Sam Manuard is a popular Class40 naval architect. He is also behind the design of 13 of the 45 boats entered in the Transat Jacques Vabre. He gives us his opinion on the evolution of the class and the forces present for this 2021 edition. Thanks to Boats.com.
How has the class evolved and what are the architectural changes that we have seen since the last generation?
On the last edition in 2019, the first scows appeared: the Mach 4 Banque du Léman ( Editor’s note: Manuard plan ) and the Reason plan ( Editor’s note: Credit Mutuel by Ian Lipinski ). It went really well for Ian Lipinski , he won the race. It was a very relevant choice. We could see that the scow was a suitable formula.
And since then, it has only amplified. There are more and more scows, both Reason plans and Manuard plans. What we can see, with the Route du Rhum 2022 in sight, which is a project accelerator, is that there have been a lot of projects started quite early with the Rhum as a major objective. They will use this Transat Jacques Vabre to calibrate before 2022. Read on.