththe waterline, at least—provide supe-rior shear strength and longevity,since they eliminate any possibility ofwater entering the core. "It requires alittle more material and may be a bitheavier," he says, "but a solid skin ofcarbon is about half the weight ofsolid glass, and stringered carbon isclose to the weight of cored glass orcarbon. It jus t takes more time tobuild." He thinks it's also safer forgroundings or collisions, because single-skin carbon is more flexible than acored layup, so it better absorbs spike

loads. And, the skin is thicker than askin on a core. "Also," he notes,"when failures occur within a coredlaminate, you can't see them. With asingle skin, you' l l see a brokenstringer, and you fix it."

Finot has honed aircraft-stylestringer/skin construction by alleviat-ing stress risers and eliminating sec-ondary bonds. "We round the string-ers on top and place little fillets in thecorners," he explains. "We also usemore flexible resins in the fillets, andwe put the stringers in when we cookthe hull, so they become part of theprimary bond."

Thanks to composites, Open 60displacements have plummeted from14 tons to 8.5. Finot could save stillmore weight, but he chooses insteadto balance several factors. Theseinclude the need to increase powerwhile minimizing wetted surface.Finot keels have deepened from 3.8m(12.50 to 4.18m (13.7'). Increasedballast now is carried in highlyrefined T-bulbs having hollowed tailsections. With the launch of PRB in1996, Finot chose to begin offering

74 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

swinging keels in lieu of water bal-last. The swinging keel allows thecenter of gravity to shift to weather atlow heel angles, just like water bal-last; but, driven by hydraulic rams,the swinging keel is quick, relativelysimple, and keeps the boat lighter,which is a d is t inct benefit when

reaching or sailing upwind. Ofcourse, once the keel is hitched up toweather, it makes a very poor lateral-lift device, so Finot employs second-ary daggerboards (as do other design-ers). Recent victories with these boatshave proven the effectiveness of thisapproach, but victory comes at the

CCP Cray Valley, an Open 50, set aNewport-to-Bermuda record prior to win-ning Class II in the 1998/99 AroundAlone Race. Her hull and deck wereSCRIMPed by Maine builder North EndComposites. The boat as built has asmaller deckhouse than is shown in theFinot rendering.

APRIL/MAY 2000 75

The South 35 is Finot's newest production racer/cruiser. Construction is carbonpre-preg; the builder, Aerodyne Technology in South Africa. She measures34.4' (10.5m) by 11.5' (3.52m). Groupe Finot's name for the rig is the "C. Wing.

price of an extra $100.000 to $200,000for the additional complexity.

he rig revolution also has yieldedenormous speed enhancement.

Increased stability and carbon mastshave allowed Finot to boost raw sailpower as areas increased from 220square meters (2.367 sq f t ) to 304(3,271 sq f t ) . Rigs have moved aft .too. With small headsails and large,h e a v i l y roached mains ' l s set onbooms overhanging the sterns, sailpressures do not depress the bows asmuch, allowing Finot to continue totest just how sharp he can make hishul l entries to improve upwind work.Keels, too, have migrated aft, to bal-ance the rigs. And forward dagger-boards on boats with swinging keelshelp keep the bows from blowing offon some headings.

With apparent winds often in the30- to 40-knot range offshore, theaerodynamics for both reducing dragand maximizing lift become increas-ingly important. Finot was an earlyproponent of carbon fiber, whichdecreases a spar's sectional weightand frontal area, correspondinglydecreasing pitching inertia and para-sitic drag from windage and turbu-lence. Also, by 1991, departing againfrom the route taken by most of hiscontemporaries, he returned to non-overlapping working jibs. Takingadvantage of the boat's wide beam,Finot r igs—with the i r very longspreaders—suffered smaller compres-sion forces, keeping them slim andlight.

The great efficiency of wing masts

held much appeal for Finot, but howto get one light enough for a mono-hull? What if he widened the stayingbase even more, as on a multihull, byusing a pair of boom-like spreaderssplayed out from a deck-mountedmaststep? Says Conq of what he andFinot call their "Tirant" (meaning pushand pul l ) rig: "The weight of the rig isa little greater, but it's centered lower,so the heeling moment is the same.We needed to acid no weight to thekeel or anywhere else, and we gaineda wing. There's much less drag and itmakes the forward 25 percent of thesail much more usable."

Unfortunately, the first Tirant-riggedboat dismasted in the Transat lant icCate Race. Finot and Cone) found thatpre-tensioning the shrouds and con-t r o l l i n g the stretch of the runn ingbackstays was critical. "There was amiscommunication about the modulusfor the Vectran backstays," says Finot."The running backstay stretched toomuch, so al l the force came on theprimary rigging. Now we use PBO-fiber backstays." (Made by Toyobo, aJapanese manufacturer, "PBO" is anacronym for the lengthy chemicalname describing this new cordage,which is about 50% stronger for itsweight than Vectran.) Beneath themast, a hydraul ic mast jack pre-tensions each rod under the Tirant.Load cells with a readout at the charttable let the skipper check levels:mainsheet, 3-3.5 tons; lower shrouds.7-11 tons; mast compression, 20-25tons. By the 1998-99 Around Alone,Tirant-equipped boats were reliableenough to dominate the race, Canting

76 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

T

such rigs could a l low a boat todevelop even more horsepower bykeeping the mast upright when theboat heels: Finot has designed one,but says that at this stage it remainstoo complicated for his taste. Besides,they are currently forbidden by therules.

Finot boats have shown such con-sistent superior speed t h a t in the1998-99 Around Alone, half the fleetwas conceived on Finot's board, andmost of the competing boats lookedl i k e F ino t clones. Groupe Finotdesigns finished first and second inClass I (Open 60s, and the only twoboats to f i n i s h ) and Class II (Open50s). Strange then that the editors of aprominent sailing magazine recentlyplastered the word "unacceptable"across a photo of a Finot speedster.Of course, that boat was upside downat the time. Still, why should we besurprised when grand prix racers ofany i lk , from cars to powerboats,push the limits and a goodly numbercrash? And why would the mediablame Finot for the capsize, ratherthan a rule that encourages mono-marans that remain just as contentupside down as they do right-side up?Finot himself seems rather perplexedby it all.

This type of raceboat should beassessed as a hybrid craft, because itis more closely related to a catamaranthan to a 12-Meter, both in terms ofperformance and stability characteris-tics. Like a cat, these very wide,extremely stiff hulls develop enor-mous righting moment (RM) at lowangles of heel (Finot's reach maximumRM at about 50°), so they are highly

APRIL/MAY 2000 77

Despite an excellent race record, PRB's terminal capsize in the last Around Alonecaused many members of the international racing community to question thedynamic stability of Groupe Finot's big, wide, shallow hulls. Called upon to explainthe circumstances of that particular event, Finot's Pascal Conq insists that newerF/not raceboats will self-right if flipped.

resistant to knockdowns or capsize.But, acknowledges Finot, "that alsomakes them less forgiving." The RMquickly declines after the maximum isreached. Once inverted, the boatsbecome stable rafts; like multihulls,they have not sunk but protectedtheir crews within the hulls, some-times for days, before rescue.Granted, those within the racing com-munity already opposed to multihullsand l ight monohul ls have alwaysbeen critical of these craft, but after anumber of Finot boats capsized andrefused to re-right during the lastVendee and Around Alone, even Finotfans were beginning to wonder aboutthe Groupe Finot approach.

Finot argues that the complex issueof safety cannot be summed up assimply as his critics would have thepublic believe. He stresses structuralintegrity as the primary safety feature.Finot believes that sailing upright alsois more restful for the crew and safer.He adds, "I think that speed is a hugesecurity factor. Even against the wind,it 's an advantage. Given betterweather information and the ability tosail 400 miles a day, you gain a lot ofchoices of where to go in relation toa storm system." Moreover, Finot feelsthat certain criticisms are apples-to-oranges comparisons. "One race such

as Around Alone," he says, "is equalin miles to a typical family cruisingfor their whole lives. It's not fairto compare traditional cruising ves-sels sailing in the summer to high-performance boats racing in theSouthern Ocean. In the winter eachyear, not many people go out cruis-ing, but every year one or two tradi-tional boats go down. If you comparetradi t ional boats sailing the sameamount of miles in winter—or even thenumber of failures of 'conventional'boats in the most recent Sydney-Hobart Race [the fleet was swept by agale with monstrous seas]—to theOpen 60s, I think you'll find propor-tionally more accidents with traditionalboats."

Despite this reasoning, Finot hardlydiscounts stability, which he rankssecond in importance to structuralintegrity. In fact, he declines to designmultihulls precisely because of stabilityconcerns. In the final analysis, Finot isdetermined to create boats that canperform like mul t ihul ls but are self-righting.

Deep bulb-keels have helped todeliver static stability ranges of up to120° in Open-class designs, and thatis surprising, given the proportions ofthese boats. But Finot argues thatrules of thumb and hydrostatic figures

78 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

only through 180° are not very useful.He thinks dynamically. He considersthe ratio between the total energyunder the positive righting curve andthe energy in the capsize force of thewave. He also understands that theboat itself may add to capsize energy,as when veteran singlehander IsabelleAutissier jibed her Finot-designed 60in the 1998-99 Around Alone. Thatjibe added significant centrifugal forceto the capsize moment. It also put herboat's canted keel on the wrong side,aiding the capsize. Once flipped, thekeel then rested to weather, helpingto resist re-righting.

Clearly, boats like those that Finotdesigns, with their immense catamaran-like righting moments, will capsizeinfrequently. But he is still deter-mined to design boats t ha t areunwilling to remain upside down.For each boat in every conceivablecondition—with mast and without(masts are usually sealed and buoy-ant, helping to resist capsize andthus promote re-righting); with andwithout water ballast; with keelcanted or upright—he plots rightingcurves throughout 360°. The asym-metry of forces offered by factorssuch as water ballast reduces thenegative energy on one sideof the curve, so a Finot boat proba-bly will re-right by continuing its rollthrough 360°. Although the positivestability energy of Fila, a Finot Open60, is 60 times her negative energy,when she capsized in the mid-Atlantic the boat took 6.5 minutes tore-right. It took that long, says PascalConq, because first, the keel had toswing to leeward; second, since therig was broken, Fila's skipper had toget all that gear into a position thatwould permit the boat to re-right;and third, he had to maneuver theboat 90° to the waves. (Conq pointsout that for boats built before Fila.a dismasting during capsize mightcause the hull to remain invertedpermanent ly if waves are notlarge enough to t ip the vessel atleast 20°.)

Fila was re-righted and went on towin the 1998-99 Around Alone. "But,"says Conq, "we don't want to hearanything more about capsizes." Thegoal now at Groupe Finot is nothingless than to reduce the negativeenergy on one side of the rightingcurve to zero. To do this. Finot and

APRIL/MAY 2000 79

Conq are designing decks withgreater camber, and bubble coachroofs with greater volume. Also, someraceboats currently carry inflatablebags on the sterns. Once activated,this equipment raises the capsizedboat's center of gravity and reducesre-righting resistance from the broadbeam; re-righting is facilitated aroundthe narrower bow. And, if the boatretains its watertight mast, then somuch the better.

Finot is fairly pleased with the tech-nical progress in offshore racing-

boat design during the past 30 years."It used to be that up to 9 knots ofwind, the boat remained 'asleep,' andit might remain 'happy' to about 30knots. Now, with a more stable boat,you can put up more sail and keepsail up longer, so the boat is in har-mony wi th the sea from 4 to 40knots," he says. Has this expansion ofthe performance envelope done

much, though, for cruisers? After all,in an Open 60 you don't even haveenough headroom to stand inside,except under the tiny coach-roof blis-ter. And just what are the differencesbetween racers and cruisers? "No dif-ference," Finot replies. "A cruisingboat is not a racing boat, but the crewfaces the same problems. Even whensailing with your family, very oftenyou must handle the boat alone."

The many cruisers Finot hasdesigned for production builders likeBeneteau show some influence fromhis raceboats, but newer designs,such as the a l u m i n u m Cigale andLevrier product lines from AlubatShipyard in Les Sables D'Olonne,France , and the a l l -carbon sportc ru iser , the South 35, buil t byAerodyne Technology in Cape Town,South Africa, are close cousins toFinot's Open designs. Given similarhullforms, these new cruisers featuregreater relative freeboard, whichearns them enormous interior volumefor accommodations, and extends therange of their static positive stabilityto 130° or more. They carry water bal-last tanks, but the tanks are placedlower in the hulls to add to the rangeof stability. The bulbs on their keelsdo not extend forward of the fin (sothey won't snag debris), demanding adifferent bulb shape, but these finsare still pretty deep. Other fast-cruiserdesigns still on the Groupe Finotdrawing board display lifting keels.Finot's trademarked "C. Wing" rig—anoption on the South 35—is clearly adepar ture , but may foreshadowupcoming Open 60 designs. "Oncewe did the Tirant rig we knew we'dtry to find another, simpler solution assoon as possible,'' says Conq. TheC. Wing, a lightly stayed carbon wingmast, el iminates spreaders, whichoften restrain a mainsail from beinglet out enough for perfect t r im, andwhich claw at long battens and sailsthat are eased for reefing.

Although the public has been grad-ually lured into the benefits of wide,lighter boats, many yachtsmen sti l lview such boats as being too radical,and Finot continues to battle long-held myths. He acknowledges that ifyou were to spend all your time sail-ing upwind, heavier narrower hullsmight be more comfortable. "But Idon't do that," he says, noting thatcruisers u sua l ly prefer o f fwindcourses to bashing to weather. "Even

80 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

upwind in light airs, our boats haveno problem because there are nowaves. In heavy airs, you have morestability and the waves are fartherapart, so again you have no problem.The only problem is in moderate airsin a chop. If it's less comfortable then,at least it will be so for less time. Offthe wind, our boats don't heel or rollas much."

When confronted with the old sawthat loading up a light hull hampersits performance more than it would aheavy one, Finot laughs. "I agree!With a heavy boat loaded you slowfrom 4 knots to 3.9; with a light boatyou go from 6 to 5.5!" He points outthat a beamy hul l makes a biggerfootprint on the water than a narrowone, increasing its pounds-per-inchimmersion, so a given load depressesthe wide hu l l less. Like cruising-multihull designers, Finot, for struc-tural and hydrodynamic purposes,designs boats with the fully loadedcondition in mind. Take the South 35as an example. Finot allows for aworking payload of one ton and amaximum of two. Says Conq: "Puttingadditional weight in is usually not cat-astrophic. But taking too much weightout is terrible, because the boat getstender.''

For Finot, development of mono-hulls is far from over. ''Since peoplelike Van de Stadt, Harle, and in mygeneration, Dufour, began drawingwhat I consider 'modern' designsthree decades ago, speed has goneup by 30% to 50%, and the windowof performance has widened."Continued refinement, he adds, "willmake it possible to improve cruisingboats by another 30%."

Finot's success is due not jus t todesigning boats wi th great speedpotential, but also ones that are prac-tical. Says Conq: "We're trying to beas simple as we can because we likesimple things, and we know that it'snot easy to design simple things thatwork. We don't want to hide behindsomething complicated just to pretendit's something good." Thanks to themany offshore miles logged by Finotboats, the interiors and deck layoutsof a Finot cruiser are roomy andhighly pragmatic. This has led to anaustere aesthetic package as modernas an aircraft. "We take a lot of timeto find the lines and shapes that welike to look at but that also work withour aims," says Conq. "We don't look

at aesthetics first. If a solution bringssomething untradi t ional , even if ithurts a bit aesthetically, we're notagainst it. We think it's nice because itfunctions."

The Groupe Finot aesthetic maynever appeal to traditionalists, but tothose who love the act of sailing andwant to increase their range. Finotdesigns are becoming increasinglyattractive. Aboard a Finot Open 50 acouple years ago, our small, relaxed

crew slipped along faster than thelight-to-moderate breeze, and out-paced a fully crewed America's Cupboat...to weather! Now that is a thingof beauty.

About the Author: Steve Callahanbegan Open-style racing in 1977 andhas since crossed the Atlantic twice inOpen-style boats. He's written widelyon adventure-racing designs andpersonalities.

APRIL/MAY 2000 81

This Article Has Been Provided Courtesy of Professional Boatbuilder magazine & Steven Callahan Articles are presented exactly as they first appeared in Professional Boatbuilder © Professional Boatbuilder & Steven Callahan; All Rights Reserved Permissions to reprint or otherwise reuse is required. For permissions, please contact the author; email at: steve@stevencallahan.net Or click on the email address on the bottom of the Home Page. To return to Steven Callahan’s Home Page, click: http://www.stevencallahan.net/schome.html To return to Steven Callahan’s Pro-boat Articles Page, which includes links to a number of articles on leading designers, click: http://www.stevencallahan.net/proboat.html To return to Steven Callahan’s Publications Page which includes links to both articles and books, click: http://www.stevencallahan.net/publications.html OR You can go directly to the Articles Page, which links to both the Professional Boatbuilder Articles Page and other sites containing articles by Steven Callahan, by clicking: http://www.stevencallahan.net/articles.html Or You can go directly to the Books Page, which links to books by Steven Callahan and his associates, plus descriptions and links to books recommended by Steven Callahan, by clicking: http://www.stevencallahan.net/books.html