Will Harris - a technical debrief of the Transat Café L’OR

Finishing second in the Transat Café L’OR with Francesca Clapcich still feels pretty unreal. It’s a huge result for us - and for a boat that, until recently, carried the label of “too heavy for light winds.”

This race was a proper test: a full spectrum of conditions, complex sea states, and plenty of moments where the boat - and we as sailors - had to prove what we’re capable of. From a technical point of view, this Transat was one of the most complete experiences I’ve had on an IMOCA yet.

The boat and the upgrades

The boat’s previous name was Malizia - Seaexplorer, and yes - it was true that she struggled in light and medium winds. She’s a heavy boat with a lot of righting moment, optimized for power reaching, and high-speed downwind sailing.

But the last couple of years have changed the game. We installed a new set of foils - designed to generate lift earlier and more efficiently - and that’s transformed how the boat performs between 15 and 22 knots. Before, we would start to fall behind when the lighter foilers took off. Now, we can match them - and still keep our edge when the breeze builds.

It’s meant compromising slightly on our strong point (pure heavy-air speed), but the result is a much more versatile and balanced boat. By the time Frankie took it over three weeks ago, it was in a sweet spot: optimized, reliable, and ready to show what it could really do.

Performance preparation

Before the start, we focused hard on weight optimization. The goal wasn’t to strip the boat bare - reliability still matters - but to make smart, considered changes.

We went from carrying around 120 kilos of spares down to just 28 kilos. The reality is that the IMOCA platform already has redundancies built in - second autopilot systems, backup hydraulics, spare halyards - so you don’t need to double up on everything.

In the end, we saved roughly 100 kilos, which might sound small, but mentally it was huge. It meant we’d done everything possible to make the boat as performant as we could, without compromising safety. The psychological benefit of knowing that you’ve done the work - that’s as valuable as the performance gain itself.

Sailing strategy and human strategy

People talk about “strategy” as if it’s just weather routing - where to gybe, when to go west, how to catch a shift. But on these boats, the strategy is also about how you manage the boat and the humans.

Every maneuver costs you miles. Every sail change costs energy. On average, a gybe cost us four miles, and a sail change about seven or eight. That means you don’t just ask “what’s the fastest route?” You ask, “what’s the fastest route we can sustain?”

That was the difference for us. We built our race plan not only around the forecast but around our specific boat — where it’s fast, what it likes, how we could extract 100% without breaking the rhythm.

Autopilot versus hand steering

There’s a trend now across the IMOCA fleet: more hand steering, especially when foiling downwind. Humans can feel the boat in a way a pilot can’t - anticipating the wave, catching the lift, avoiding the crash.

On average, a good human helmsman can add one to two knots over the pilot in the right sea state. That’s massive. But it’s also brutal work. These boats weren’t designed for long hours of hand steering - you’re fighting up to 50 kilos of load through the tiller, for two-hour watches, at 30 knots of boat speed and constant spray.

Frankie and I probably hand-steered 60% of the time - not 100%, like some teams, but enough to make a real difference. It was physically demanding, but we knew every time we pushed our bodies a bit harder, the tracker rewarded us with miles gained.

The sea state challenge

This Transat was tricky because of the confused sea state. We had moderate wind - 16 to 20 knots most of the time - but crossed swells from multiple directions. At one point we had local trade-wind chop from the east mixed with big residual swell from Hurricane Melissa up north.

That meant the boat would accelerate beautifully down one wave, flying at 30 knots, and then suddenly slam into a steep cross-wave and lose the foil’s lift. A human can see that coming and react instantly. The pilot can’t - it takes about 10 seconds for it to realize the change, by which point you’ve lost speed and stability.

Those 10 seconds are why hand steering mattered so much. When we did steer, we could keep momentum through those tricky transitions and only lose a second or two. When we were on pilot, we had to accept small losses - or tweak its settings constantly to manage the instability.

The new foils helped enormously — they kept the boat flying almost continuously, even in borderline conditions. But the sea state exposed the limits of any autopilot. The next big technical challenge will be developing smarter pilot algorithms that anticipate motion, not just react to it.

Looking ahead: Frankie going solo

For Frankie’s solo Vendée Globe campaign, hand steering 60% of the time isn’t an option. That means the next development phase is all about refining the pilot and sails for solo sustainability.

In races like the Route du Rhum or Transat, you might still steer a lot in the trades - those who push hardest there often win. But the Vendée Globe is a different beast: longer, colder, and more varied. The goal is to have a setup that’s fast, stable, and easy to trim singlehanded for weeks at a time.

We’ll be developing a sail inventory that holds power in 15 knots but survives 30 - something that lets Frankie stay fast without constant changes. Every sail change solo costs energy and time, so it’s about designing smart, flexible sails that carry across a wide range.

Learning from the race

The biggest takeaway for me? We can look at our track from start to finish and explain every decision. Almost nothing was reactive. We didn’t just follow others - we trusted our process.

That’s what I’m most proud of. Strategy isn’t just about the weather models. It’s about how you visualize what’s actually happening on the water - how you anticipate change, and how you adapt without losing focus.

This race reminded me that good sailing is equal parts technical performance and human management. It’s how you connect the two that makes the difference.

And in the Transat Café L’OR, we got that balance just right.