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It's a strategic piece of equipment for single-handed sailors: with each successive innovation, the automatic Autopilot has become an extremely sophisticated product, designed and developed by a handful of players.
In this highly competitive market, Madintec, a start-up from La Rochelle founded in 2012, has succeeded in carving out a place for itself in just a few years. So much so that today, it equips 9 of the 33 boats that set out on the Vendée Globe - including some big names like PRB, Initiatives Coeur, Apivia, LinkedOut and Arkéa Paprec - as well as four Ultimes and four Multi50s. The company, also present in Lorient, is now targeting the Class40 market, where it intends to deploy MADbrain, its automatic Autopilot solution.
Founded by two America's Cup engineers, Matthieu Robert and David Cesari, Madintec originally supplied Bravo navigation systems, known for their quality of true wind measurement. It made a strategic shift in 2016: "We were frustrated with working with pilots who were not our own, so we decided to develop our own product from scratchWe were frustrated with working with pilots who were not our own, so we decided to "go for it", explains Matthieu Robert. With a set of specifications that can be summed up in three words: simplicity, reliability and performance.”
After raising funds, Madintec expanded its team - 10 people today, mostly developers, engineers and doctors - and put in place a precise strategy. In each class, a partnership is forged with a skipper to develop acustomized Autopilot , parameterized according to the specific features of the boats in the class. François Gabart in Ultime, Lalou Roucayrol in Multi50 and Sam Davies in Imoca were the first to be equipped with the Madintec Autopilot .
In Class40, Ian Lipinski has been testing his David Raison design since it was launched. Crédit Mutuel, in September 2019, the solution developed specifically for 40-foot monohulls. The two-time winner of the Mini-Transat is bluffed: "I've never had such a high-performance Autopilot in my hands.. As early as the Transat Jacques Vabre [which he won, editor's note], it was steering well, thanks in particular to its hyper-intuitive operating modes, very close to the way a skipper behaves, especially when the boat heels over. Nowadays, in 90% of cases, the Autopilot steers better than I doand, above all, it makes very few mistakes.
This efficiency is the result of the new algorithms and computing power developed by Madintec. "Our pilots have rudder touch accuracy to within a tenth of a degreecompared with the usual 0.7 to 1 degree," explains Scientific Director Hugo Kerhascoët. The other advantage, are the "supervision" modes which allow Autopilot to deviate from traditional heading and true wind angle guidelines to take into account other important criteria for performance, such as heel, apparent wind and speed, and thus give priority to getting closer to the goal."
The new Autopilot for Class40s, available in the first quarter of 2021, benefits from two additional innovations. "Firstly,the integration of the navigation system and Autopilot in the the same housingwith a new processor four times faster than that of current Imoca boats", announces Benoît Piquemal, Madintec's technical director, who has worked with the Gitana Team and MerConcept. Next, the initial calibrations of the control unit - essential for the Autopilot 's proper operation - will be included in the package: "We're not just selling a box, we're offering an integrated service".Antoine Carpentier andAxel Tréhin's Class40s will be the next to be equipped.
Photo: Breschi / Crédit Mutuel
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Original publication on Tip ans Shaft: https://bit.ly/3tXNhS0
