Gitana 18 under the spotlight

Highly anticipated, the new Gitana 18, designed by Guillaume Verdier with the Gitana Team, was unveiled on Wednesday in Lorient. Sailorz was present and introduces you to the main innovations of Charles Caudrelier’s Ultim.

It was at the Lorient premises of a fully assembled Gitana Team that the latest Ultim, Gitana 18, was unveiled late on Wednesday, December 3. Ariane de Rothschild, who founded the offshore racing stable with her husband Benjamin (who died in 2021), opened the evening by recalling the reasons that led to the launch of this new boat. “Gitana 17 had reached maturity, so we asked ourselves whether to continue with fully feasible improvements or, once again, to take the risk of moving towards something very radical, knowing that we had a very strong conviction that we could go even faster and further.”

For skipper Charles Caudrelier, who joined the Gitana Team in 2019, the challenge was clear: “Gitana 17 flew well, but as soon as there was swell, we had a lot of trouble stabilizing the flight, which lowered the average speeds. In waves over 1.5-2 meters, we lost 4-5 knots of speed, so we looked for solutions to fly better in the sea and take off earlier.”

The reflection, led with Guillaume Verdier, was notably fueled by the simulator developed by Team New Zealand and used by the architect, which allowed, according to Erwan Israël, one of the pillars of the Gitana Team, “to test all the ideas; we notably did a lot of fluidic studies on the hulls to really accurately reproduce the behavior in the waves.” All this work resulted in Gitana 18 which, according to the team’s general manager, Cyril Dardashti, required “12 months of studies, 24 months, and 200,000 hours of construction, with 200 people involved across the globe.” Particularly in Lorient at CDK Technologies, which, according to its general manager Stéphane Digard, constructed “80% of the boat’s parts in an autoclave, which had never been achieved before.”

After this preliminary presentation, Gitana 18 was finally unveiled, with a film presenting its main innovations and its decoration, the work of artists Florian and Michaël Quistrebert, followed by comments on stage from Charles Caudrelier, Guillaume Verdier, Pierre Tissier, and Sébastien Sainson — the latter two being the technical director and head of the Gitana Team’s design office, respectively. And to go further, a series of workshops were organized immediately afterward, aimed at delving into the details of a new Ultim that, like its predecessor, intends to leave its mark on its era.

The innovations in question? Let’s start with the rigging, with a mast 1.5 meters taller and equipped with dynamic spreaders, a solution that Charles Caudrelier explains as follows: “The problem with flying boats is that you have to make them take off, which requires power in the sails, so a very deep mainsail. But as soon as you fly, you accelerate very quickly and you need to be able to flatten that sail a lot. To do this, we were inspired by the America’s Cup boats that manage to twist the mast to fine-tune the sail. With a gigantic wing mast, we had to find a solution that I could manage without losing too much energy, so we opted for spreaders that move by 35 degrees, allowing the shape of the mast, and therefore the mainsail, to change.”There is also a change to the coachroof, “structurally very integrated into the central hull” with the goal of greater platform stiffness, according to Guillaume Verdier. Under the coachroof, a cockpit that can be completely closed, “a little smaller than on G17 (4.8 m2 versus 6) but better optimized, with a berth to port, the galley to starboard, the chart table to the aft, two watch seats on each side, and two helm stations that are more centered and more protected,” details Yann Le Govic, a member of the Gitana Team. He specifies that although the cockpit has been lowered, it allows them to “maintain visibility forward, to the sides, and of the sails, but also of the sensitive mast foot area, which we were somewhat lacking before.”

For maneuvering, Charles Caudrelier has two small winches and two larger ones, plus two pedestal grinders, one of which will be used to supply oil (100 liters in total) to the customized hydraulic cylinders – 44 in number (compared to 18 on Gitana 17). These actuate the mast tilt, the raising/lowering of the foils and rudders, the flaps on the rudders, daggerboard, and foils, as well as the mainsail sheet and the cunningham. The smallest (700 grams) can push one ton, the largest, weighing over 40 kilos, pushes 28 tons for the mast tilt.

To enable better flight stability and an earlier take-off, great care has obviously been taken with the appendages, again featuring numerous innovations. This is the case for the daggerboard, which is very high (4.5 meters) and equipped with two adjustable flaps. It relies on a skate wing (lifting surface) with a 3-meter span, positioned at the rear of the vertical part of the appendage; the objective is to “maximize hydrodynamics and reduce flow disturbances and cavitation problems,” according to Sébastien Sainson. This skate wing was manufactured in metal for the first time. “Carbon is very high-performing, light, and stiff, but metal, although heavier, allows the appendage to deform less, thus providing better lift and generating less drag,” explains An Bertrand, an engineer with the Gitana Team.  On the foil side, the design team was inspired by the America’s Cup with Y-shaped foils adjustable in three dimensions (lateral, longitudinal, lift), featuring a 5-meter span wing and a 2.40-meter bulb, and fixed directly to the deck of the floats, rather than in wells, to allow them to be retracted inward toward the platform or fully removed. “We need a two-in-one boat,” explains Guillaume Verdier, “in the sense that downwind, we tend not to want to fully exploit the righting moment, so we want slightly internalized foils, whereas on the reach and upwind, we want to exploit the righting moment to the maximum, so we want the foils very far outboard.”

At the risk of exceeding the maximum width allowed by the Ultim class rule? “We managed to push to the limit, which gives us more power, but we remain within the class rule,” assures Charles Caudrelier. Another new feature is that these foils are equipped with two dissociated flaps, “one that generates anti-leeway force, the other lift,” specifies An Bertrand. Guillaume Verdier estimates that these new foils, although heavier — Gitana 18 weighs in at 19.5 tonnes on the scale, 4 more than G17 at its launch in 2017 — should allow “a substantial gain in flight stability downwind in rough seas.” But also enable Gitana 18 to take off “starting from 10-11 knots of wind,” according to Charles Caudrelier, who adds: “On Gitana 17, you needed 24-25 knots of speed to start flying; here, we should be able to lift the floats at 19-20 knots.”

What about the three rudders? Forget the T-shape, make way for inverted U-shapes! “It is the most striking innovation,” estimates Sébastien Sainson. “On Gitana 17, we had rudders that deformed, and Charles sometimes got a bit scared. So we wanted stiffer and larger ones – they are 4 meters high, almost a meter taller – but that inevitably caused problems with structure, deformation, and hydrodynamics. As the ideas evolved, we arrived at this new geometry which required two years of deliberation.” The head of the design office continues: “Another specific feature: the rudders do not turn, they remain in the axis, and the boat is steered by the two flaps at the stern, which join the lifting surface of more than 2 meters span (also equipped with a flap to regulate the trim). This allows for less deformation alteration and optimizes steering.”Optimized steering also involves a new autopilot, developed internally with the company WDS. “Since we weren’t satisfied with what was available on the market, but also because we wanted to keep it internal, we decided to make our own system,” explains Charles Caudrelier. “We therefore developed this pilot which acts truly like a helmsman. The old one maintained a heading, adapted a little to the heel, but didn’t understand the boat’s functioning, whereas here, it is capable of anticipating its movements and therefore reacting differently. In records, it will be able to manage all the flight parameters, which is prohibited in races.”

The functioning of the pilot, as well as all the systems, relies on the extensive data provided by the 500 sensors on board (compared to 250 on G17) which supply “3-4 gigabytes of data per day,” according to Nicolas Le Griguer, electronics manager, which arrive in real-time on a data logger, capable of relaying the figures to the skipper and also to the shore team. “We have a centralized and automated system that monitors the database and alerts us via instant messaging on specific groups depending on the targeted department,” he continues.

In short, Gitana 18 has raised the bar at all levels; it is now up to Charles Caudrelier and his team to learn to master it – the first sail is planned for late January – with a view to the first major objective, the Route du Rhum 2026. “We have a real challenge, which is to achieve the double for Charles and the treble for Gitana [winner in 2006 with Lionel Lemonchois and in 2022, Editor’s note], which has never happened,” smiles Cyril Dardashti.