On Friday Franck Cammas finished leg four of the Volvo Ocean Race into Hong Kong. This was the first time that the French offshore legend turned America’s Cup skipper had returned to the fully crewed round the world race since winning it as skipper of Groupama in 2011-12.
Standing in for injured navigator Pascal Bidegorry, Cammas was competing on the Chinese boat Dongfeng Race Team, skippered by former Groupama helmsman Charles Caudrelier.
“It was very interesting to come back to the Volvo Ocean Race for this leg – there were a lot of transitions, different wind conditions and a very long Doldrums,” observed Cammas. “The crew was very strong. They managed the boat speed very well and it was very tight with all of the fleet.”
On this 5600 mile leg from Melbourne, Dongfeng Race Team had either led or been in the lead group until leaving the Solomon Islands to port and then headed due north into Micronesia to get through the Doldrums, at around the half way stage. However at this point, while committed to the east, Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag had benefitted massively from a flier west, elevating them from last place to first. This position the Hong Kong team held to the finish with Dongfeng Race Team pulling up to second after Vestas 11th Hour Racing suffered an unfortunate collision with a fishing boat.
“All the decisions had to be very smart to make a difference. We made some good moves, but some bad ones too…” admitted the Frenchman.
Cammas made his name in offshore racing, a discipline in which he is one of the most successful sailors: His long list of achievements includes five time ORMA 60 trimaran class champion; the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest non-stop lap of the planet and winning the Route du Rhum, somehow sailing his 32m trimaran across the Atlantic singlehanded.
More recently Cammas has tackled two sailing disciplines new to him: a Nacra 17 catamaran campaign for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games plus the Herculean task of raising a commercial budget to challenge for the 35th America’s Cup. Groupama Team France was the first to be knocked out in Bermuda, but their effort was well recognised given how under-funded and late their campaign was.
In December Cammas found himself in Nassau facing yet another new challenge – sailing a vintage two man keelboat in the Star Sailor’s League Finals with experienced Star crew, Mark Strube. Ultimately they posted solid results, but lacked consistency, finishing 16th out of 25: Ahead of another offshore veteran turned America’s Cup sailor, Loick Peyron, and London 2012 Finn bronze medallist Jonathan Lobert, but far behind Star veterans, Xavier Rohart and Pierre-Alexis Ponsot, who claimed fourth overall for France.
“It’s exciting to discover a new type of sailing,” said Cammas of why he was competing in the Star Sailors League. “And it’s a chance to sail this boat against all these competitors, who I haven’t raced before.”
Fortunately veteran crew, such as Strube, are capable of getting sailors unfamiliar with the Star, up to speed quickly. While Cammas is a well-known innovator in his campaigns, in the Star he relied exclusively on the large American sitting ahead of him: “All the transitions are difficult for sure. When you need to change the mode, there is different tuning. Downwind it is strange just following the waves in the puffs on feel. I’ve never sailed anything like it – with no spinnaker, with the rig forward.”
But boat speed, handling and getting the manoeuvres right are just part of the story. To be successful you need good tactics and race craft and here Cammas was able to show his skill, even in an unfamiliar boat. “If you are in the first line, it is good because you can follow the shifts well, but if you aren’t at top speed then it is hard because you often find yourself not in a good place to tack. Otherwise a lot’s to do with the shifts and tactics, which is nice.”
Looking ahead, Cammas’ ambition is to enter a French challenge for the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland. While he accepts the unusual foiling AC75 monohull, he would have preferred the event remain in multihulls.
“It is strange - I thought they would do a big TP52 with a canting keel maybe. Seeing the AC75, I don’t see the reason to go for a monohull,” he muses. “With the AC75 you can have the same bad points as we had with the multihull, but even more so! It is more like a catamaran than a monohull, with more difficulties.” If coming off the foils cost ground in an AC50, falling off the AC75’s strange twin canting keel-like foils is likely to be far worst, Cammas believes.
And then there’s the start, which will be upwind for the 36th America’s Cup. “It is not like reaching, where you have to fly immediately. Upwind you can block your opponent for a long time to prevent them from flying. I don’t know how you will accelerate from the start to the max speed, moving the foils at the same time.”
Right now, Cammas and the rest of the America’s Cup community await publication of the full AC75 rule on 31st March. “It is completely new and it is always exciting to see the first new boat sailing. But to how we’ll match race it, we will have to wait and see.”
With the America’s Cup, an Olympic campaign, and his long list of offshore victories, Cammas is a worthy member of the Star Sailors League, currently 49th in the Ranking.
James is best known as the publisher of highly respected website, The Daily Sail. This is the only subscription-based website serving the sailing world, and is well respected as the leading source of authoritative news and comment on the yacht racing scene. Aside from being a successful yachtsman with European and National titles to his name in various types of racing boat, Andy Rice (pictured centre) started his career in yachting journalism in 1992 writing for Seahorse Magazine. SailingIntelligence.com