MACIF 100 then Actual Ultim 3

Macif was designed in close collaboration with François Gabart and his technical team, fresh from their wins in the Vendée Globe and the Route du Rhum. The remit was to produce a boat for solo and short-handed racing and record-breaking. Launched in 2015, she is almost as beamy as her rivals and carries the same amount of sail, but weighs in two tonnes lighter.

Her most obvious innovation is the compact cockpit – “the shed” – which contains the working ends of the lines, the accommodation and the nav station in the same sheltered and enclosed space. Accessed via a hatch in the cockpit, the centre hull houses the engines, batteries, ballast tanks, food store and the equipment locker.

The rudders feature adjustable-pitch elevators to trim the boat, while the foils provide maximum stability when in foiling mode. She was fitted with new appendages during a major refit in 2018 to improve her foiling capabilities.

With François Gabart at the controls, Macif won every race she entered (Transat Jacques Vabre, The Transat, The Bridge), except the 2018 Route du Rhum when, hampered by the loss of a foil and a rudder, Francis Joyon beat her by a canvas. Unsurprisingly she currently holds the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Trophy, the solo round the world record under sail of 42 days, 16 hours and 40 minutes.

In 2021 she was sold to Actual, giving skipper Yves Le Blevec’s ambitions on the Ultim circuit a serious boost.