Death of Hervé Devaux
The family of Hervé Devaux announced publicly on May 3, 2022 his death at the age of 68. Based in Brest, he was for many years a reference in the field of ocean racing, calculating the structure and validating the resistance of sailboats and all their components, from the hull to the masts and appendages, whether they are monohulls or multihulls.
A passionate engineer starting out in rigging
Born in Saint-Malo, Hervé Devaux trained as an engineer at the Insa Lyon. Validating his doctoral thesis in 1979 in the field of structural calculation, he worked at the faculty in Lyon and then Rennes, before joining the Vendée mast manufacturer Maréchal. At the time, the brand was a pioneer in the construction of carbon spars for well-known clients, such as Eric Tabarly and many skippers of the time. Hervé Devaux began to make a name for himself in the field.
HDS: pioneer in structural calculations for ocean racing
In 1991, he returned to Brittany at the University of Western Brittany and worked with the ACX shipyard, a renowned builder of racing multihulls in Brest. After the bankruptcy of the shipyard, he created HDS (Hervé Devaux Structures) in 1993.
The company became the reference in structural calculations for racing boats, whether offshore or coastal regattas, monohulls or multihulls. He applied to these boats the methods and software developed for aeronautics, opening the way to the optimization of sampling and materials. Associated with naval architects, he works on the America's Cup as well as on maxi-trimarans
A legacy in ocean racing
Hervé Devaux was one of the pioneers of the technological shift in the construction of racing boats. The HDS company was finally bought by GSea Design, the company founded in Lorient in 2009 by Denis Gléhen who was part of the HDS adventure since 1994. The adventure continues, Gsea Design being today one of the references of the sector for the calculation of structure in the nautical industry.
