Technological innovations

In France, solo and double-handed races become so popular that competitors will find it relatively easy to secure sponsors. While the race for increasingly large models has almost become the norm, with Alain Colas’ Club Méditerranée, a 72m four-master, in 1976, the victory achieved by Mike Birch on board his small yellow trimaran Olympus Photo in the 1978 Route du Rhum paves the way for a more modest approach. The American architect Dick Newick, who has just one motto, “small is beautiful”, has many fans. He designs the winner of the Transat 80, with Phil Weld finishing first on the Moxie, while the two sisterships, Jean’s Foster and Olympus Photo, take the third and fourth places. 

However, multihulls will quickly grow longer, to such an extent that they rapidly exceed the limits set by the British for their transatlantic races of 56 foot or 17.06 meters. The French then ramp up the number of races held, covering both double-handed and solo events, such as the Lorient-Bermuda, La Baule-Dakar, Lorient-St Barths and La Route de la Découverte, ensuring a constant stream of human adventures. This leads to a constant search for ways to improve and lighten the structure of the boats. 

The French yards increasingly excel with their use of the various new materials. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Boc Challenge sets out from Newport in 1982 for a solo round-the-world race with stopovers. This will offer opportunities to test the deck gear and consolidate the position of French suppliers of foresail furlers such as Profurl, which equips the race winner, the Crédit Agricole. Launched in 1977 by Bob Salmon, the Mini Transat was intended to be a race for simple and affordable small boats. The sailboats are 6.50m long and the competitors race to the Canaries, before following the trade winds to cross to the West Indies. But from the second event in 1979, America’s Norton Smith commissions a prototype built with flush deck molded wood and equipped with ballast. The following races will be won by designs from Jean Berret and Jean-Marie Finot, who create a number of sailing cruisers, particularly for Beneteau.

The technical advances from the 12m international class for the America’s Cup inevitably make their way down to racing sailboats. The technicians, preparation teams and crews are all brought together at the major international regattas, enabling owners to benefit from their experience. Sailmakers in particular invest in the crews. Racing sails take on colors ranging from ocher yellow to burnt sienna, with layers of Mylar overlapping in fan-shaped cuts. In 1983, the Australia II’s winged keel revolutionizes the form of ballast for displacement yachts. 

Beneteau will be the first to offer an appendage like this on its sailing cruisers, which remain stiff under sail despite a reduced draft. In 1988, the race between the giant New Zealand Challenge and a rigid-wing multihull, the Stars & Stripes, highlights the superiority of a light and agile David against a Goliath. This demonstration will bear fruit much later, but it firmly establishes the image that a rigid wing is three times more powerful than a simple sail. The Little America’s Cup, held since 1961 on C-Class catamarans (7.62 meters rather than 4.26 meters), has always been a melting pot for advanced research. In 1980, the Patient Lady V’s hulls and wing are built using carbon and Mylar. While the cost of these materials is excessive for builders of sailing cruiser models, the widespread adoption of these materials for racing over the decade will result in their use as structural reinforcements on series boats.

The furling of sails, using swivels for headsails and around the boom for the mainsail, dates back to the 19th century. In the 1980s, hardware manufacturers, riggers and sailors sought to improve these systems so that sails would remain effective once reefed, and especially so that maneuvers could be conducted from the cockpit. As early as 1980, a dozen brands offer genoa furlers, with various proposals for how to prevent the material from losing its shape and correct the sail’s curvature during furling. In just a few years, all the issues will be resolved, from the head of the furler to protecting the sails from UV rays once rolled up. For the larger units, motorization will be possible, with electric or hydraulic systems.

In 1978, with regard to reducing the mainsail, the engineer Bernard Bernard invents a system that allows the sail to be furled within the boom itself. He leaves a strip of fabric along the mast that allows the sail to descend smoothly beyond the boom, without any effort and without becoming distorted. The boom is equipped with a boom vang attachment and there is an option for the system to be motorized. Profurl, which produces a full range of genoa furlers, offers a furler at the back of the mast, featuring a triangular sail without battens. This configuration will be adopted by virtually all the manufacturers of genoa furlers. Over the following years, most spar manufacturers will offer one of the two furling solutions: either a furling boom or, more commonly, a furler integrated into the mast. The vast majority of booms are equipped with reefing systems where the reefing lines pass inside the profile to a cam cleat box, which enables them to be operated from the cockpit.

All these adjustment lines, not to mention the halyards and boom vangs, lead to self-tailing winches, which makes them easier to handle. To reduce the number of winches, several assembled clutches are placed upstream.  They can be opened or closed with the hand freed up by the self-tailing system. These new features are of interest to racing yachts initially, as well as amateur owners looking to make life easier on board. There will come a time when manufacturers will offer all of this equipment that we see as essential today. The Danish equipment manufacturer Easy is one of the first to develop a range of clutches that enjoys great success. It will be followed by the British firm Spinlock and Italy’s Antal. Initially, the new halyards and sheets are made of Kevlar, then from 1986 onwards, Spectra, which is lighter for the same stretch resistance, will compete with it, even though its rigging proves to be more complex. 

At the time, marine hardware is undergoing a revolution, with materials that combine superior strength with significant weight savings.

Over the years, the new products alter the deck layouts of both cruising and racing sailboats. Carbon, Kevlar, titanium and all the composite materials are featured everywhere. Manufacturers increase their use of them at every stage of production. With this evolution, the manufacturers aim to position themselves on an extremely competitive international market. Deck hardware becomes more efficient, more reliable, lighter and less expensive. Following the revolution of pulleys with needles or ball bearings, new developments are introduced. Their bearings are self-lubricating or made of Torlon, with a large diameter axle around which a carbon sheave rotates, while the swivel is made of titanium. A model produced by Aptac in 1990, which is 76 millimeters in diameter and weighs just 200 grams, supports a working load of 2,400 kilograms, which is four times more than a pulley built five years earlier.

A well-balanced sailboat has always been capable of sailing with the tiller tied off. The American Joshua Slocum (1844-1909) sailed around the world between 1895 and 1898 while rarely actually touching the tiller. In 1980, sailboats are more sensitive than the Spray to the sea’s movements and changes in the wind’s direction. Solo sailors equip themselves with wind vane self-steering gears, devices fixed on the stern with an immersed blade and an aerial, making it possible to adjust the sailboat’s course depending on the wind direction. The first step forward will see the wind vane transformed into an autopilot by motorizing the system. Before long, the first autopilots for tiller steering are developed, followed by wheel steering. Over the next 10 years, solo sailors in major races will face the challenges of fine-tuning this equipment, which will become increasingly sensitive and reliable.

The motorization of equipment such as autopilots, winches, furlers, and windlasses will become major consumers of electricity. In addition, advances with interior comfort equipment, such as forced air heating, refrigerators, freezers, electric toilets and desalinators, quickly deplete the batteries. Sailboats are therefore fitted with generators adapted for the marine environment. On the other hand, solar panels and wind turbines work tirelessly to maintain and even charge the on-board batteries. Alongside them, newly-introduced hydrogenerators come to the rescue by converting the sailboat’s speed into electricity. The increasingly complex electrical systems lead accessory manufacturers to develop a whole series of devices for charging, regulation and control on board. 

In terms of safety, the distress beacons are initially those approved by the civil aviation authorities, packaged in a waterproof case and detected by civil and military aircraft. From 1982, they will be linked to the first Soviet Cospas satellite, then in 1984 to the three other Cospas satellites and the two American Sarsat satellites, with an average location time of an hour and a half, and a location accuracy of between 13 and 2 kilometers depending on the equipment. In 1988, the deployment of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites by the US military is not yet sufficient for their use with distress beacons, but this enables precise location tracking, although within a very limited geographical area. The first receivers on the market still cost 100,000 francs, equivalent to the cost of a 6.50m sailboat for the Mini Transat race. The next year, they are worth a quarter of this price, even though the launch of new satellites is delayed. We will need to wait until 1995 for the 24 satellites to be operational, when US President Ronald Reagan opens up the GPS system to be free for civilian use.