A coach, coordinator, facilitator and, above all, sailor

Amacher’s career and personal interests are built around his love for sailboats – whether they’re made of composite materials for racing or mahogany for cruising on Lake Geneva. And, an engineer at heart, he’s constantly looking for ways to improve them or enhance their design, just for the fun of it.

His passion for watercraft clearly runs in the family. “I was nine years old when I sailed for the first time,” he says. “That was on my uncle’s 1910 Canot – a small boat just five meters long – that he had fidgeted with for years to improve its sailing performance. He expanded its sail area to a total of 35 m². I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest boat on Lake Geneva when no wind is blowing.”

Amacher inherited his uncle’s penchant for customization. When he was 12, his family all pitched in to buy him his first wooden boat. “Then it was my turn to deck it out with new sails. I received another boat when I went to college a few years later” he says. “This one was six meters long and made of varnished mahogany. It kept me busy during my Bachelor’s years – repairing it and personalizing it with the help of my uncle’s suggestions. I even talked EPFL into letting me use a room over the summer to sew my sails. Growing up with a sailor uncle and an industrial-arts-teacher father, it was no surprise I developed an interest in woodwork. I chose to study materials science at EPFL, and that’s where I learned about composites. My focus then shifted from leisure boats to race boats – and especially Alinghi.” After completing his Master’s in materials science at EPFL, he went on to obtain a graduate degree in naval architecture in Nantes.

Big projects

In the early 2000s, EPFL launched major projects to develop advanced technology for cutting-edge vessels like Alinghi and the Solar Impulse aircraft. The projects lasted nearly ten years with the ultimate goal of competing in the America’s Cup and making the first solar-powered flight around the world. Amacher was a student at EPFL’s composite materials laboratory at the time and helped create new lightweight, ultra-resistant compounds. And he took advantage of EPFL’s involvement in boat racing more generally to study innovations in several areas. “I made that the focus of my in-company internship, my semester project and my degree project, and I served on EPFL’s Alinghi team,” he says. “It was a dream come true for me as a student to join a team like that for the America’s Cup. I got to take part in cross-disciplinary projects very early on in my career.”

Amacher was later asked to help develop the Hydroptère hydrofoil boat, which set the world sailing-speed record. “When my Hydroptère contract ended, EPFL asked me to come back and lead research projects to develop high-performance composites. I also helped set up the Hydrocontest competition, working as volunteer the first two years, then EPFL agreed to pay me a percentage for coordinating these types of projects.”

The joy of sharing

Amacher took to his R&D role like a duck to water. It lets him combine his passions for research, innovation and customization, while playing an important role in students’ education. What he particularly enjoys is bringing together know-how from several disciplines, which is a core feature of naval architecture, in order to pique students’ interest in topics like structures, ergonomics, plumbing and electricity; he also has them draw engineering designs and teaches them the basics of hydrodynamics.

“I really like the teaching and knowledge-sharing aspects of my job,” he says. “Unlike a job in industry, where you’re driven by the bottom line, at EPFL we’re given a lot of freedom in our cross-disciplinary projects like SP80 and the Swiss Solar Boat. We can try out crazy ideas, make mistakes, and if our designs work, that’s great. There’s an excellent team spirit in these projects – students aren’t just building a boat together, they’re also making friends and forming bonds.”

These cross-disciplinary projects also push students to delve deeper into what they’re studying, ask questions in class and think about things differently. “Students who take part in these projects soon realize that what they learn in class has practical applications, and that EPFL provides a wealth of opportunities to take advantage of while they can. The projects show students how to apply their skills and motivate them to study by giving meaning to what they do. And I’m speaking from experience – I asked myself those same questions when I was a student, wondering how the classes I was taking would actually help me later.”