Offshore Team Germany re-launched their Owen Clarke designed IMOCA Open 60 in Gosport in the middle of May. Her final fit out and ‘splash’ comes at the culmination of a year-long period of refit that has seen the yacht transformed from her original 2012 Vendee Globe mode with a new water ballast tank configuration, keel and deck spreader rig.
OTG 60 re-launched at Endeavour Quay, UK, in her new rotating wing configuration
Owen Clarke, working with the yacht’s original lead composite engineer Fred Louarn (now StrucTeam) have made significant structural modifications to the yacht to allow the fitting of the standardised IMOCA wing rig and ballast system. With engineers PURE (NZ) a new IMOCA compliant keel fin has also been designed, optimised to a new keel cant angle and bulb design developed in tandem with a tank configuration with the intention of fitting of new lifting foils in the near future.
Re-modelled interior includes new ballast tanks, mast support and under-deck halyard tunnel
For the time being, the yacht retains the original daggerboard system used in the 2012 Vendee Globe and will race this years Transat Jacques Vabres in this configuration. The team which includes German skipper and Olympian, Robert Stanjek will slowly work up this season while the search for funding to modify the yacht further and enter a team in The Ocean Race (formerly the Volvo Ocean Race) continues.
OTG 60's hull was developed from an extensive series of 1/7th and 1/3rd scale tanks tests and CFD modelling
The OTG 60 is the eight and most recent of Owen Clarke Design’s IMOCA 60s and was built as Acciona for the 2012 Vendee Globe. OCD designed Open 60s have included Ellen MacArthur’s Kingfisher and Mike Golding’s Ecover’s which have gained the podium in successive Vendee Globes and won several OSTARs, Route du Rhum and Defi Trans-Atlantic Races.
