The four Artemis Offshore Academy Figaro monohulls have been launched on Monday, and as technical team member Rhys Mellor puts it, “If it wasn’t for the different numbers on the bows, there would be no way to tell them apart.”
The Figaro - Bénéteau II circuit is a One-Design class, meaning that all the boats are strictly identical - which explains why getting four indifferentiable Artemis Offshore Academy monohulls to roll out of the shed was essential. “We acquired boats that all had different states of preparation and maintenance. Let’s just say that some had been more looked after than others”, says Rhys, “and we stripped all of them bare to start from scratch.” The deck hardware was removed, as well as the rigging and the engines, and no nut or bolt escaped the team’s scrutiny. The extensive refit of each boat was carried out with two objectives in mind: to re-launch a 100% race-ready fleet, and to ensure up-and-coming skippers could train on any boat without noticing any difference, hence guaranteeing a high quality training, independent of any hardware-related performance ups and downs.
Technically-speaking, the Figaro Bénéteau II is a reasonably simple machine, making the team’s work quite straightforward: “I guess the biggest challenge for everyone was to make sure we brought all four boats to the exact same degree of readiness, and even though the job lists were quite long there were no tricky aspects to them”, adds Rhys - an expert prototype boatbuilder by trade - as he handles one of the four instruments consoles to be fitted on the masts. All the standing rigging has been replaced, and Artemis Ocean Racing’s Gareth Rowley has been busy handcrafting the running rigging of each boat - quite a task considering those racers have a wide range of fine-tuning devices involving numerous blocks and intricate rope arrangements - there again, ‘identical’ was the key word. “Everything has been done on schedule so we’re pretty happy with the way the whole process was handled by the team”, concludes Rhys.
Refit Manager Charlie Carter gave us an account of the actual launch operations, which took place on Monday 5th of July: “The boats have been rolled out of the shed one by one, and taken to the Venture Quays slipway in East Cowes, where the masts have been stepped starting from midday. During that phase the tide was coming in, and by the end of the afternoon we’ve been able to crane the Figaros into the water. We’ve all worked intensively since they entered the shed seven weeks ago, and the launch has been a rewarding moment for the team.”
From Artemis Ocean Racing
