Design Team

EN,FR 11.07.1962

Luc du Bois originally trained as a geophysicist, but his passion for sailing drew him in another direction. Having sailed since he was eight years old, he competed in the 470 class in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. In the late 80's together with Jean-Pierre Baudet, they invented the revolutionary 3DL production system which is used by North Sails. 3DL Technology has gone on to dominate sailmaking in the America's Cup ever since. "When we were developing 3DL in my parents' garage, we had no real understanding where it would lead to. Meanwhile North Sails was looking for something new and different. We happened to meet at the right time."

His first America's Cup campaign was with Fast 2000, and since 2001 he has been with Alinghi. As a performance analyst, his role is to analyse all the data collected on the boat. He says: "If we think the boat is fast, we want to know by how much. If we change something, we want to know how much it contributes."

Luc admits he has had a lot more fun working on a "no limits" concept like Alinghi 5. "It was getting less exciting with the ACC Version 5 boats; they were always the same speed, so it's really nice to work on a faster boat. And when I do my own sailing it is in multihulls, so I'm happy that the America's Cup has taken a turn in that direction. The designers have always been interested in how the boat performs, but this time it's even more challenging for them. It's a new boat; everything is very open, which creates plenty of opportunity to try new ideas."

However, what may look like a great idea on the drawing board doesn't always work out in practice on the water. "Sometimes it's tricky when you go back and it doesn't work, so part of my job is managing expectations, trying to make sure that the reality on the water is being acknowledged. Is it working, is it not working? In a way things are more obvious, easier, with this campaign. Unlike the Version 5 rule, we are not a hundred boats down the line where you're looking for small improvements here and there. We're looking at much bigger performance gains this time."

Similarly, du Bois must also manage the expectations of the sailors. "If the sailors say it was a really great day and the boat was faster, I tell them by how much. The dangerous thing where it can go wrong is if you analyse things by feeling only. You can have a good day and think everything is great and yet it doesn't necessarily reflect the real speed of the boat."

Inevitably there are disagreements between the designers and the sailors, and it is part of du Bois' role to tread a diplomatic path between the two camps. "I do my best to try and stay neutral. One day you can bring good news and another day you can bring bad news. You learn to be cautious about interpreting too much from any particular day. There are days when the results are extremely good because the wind was very solid, and then the next day maybe the boat doesn't perform as well in the same conditions, maybe because people weren't on top of their jobs as much. So you always have to be aware of the technical and human factors that can affect performance."