The restoration of an iconic racer, one that was so ground-breaking it helped create a whole genre of yachts, is no small undertaking. But that’s exactly what inadvertent owner Tina Roberts ploughed into headfirst with the two-year refit of Ragtime, the original ultra-light displacement boat from the land of the long white cloud.

Designed and built single-handedly by New Zealander John Spencer for industrialist and racing driver Sir Tom Clark in 1963/64, Ragtime was launched as Infidel and was reputedly the largest hard chine plywood keelboat in the world.

Infidel immediately upset the racing establishment, beating the Tercel brothers’ 60-footer Ranger, which had won nearly every race it sailed over three decades.

So comprehensive were Infidel’s victories that it was reportedly banned from competing in regattas in New Zealand. It was also barred from entering the 1967 Sydney-Hobart Race because it was deemed too light and not seaworthy enough for the notoriously treacherous 630-mile race.

Under spinnaker, Ragtime’s low freeboard becomes evident. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

California dreaming

With nowhere to turn Infidel wound up where many wayward souls are welcomed: California. A pair of businessmen in Newport Beach purchased the yacht for $25,000 in 1969 and renamed it Ragtime.

The yacht changed owners again in 1971 and, 10 years after her launch, benchmarked the performance of the ultra-light displacement genre by defeating the 73-footer Windward Passage in the epic 1973 Transpac Race, winning the Barn Door Trophy for first-to-finish by a mere 4m 31s over the 2,225-mile course. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s an interesting boat. That’s cool,’” recalls California yacht designer Alan Andrews of his first sighting of Ragtime in the early 1970s.

“Ragtime was a big boat, most of the racing at the time was in 30- to 40-footers. She was clearly very fast, at least downwind, with the hard chines as well.”

The plywood-built hull features hard chines that run its entire length. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

Ragtime is a simple but eye-catching yacht design, with a sheerline that drops noticeably from bow to stern. The hull is constructed from marine plywood; the cabin house, which stands tall of the sheerline, of kauri wood, and when launched it displaced 10 tons. The original LOA of 61ft 8in was determined in large part because that was the amount of floor space in Spencer’s shop, yet still the bow and stern hung outside the sliding doors on either end of the shed.

The boat hull features hard chines running the waterline length of 50ft 8in. In its original form Ragtime lacked an engine and was tiller steered, two features that were changed after she reached American shores.

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A reluctant refit

Since arriving in the US, Ragtime has had no fewer than 10 owners (individuals, syndicates and universities). Tina Roberts became the current owner in 2021, upon the passing of her partner Chris Welsh who was actually Ragtime’s longest owner.

Welsh was part of a group that bought the yacht at auction for $125,000 in 2003 before becoming sole owner two years later. Welsh and Roberts met in 2009, as kindred spirits and adrenaline junkies. When Welsh passed unexpectedly in March 2021, aged 58, he left Ragtime to Roberts.

Welsh had accumulated parts that he intended to use in a refit of Ragtime. He purchased a spare TP52 offshore mast in Europe and had it shipped to California. He found a marinised Smart car engine in Germany and also shipped it home.

Welsh intended to lighten Ragtime and make her easier to sail in his planned refit, but Roberts had great apprehension about undertaking the project on her own. “My first thought shortly after he passed away was: this is not my project.

Tina Roberts has spent around $1.5m on Ragtime. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

This was his project, and I don’t know what to do,” says the 54-year-old Roberts. “I had some really good friends who said I should sell the boat, get rid of it, sell the pieces and parts and move on. And I thought that was probably a good idea, but i wanted to wait and find out where life landed.”

Roberts spent the better part of a year clearing up Welsh’s estate, which besides tidying up his business affairs also included offloading cars and planes and submersibles. As she was going through his personal files she found a trove of Ragtime memorabilia that Welsh had collected, including clippings of Infidel’s launch from the New Zealand Herald and Seaspray magazine. She became more endeared to the yacht as she started to understand the life that Ragtime had led.

In 2022 Tina Roberts called designer Alan Andrews, who has drawn a slew of light-displacement boats, and asked if he’d be interested in taking on the project. Andrews had worked on Ragtime for previous owners and also knew Chris Welsh well, having been a sailing instructor to him in his youth.

Roberts had a vision of Andrews being the project manager, but Andrews didn’t want to be involved if Roberts wasn’t leading the way. “I hung up the call with Alan very frustrated,” says Roberts.

“Then I thought about it a little bit and decided that I knew what Chris’s vision was and I began to really understand who Ragtime was. I became really interested in the historical side of it. So, I called Alan back and said ‘Let’s do the project’.”

The rebuilt cockpit retains its previous woodwork and coamings, to preserve its historical appearance, though light weight, high-speed winches have been added. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

20-year project

Roberts, who previously owned food processing companies in the Pacific Northwest, set a budget of $1 million to $1.2 million, a sum that she didn’t expect to reach.

But after completely stripping and rebuilding the interior, rebuilding the centre cockpit, wrapping the hull in carbon fibre and fabricating new chainplates to support the new mast, which also needed modifications to fit the hull and new carbon-fibre rigging, she estimates that she spent more than $1.5 million.

“Throughout a project like this you have many decisions to make,” Roberts says. “My mantra for the decision-making process was, is this for the next two years or next 20 years?

“If you make decisions for the next two years, the boat will never survive; it’s a 60-year-old boat built of plywood. So, I had to make decisions about what the next 20 years for the boat would look like because every time you have to go back and modify something else, it’s very expensive. So, I wanted to do it right the first time and ensure she has longevity.”

Bow locker with its original showgirl decal. The stem-fitting and deck were rebuilt during the refit to strengthen the load-bearing areas. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

“Chris had a dream and a vision of what he wanted to do with the boat, and largely, the refit has been along those lines, except that it’s probably a bit more elegant,” says Andrews. “Tina didn’t take shortcuts. When she was presented with options for how things could be done, in nearly every case she did what was best for the boat.”

Andrews’ participation was important because he’d been involved in previous modifications to the yacht, including keel projects in the 1980s and working with Welsh in the 2000s. He noted how Ragtime’s hull construction was two layers of 3/8in marine plywood with the joints butted – not scarfed – over the middle span of the panel they lay upon. The interior structure included bulkheads, frames and longitudinal stringers.

“The interesting thing was the original bulkheads in the boat are hollow bulkheads with wood truss structure inside. So, there was quite some thought that went in the boat,” Andrews says. “Tina wanted to keep the spirit of Ragtime going, so when we added a few ring frames up forward they were done with plywood frames and laminated carbon and mahogany caps on them.”

Ragtime’s keel remains unchanged, though new rudder bearings and a new steering quadrant were installed. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

Carbon wrap

Perhaps the biggest modernisation was wrapping the hull in two layers of carbon-fibre, a decision made squarely with the boat’s life expectancy in mind. While the plywood hull showed very little degradation given its 60-year age, there were some areas near the bow where a couple of veneers had deteriorated and there was some rot around some of the original chainplate fasteners.

Previous keel modifications had added carbon-fibre around the bottom in the keel area, but wrapping the hull in carbon stiffened the boat (it always had a problem with headstay sag) and helped to distribute the loads more evenly across the sections of plywood. “We chose to use carbon-fibre instead of glassfibre because carbon works much better with wood,” explains Andrews.

Shroud chainplates are high-strength duplex 2205 stainless steel and allow the thickness outside the hull to be minimised. Custom fasteners without slots and fairing ‘ramps’ minimise drag
when heeled. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

“Another thing that occurred with the boat over time was at the chine log, where the bottom panel meets the topsides. There’s an overlap there, a piece of wood and the glue joint on that is what keeps the topsides from separating from the bottom. “Crack repairs under previous ownership were evidenced by wider pieces of wood laminated inside,” Andrews continues.

“By wrapping carbon over the boat, we were effectively able to overlap on the outside of this joint, increasing the bonding area by patching over the joint and better distributing the loads.”

This section of the boat needed to take more load concentration because of the new TP52 mast. The height of the TP52 mast was similar to Ragtime’s previous mast, at least when measured from the spinnaker height to the deck.

But the previous mast had inline spreaders and a cap shroud with fore and aft lowers, meaning three attachment points for the shrouds, spreading their load over about 4½ft. The new TP52 rig has swept back spreaders with all shrouds attaching at the same point, but a point that is wider than Ragtime. The TP52 rig was designed for a 14ft beam while Ragtime’s beam is 11ft 8.5in.

Keeping the chainplates in the original location, just inboard of the hull and stringers, would’ve led to much narrower spreaders and increased compression loads. So, the chainplates were moved aft to match the spreader sweep angle and attached on the outside of the hull just below the sheerline.

The mast step was rebuilt to fit the new mast, while the updated nav station now includes B&G instruments and Starlink communication. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

The new rig makes the boat easier to handle, as it can now sail upwind with a 100% jib and full, square-head mainsail instead of the previous large overlapping genoa with a 1960s-era triangular mainsail.

The updated cockpit allows more room for the crew, but also access to the engine compartment, which was required to fit the engine Welsh had sourced – a Mercedes Benz OM660, a 0.8lt turbocharged diesel made for use in Smart cars. It weighs approximately 250lb/113kg, which is about 300lb/136kg lighter than the previous Yanmar engine that produced similar horsepower.

Lasting legacy

“The refit’s fantastic for the boat and an ode to all the sailors who’ve raced on her,” says Roberts. “We run into people all the time in California, Hawaii, Australia or New Zealand where if you bring up the boat’s name there’s a reply, ‘Oh, I sailed on Ragtime once.’ “That’s the tradition that we want to continue.

We want the boat to continue to be relevant, because she has so much history and so many stories to tell. It’s really important to continue that legacy.”

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Extraordinary boats: Ragtime – the 60-year-old yacht that launched a genre is back on the water appeared first on Yachting World.

Local dinghy classes tend to evolve to suit the particular conditions of the waters they sail in, and the Patí Català catamarans are unique to their Barcelona birthplace. The catamaran is a development of the simple twin-hulled platforms that Spanish fisherman would paddle out to check their nets in the late 1800s.

In 1942 two brothers from Catalonia added wooden spars and battenless mainsails to their boats and the sailing class was born. Often referred to as ‘skates’, the flat-bottomed Patí boats have no rudder, daggerboard, or foils of any kind, meaning they can be comfortably dragged across the sand of the Barceloneta and Badalona beaches.

They’re also exceptionally quick to rig, allowing locals to race the class in their lunchtime breaks before popping back to work (racing is held five days a week, first gun at noon). However, while the design may be simple in construction, they are complex to sail, relying on the sailor’s skill in body weight positioning, sail trim and rig adjustment to manoeuvre.

Dani Pich sailed his Patí Català solo around the Isle of Wight in July. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

Single mould design

The Patí Català is a strict one-design. So strict that not only must each boat meet the minimum weight of 89kg, but all bar a handful of boats are built using the same mould, as Spanish sailor Dani Pich explained.

Pich was showing me his modified Patí Català, which he went on to sail around the Isle of Wight solo on Thursday 24 July, in 13 hours and 8 minutes.

“They are all handmade near Barcelona. To make the hulls, we use what is called the cow. We call it the cow because when you put in the plywood, you stack it, and you have to clamp it.

“Then you have to go underneath and to tighten it the movement is as if you were milking a cow. Since 1970, all the Patí Catalàns have been made with this cow, except for maybe fewer than 20.”

Up close, the Patí hulls are surprisingly pretty, skilfully crafted from different woods to give different levels of structural stiffness in key areas.

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“The plywood is okoume. They are all tropical woods. The soft one, the yellow, is called ayous, it’s the one that permits the twist and the flex. And the one that is darker is called samanguila. That is a variation of the oak, and it’s very strong,” explains Pich.

The twin hulls are connected by five wooden crossbeams, known as racks or benches, which sailors use to traverse the boats and to move their body weight forward and aft depending on conditions. Weight is key – each racing boat has a minimum hull weight of 89kg and competitive sailors will sand their boats down to ensure they are as close as possible to the class minimum (if individual boats come in too light they must carry corrector weights).

Patí Català sailing off Barcelona during the America’s Cup. Photo: Ian Roman/America’s Cup

Custom build

Eight years ago Barcelona sailor Pich lost his sight when a fire extinguisher exploded aboard the gas ship he was working on as a merchant seaman. He is now totally blind.

Pich learned to sail as a child, starting in the Optimist dinghy before moving to the Laser (now ILCA) single-hander, though he never fell in love with racing. For him, the lure of sailing was more about the challenge of ocean crossings, and in his late teens he moved into sailing larger yachts, crossing the Mediterranean and Atlantic before building a career at sea.

Waterproof box housing a processor that converts wind data to a ‘clock’ direction system. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

He first experimented with sailing the local Patí Català when he was 16. “At first I thought this was too complicated for me. But after a summer when I had the opportunity to train a lot with it, I found it spectacular,” he recalls.

After his accident, Pich struggled to return to the sport he loved. He tried some ‘accessible’ sailing programs in Spain and was left feeling degraded by the experience. “It was ‘Sit here, sit there’. I felt like a package they were moving around, and giving me orders. And I was supposed to be thankful for the opportunity.”

Pich demonstrating how he uses foot placement and body weight during a tack. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

Despite their complexity, the only option for him to sail autonomously was to sail a Patí, out of a local Barcelona city club. “It meant that I could leave my house and go by public transport, and not require many more people to do this. I could go by myself,” he explains.

“I knew the club. And I thought, well, I know this is a difficult way to start. But the club were the only ones that said, ‘Okay, let’s try it.’”

Initially Pich was required to sail with another person aboard his Patí, so it was stiffened to carry the additional crew and the hull now weighs in at 150kg. However, the reinforced structure also helped Pich’s boat stand up to the short Solent chop during his single-handed sail around the Isle of Wight.

The ‘piano’ area of sail and rig controls. The cut-out notches both reduce weight and act as extra foot grips when hiking. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

“This is the only Patí that you can be sailing in 15 knots upwind, with two people hiking, and it doesn’t break. Normally, when you start to heel, the bow wants to fall down, and the aft end wants to fall down. So the bits that suffer are the first and the fifth benches. And they break, bam! After the third time I broke the benches, I said, enough is enough – we’re going to build from scratch a boat completely reinforced, so I don’t have this problem.

“I built it myself with the woodmaker. So I know everything about it, how it is made, the wood thicknesses. Because I thought that if I had to do some repairs I should know my own boat.”

Rig and controls

With no rudder, the primary controls on the Patí Català are rig adjustments, mainsheet and shifting of body weight.

“You start sitting in the neutral position,” explains Pich, indicating between the third and fourth cross-beam. “So how we can control the boat is with our weight moving to the bow or to the aft. If we go to the bow, the boat goes upwind. When we go to the aft, we sail a lower course. You can do this in five knots of wind without touching anything. But when it starts to blow harder, if you don’t trim the sail, you cannot.”

Pich uses ropes of different diameter so he knows which control line is which. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

To initiate and exit a tack, Patí sailors stand, using their body weight to drive the boat into a turn and swinging against the sail as it loads up in a fluid, acrobatic movement. Pich has added a solid panel between the forward cross-beams to allow him to more safely cross the boat without sight of his foot placement.

Besides the mainsheet and sail controls, there are also control lines that allow the sailor to adjust rig shape underway. “I can make the mast like a ‘C’,” explains Pich. “There are two ropes going from inside the mast to outside. I can bring on the front stay, but I’m not pulling the mast forward. I am just pulling from three quarters of the mast, to the front. So I can flatten the sail and twist the outer part of the leech.

“We call it like the gears of the car. You start with first, then second, third. So you start completely open, with the wind on the sail starting the power of the boat. When you feel the boat is starting to run, you go into first gear, put a little bit [of rig tension] on, then a bit more. And every time, then you have to trim the sail.”

Stripes of non-slip padding allow Pich to orient himself along the side decks and five racks. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

Because the boat has no boom, the Cunningham is heavily used to pull down the mainsail. A stainless steel metal beam aft is the traveller, and also counter-balances the weight of the mast forward.

Sailing by feel

Despite its complexity, Pich says the wooden construction of the Patí gives a lot more feedback to him as a blind sailor than a glassfibre boat such as his Laser dinghy. “We say that this boat, you sail it by feelings. The wood talks a lot. The sound that it makes is incredible. You can know many things about what’s happening on board just by hearing the boat.”

Pich says the plywood Patí Català gives a lot more feedback to him as a blind sailor than a glassfibre boat would. Photo: Tim Jeffreys Photography

“Every time I broke the boat in any way, I was the first to know it – more than anyone who has sight. The sound completely changes. There is a new sound that enters the puzzle.”

There are two other unique items on Pich’s boat: a wind sensor and a black electronics box. These read wind data which is then communicated to Pich through a special custom-made vibrating vest created by a Catalan startup company called White Jacket.

The vest has two strips around Pich’s torso, and 12 small vibration motors connected to a battery. The first strip feeds Pich information on his course, using the circle of a clock – so 12 o’clock is at his front and means dead ahead. The lower strip connects to the data from the wind sensor, and gives Pich true wind angle.

“I’ve got the two vectors; course over the ground and the wind angle. So then it’s trying to do some magic!” explains Pich, who calculates the course to steer in his head and by feel.

Pich only began working with White Jacket in April, and they want to develop the vest technology further to include heading guidance. This would also make the vest more of an accessibility tool for less experienced sailors than Pich.

The vest components are housed inside a silicone tube, with IP68 connectors for waterproofing. However, during Pich’s around the island bid in July his vest began overheating and he went on to complete most of the circumnavigation by feel, with his team on the support RIB communicating information on tide, waves and obstructions.

Pich also uses other cues such as the sun. “I cannot see light, but I can feel the heat. So for example, if I am reaching and I am on starboard tack, the sun is on my right. And I can feel it on my face. I know from the movement of the sun that is going from east to west, and knowing my latitude, I can orientate myself. But this is what I’d like to show people: that because we are blind, we’re not stupid. We can do things.

“Do you know how complex it is to fry an egg without seeing? It is hundreds of times more complex than sailing!”

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

The post How a blind sailor raced this unique rudderless catamaran around the Isle of Wight appeared first on Yachting World.

Every now and again something really different comes along, and this was one of those concepts you don’t think will come to reality. I say that, having spoken to the design team about it years ago, and seen plenty of renderings of what it might look like.

So, the curiosity of such a venture we expected. The fact that our video tour from its launch at the International Multihull Show in May was one of our fastest to reach 100,000 views, less so. Also noteworthy with that video is the sheer amount of largely positive comments supporting the technological development (when you consider that these comments stem from a typically sceptical audience).

Everything about this project is quite fascinating, from the VPLP-designed wave-piercing hulls to the automated power and sail systems. A primary goal for the MODX is to offer zero CO2 emission cruising by utilising completely renewable energies.

The scheme carries plenty of credibility, thanks to design by VPLP and construction by Océan Développement, the yard responsible for the fleet of MOD 70 ocean racing one-design trimarans built in 2008.

Thermoplastic polyurethane wingsails are raised on rotating, telescopic masts. Photo: Ronan Gladu

However, it’s those enormous wingsails which spike the most interest, of course.

Built by Aeroforce, a company set up specifically to develop the technology, these twin AF125s are each 125m2 inflatable wings with auto trim functionality. They’re claimed to be 1.7 times more efficient, safer (no winches/ropes), and create 20% more space aboard than conventional rigs.

Blow up sails

“Powerful and stable wings that can be automated is why we developed Aeroforce,” CEO Jean Guyon told me during the yacht’s premiere in La Grande Motte. “The MODX’s goal was to be energy independent. So we needed a fast boat, but it’s also why there are wingsails – the target was that in 10 knots wind, we should do 10 knots boat speed.”

The telescopic masts are formed of six sections which rotate around bearings at waterline and deck level. The masts are 23m high when fully raised and have a deep reef to reduce the sailplan to 65%. (It’s worth noting that most sailing footage so far shows the yacht in reefed format.)

Sails are inflated to their aerofoil shape – a process that takes just eight minutes. Photo: Ronan Gladu

The wings are housed in huge cradles above the coachroof and take eight minutes to hoist and inflate. Made from thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), these sails are inflated to a comparatively low pressure of 100 millibar, or around 10 times less pressure than a typical inflatable paddleboard – which allows pumps to be used for inflation rather than compressors.

The wings also have a trailing flap, which works like those of an aeroplane to increase lift by 30-40%, Guyon estimates. He explained how the airfoil shape increases airflow on both sides of the wing, “so pointing is quite good at 40-45° to the apparent wind.”

In terms of performance, the MODX has hit 21.5 knots in 25 knots of wind at 150° to the apparent, or 9.5 knots in 11.5 knots at 46° apparent – which is already very close to the initial target of 10 knots in 10 knots of wind.

The gearbox and rotating chain used at the mast bases allow for 360° rotation of the wings, providing a tangible benefit for spilling wind. Consider how smooth and quiet gybes can be when you can completely open the sails and rotate the masts downwind through the gybe. This brings us to the yacht’s impressive automatic operation.

The 70-footer also offers luxurious accommodation. Photo: Martin Viezzer

Auto functionality

The MODX is piloted from a single wheel and internal helm station, adorned with touchscreens. “The project is trying to attract people from power without the complexity of sail,” is how VPLP’s Mathius Maurios explained the concept to me.
“It’s about being on the water without being stressed.” With this in mind, the project team wanted a fully automated sail/wing control system, as easy to use as cruise control.

The aft owners cabin is luxurious. Photo: Martin Viezzer

They worked with Madintec to develop a highly sophisticated yet approachable wing, hydro and energy management system.

This French company has developed performance autopilot systems for many of the top IMOCA 60 teams. So when you look at the helm station on the yacht, on one side is the throttle control for the electric engine, and on the other, a more crude, simple throttle lever (which looks like something out of a Thunderbirds rocket).

A solo-operated 70ft cat? Helm station has throttles for the electric motors and wind engine. Photo: Chloe Lambelet

So, in terms of piloting this 70ft performance catamaran, once wings are raised, the operator simply pushes the wing throttle lever forward, selecting from 0-100% of potential force. Therefore, it’s not just an auto-driving boat, but one that uses auto-tuned sails too. If you only want 50% of the power available, it’ll release the sails to spill more wind.

Silent sailing, silent power

With no running rigging, the coachroof can be pushed out to maximum beam, creating the largest area possible for solar panels. The MODX has 70m2 of panels, which provide a peak of 15kW, or up to 35% of its electrical energy mix. Although the company is looking into a flybridge alternative to cater to demand, this wide, flat surface on the first boat is also ideal for harvesting rainwater, and there are two 400lt tanks dedicated to this.

No side decks, engines or tender aft – instead clear transoms and a huge aft leisure cockpit. Photo: Ronan Gladu

At the heart of the electrical system is a 250kWh LFP lithium battery bank – as a comparison a battery in a large electric car is around 90kWh. It’s enough for guests to live aboard for 10 days without sun, wind or engine use, or provides 110 miles motoring range at 5 knots. When sailing, the variable pitch propeller can hydrogenerate power back into the battery bank. So, at 15 knots boat speed, it’s possible to generate 16kWh back into the system.

Unfortunately, what we can’t show you is the nucleus of the MODX system: its technical rooms. I was granted a quick look but not allowed to take photos or video. These are located at the mast bases at the foot of each forward companionway and house the electrical and telescopic mast systems, in a cocoon of carbon fibre with significant bulkheads to help support the latter. Otherwise, the MODX is built in glassfibre, using bio-sourced resin and 40% recycled foam.

A throttle lever is used to control sail power. “A ‘wing throttle’ is the best way to think about the power of the wing, like an engine throttle,” says Aeroforce’s CEO Jean Guyon. Photo: Yachting World

The rest of the interior in the first boat is suitably luxurious, particularly on the main deck, which offers motoryacht-style comfort, near-surround ocean views, and 135m2 living space in the saloon, fore and aft decks. However, we can’t go into more accommodation detail as it’s a largely customisable space to suit private, charter or ‘expedition’ use.

A MOD Future?

So what is the future for this concept, and what size vessels might the Aeroforce wings be practical for? “The initial design was for 55ft, but we needed more solar to reach the efficiency targets,” Guyon explained. The right balance of solar and boat speed was found at 70ft. He added that doing a 100-footer would be easier than a 55: “I don’t see the potential in less than a 100m2 wingsail size.”

Aeroforce is also looking at the obvious potential of its wings for commercial shipping, as well as for leisure monohulls, where they might provide less heeling moment and more thrust.

MODX specifications

LOA: 21.33m / 70ft 0in
Beam: 10.00m / 32ft 10in
Draught: 2.00m / 6ft 7in
Air draught: 4.60m / 15ft 1in
Wing area: 2 x 125m2 / 2 x 1,345ft2
Displacement: 30,000kg / 66,138lb
Electric motors: 2 x 20kW / 2 x 27hp

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

The post MODX: An electric 70ft catamaran with inflatable wingsails! appeared first on Yachting World.

Compared with the multihulls and centre cockpit cruising yachts dwarfing them in Las Palmas, Mathias and Katharina Müller von Blumencron’s yacht Red 2 really is extraordinary. The JV43 is compact by comparison and shorn of the many luxuries cruising boats customarily freight. It is clearly a full-throated racer, yet the couple have been cruising around the Med for months. “A boat that isn’t quite sure what it is?” puzzled one observer.

Not at all. Red 2 is absolutely certain of purpose. It is a cruiser-racer that harks back to simpler, less complicated times yet is supercharged by the latest design concepts and technical innovations. The full, blunt-nosed bow, flared topsides, pronounced reverse sheer and large cockpit cuddy are clear statements that this is designed as a powerful short-handed offshore racer. It resembles a Class 40, but with a twist.

The JV43 was born out of just this concept and style of sailing. The Class 40 box rule was devised in 2004 to provide a scaled down, more accessible alternative to the Open 50 or IMOCA 60 for short-handed offshore racing. The first example was launched in 2005, and one of the early entrants to this new pro-am circuit was Mathias Müller von Blumencron, a German-Swiss journalist, then editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel magazine. In 2011 he bought a Simon Rogers design, named Red (a journalist’s pun!).

Over the next decade and a half, Müller von Blumencron competed in four Rolex Fastnet Races, won his class in the RORC Transatlantic Race and competed in many other big offshore events such as the Sables-Horta race, Quebec-St Malo race, the RORC Caribbean 600 and several Normandy Channel races. He also cruised in the boat when not racing.

Red 2 was conceived and built specifically as a very fast short-handed racer-cruiser. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

As the years went by, his Class 40 became steadily outclassed by evolving design standards. If set side by side, the wide-bodied, scow-bowed designs of today would look radically different to the Red of 14 years ago, and the new versions are startlingly quick by comparison. It was also, as he noted: “an empty boat”.

Enthusiastic as ever about racing, Müller von Blumencron wanted to capitalise on the available extra power, while also planning for extended cruising. He was not alone in wanting something new: his friend Wolf Scheder-Bieschin, a highly experienced racer who grew up campaigning for the Admiral’s Cup on his father’s yacht Vineta, was also keen on a semi-custom design.

The hull is built with three-stage vacuum infusion with epoxy, E-glass and sandwich with strict attention to weight control. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

A new concept

During the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 the two friends had plenty of time to think about the concept. They made a sketch and went to designers Judel/Vrolijk to ask: “Is it feasible? Could we find a compromise with a modern shaped hull and more comforts?”

Designer Antoine Cardin appreciated what they were after and looked at an extended, roomier version of the Class 40 concept. Over nine months he developed the hull shape with them, evaluating 15 comparison models with surprising results. “The fuller we made the bow shape, the faster it was – and not by a little, by one or two knots,” says Müller von Blumencron, “and so we ended up with a scow bow.”

He and Wolf Scheder-Bieschin looked at yards that could build the pair of JV43s and chose Ocean Tec in Slovenia. “They made a good bid and had built some Class 40s and the HH42 Oystercatcher 30,” he says.

The 3m deep keel is made out of high strength steel fabricated at Irons Brothers in Cornwall with a composite fairing connected to a lead bulb. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Since he’d always liked the deck layout of the original Red for short-handed sailing a similar arrangement was adopted, but with more space and a larger protected cuddy. There are two companionways into the cabin, separated by a central pit console, and all lines and halyards are run back to five winches, which can be operated in the protection of the cockpit.

The Axxon carbon mast is 1m higher than that of the first Red, and the sails proportionately bigger. To fill performance gaps at all angles of sail, Red 2 has an inventory comprising a genoa on soft hanks, a Code 0 (a runner) set from the bowsprit, a staysail on a furler and two spinnakers, a fractional and an A2, both in socks and set at the bowsprit – technically both gennakers. There is also a jib top, or high clew reacher that is the go-to headsail when reaching in stronger winds.

Large double bunk in the owners cabin with simple shelf stowage. There’s no bilge, but soft foam panels sit directly on the hull moulding. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

The headstay is carbon but the rest of the standing rigging is conventional stainless rod – “a good compromise which saves weight,” he says.

There are twin rudders, a deep 3m steel fin keel with lead bulb. The boat is water ballasted with up to 750kg of water, trimmable with three tanks on each side.

All the necessities

Inside, Red 2 is set up for comfortable but plain living to avoid unnecessary weight. The saloon table and nav area is designed around the engine box (uninsulated to save weight). There are foldable seating and sleeping bunks outboard on each side and pipe cots aft, under the cockpit coamings. There are no sole boards, inner shell or bilge, but softer flooring underfoot in the form of EVA foam.

Saloon bench seats each side can be lifted up to form two adjustable bunks with leecloths. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Forward and to starboard there is a galley with a gimballed gas burner/bottle, an Ikea single-ring induction hob and a removable cool box. The owner’s double cabin and en suite heads are in the large forward compartment. The doors between the cabins are made of zipped mesh fabric and the cabins have some details in wood veneer. Remote controlled hidden LED lighting creates a cozy atmosphere at night.

There is no pressurised water system, no shower, no hot water. A 60lt flexible tank provides fresh water to the galley and heads sinks, operated by foot pump. For longer passage-making the total tankage is supplemented by bottled water reserves. For the ARC the crew took 220lt of bottled water.

Very much a racing boat down below. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Fuel capacity is 50lt, which allows for two hours of battery charging a day (the autopilot and Starlink are both quite power hungry) or flat water motoring at around 5.5-6 knots. Red 2 also has solar panels, which can keep the lithium batteries topped up when hand steering.

Equipping the interior for cruising added around 250kg but the all-up weight is nonetheless a comparatively featherweight 5.3 tonnes.

Plenty of stowage for sails. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Clocking the miles

Since the boat was launched in late 2023, he has cruised and raced over 10,000 miles and done the Aegean 600, the Palermo-Monte Carlo race (mostly upwind) and most recently the ARC rally and the RORC Caribbean 600. Last May he and Katharina took time off work to cruise through the Greek islands, Sicily, the Côte d’Azur, Balearic Islands, southern Spain, and Morocco, going home for 10 days every two or three months.

Red 2 does have some creature comforts including soft foam flooring and padded saloon bench seats. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Since crossing the Atlantic and arriving in the Caribbean they have spent January and much of February island-hopping.

This is unabashedly a sailors’s boat, perfect for an owner who loves racing a boat like a dinghy and a couple who prefer life afloat to be freer and less complex than on shore.

“We feel we have this wonderful compromise between sailing fast and living well on board,” he says. “We have speed, space and simplicity – the simplicity is very important. We don’t want to be mechanics all the time and we don’t need to duplicate what we have at home. For our taste, we have found a real sweet spot. We said let’s build the fastest cruiser-racer we can imagine in 2023, and then enjoy sailing it, and we have.”

Halyard locks, barber haulers, outhaul, mainsheet, Cunningham and reef pennants all led back to a central winch pedestal under and behind the protection of the cuddy. Photo: Andreas Lindlahr

Red 2 Specifications

LOA: 13.10m / 42ft 11in
Beam: 4.50m / 14ft 8in
Draught: 3.00m / 9ft 7in
Displacement: 5,300kg / 11,684lb
Ballast: 2,100kg / 4,630lb
Water ballast: 750lt / 165gal
Mast height: 18.90m / 62ft 0in
Upwind sail area: 124m2 / 1,335ft2
Downwind sail area: 277m2 / 2,982ft2

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The post Extraordinary Boats: JV43 Red 2 – a full-throated racer with an adventurous cruising side appeared first on Yachting World.

On a Saturday morning in mid-August, there is a light breeze blowing in the Solent. A fleet of yachts is slowly working against the tide, waiting for their start gun. But there are no colourful spinnakers here; these are cotton sails flying from wooden spars. For it is 1927 and this is the start of the Fastnet Race – the world’s oldest offshore yacht race, established two years before.

The weather deteriorates rapidly after the start, and most of the 15-strong fleet soon retire due to strong winds and heavy seas, leaving only the schooner La Goleta and the cutter Tally Ho to battle it out. After six days of sailing in continually punishing conditions, La Goleta takes line honours but Tally Ho, crossing the line just 50 minutes later, wins the Fastnet Cup on corrected time. The race is described at the time as ‘the hardest fight between two yachts that had ever been sailed in English waters over so long a course and under such heavy weather conditions.’

Sometimes I joke that Tally Ho earned her pedigree by being the slowest of two boats, but the real achievement for both vessels (and their crew) was to complete the course at all in such harsh weather.

Much of the credit must go to their designers; La Goleta was drawn by the American John Alden, famous for his schooners, while Tally Ho was drawn by yacht designer and artist Albert Strange as a ‘deep sea fishing yacht’, taking inspiration from the Pilot Cutters and other working boats that navigated British waters year round.

The photo that began it all – Tally Ho under full sail at the start of the 1927 Fastnet race. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

One of Strange’s largest designs, Tally Ho was originally named Betty and was launched in 1910 at the Stow & Sons boatyard in Shoreham. She led an eventful life after her racing days; a family sailed her to the Caribbean and back in the 1950s, and in the 1960s she was blown onto a reef in the South Pacific and nearly lost for good.

Later she spent some time as a fishing vessel complete with pilot house and trolling poles, before being abandoned on the west coast of the USA in the late 1980s. Here she stayed, and would certainly have been destroyed if it weren’t for the valiant efforts of a local artist who saw something special in the dilapidated but shapely hull.

When he passed away, the chainsaw loomed again, but this time the Albert Strange Association (ASA) stepped in. They acquired the boat and started advertising for a new owner.

The hull was severely damaged on a reef in the South Pacific in the 1960s, and lost its rig and rudder when towed off. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

Tally Ho: The £1 yacht

I came across the ad for Tally Ho while I was working on large classic yachts in the Caribbean. I knew that buying a crumbling wooden boat was a terrible idea, but I was captivated by a photo from 1927 of Tally Ho surging downwind, under a mountain of sail.

I wrote the ASA a letter, asking if they would consider selling me the boat for a nominal price of £1: a considerable reduction from the £25,000 asked. To my surprise they showed interest – their priority was simply to save the boat.

This was the first of several developments that seemed somehow serendipitous, each steering me towards Tally Ho despite protest from the logical part of my brain. I knew attempting a rebuild would be very ambitious, bordering on plain stupid.

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For a start, I couldn’t spare the money to rent boatyard space. However, providence stepped in again, with a friend of a friend offering space in their back yard – complete with a large workshop and serious woodworking tools. I was running out of excuses.

When I saw the boat in person, the first thing I noticed was the decay – she was significantly worse than the survey had suggested, and I pulled out chunks of frames and deck planks with my bare hands. But when my companions left me to ruminate on my folly alone, I saw something else: a well-rounded character and a solid elegance in the beautiful lines of the hull. I decided in that moment to take the risk. Whatever was to follow, I knew it would be an adventure!

Goolden seeing Tally Ho for the first time, and contemplating the risk involved. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

Sharing the story

The first tasks were to get Tally Ho moved and covered. The ASA generously donated towards the cost of transporting the boat and in April 2017, after a 600-mile journey, she arrived on a hydraulic trailer at her new home in Sequim, Washington.

The boat seemed to dwarf Raul and Darlene’s one-storey house, and I wondered nervously if my hosts realised what they had let themselves in for. The driver skilfully manoeuvred the hulk into the back garden with less than an inch to spare against the side of the house, but not before we had to cut down a large tree and remove the gateposts.

I had been giving a lot of thought to how I might fund this project, and once again fate seemed to give me a push in the right direction. I met a film-producer in Antigua shortly before seeing Tally Ho, and he had given me some good advice: “If you think this might make a good story, be sure to record it from the first moment.” He even lent me a camera for the week.

Some intimidating joinery on the new keel timber. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

I quickly learnt the basics of video editing, and soon had published my very first video on YouTube. To my surprise a few people watched it, and many of them remarked on what a terrible idea the project was. They were right, of course, but their comments spurred me on.

I realised that as long as the project seemed optimistic and challenging, people would watch, and I might have a chance at raising some funds through documenting it.

I started by constructing a large shed over the boat, then began work on the hull itself – pulling off planks, using a jackhammer to remove the concrete from the bilge, hammering out the keel bolts, and jacking the boat up away from its ballast keel. After I had exposed the keel timber, which I had hoped to save, I realised that it was too damaged. In fact, the whole centreline would need to be replaced if I was going to have full confidence in the boat and be able to sail it as I wished.

Taking shape as Goolden built a new centreline, frames and deck structure. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

The first piece of non-destructive work I did on the boat was to purchase two enormous pieces of purpleheart (a very dense and strong tropical hardwood) and attach them end-to-end with a 6ft-long joint to make a timber long enough for the new keel.

The scale of woodworking in this video attracted a lot of new viewers, and people started to ask if they could help the project; some offered to volunteer, others to donate towards the costs. From then on – to my delighted amazement – the rebuild was powered by the generosity of its audience.

A seven-year build

As months and then years passed, old wood was replaced with new, many fascinating characters lent their skills, and many hurdles were overcome. One of the biggest challenges was moving the boat to a different county halfway through the rebuild because of a disagreement with the local council (you’ll have to watch the YouTube series for the juicy details of this drama!). The move took a huge amount of work but was ultimately for the best.

A freshly laid teak and yellow cedar deck. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

But I was very touched that Raul and Darlene, despite having endured a boatyard in their back garden for several years, didn’t want us to leave – they had become family, and of all the thousands of people who deserve credit for Tally Ho’s rebuild, they surely take one of the largest portions.

Tally Ho was moved to Port Townsend, a global hub for traditional marine trades and resources. By this time I was earning enough money from my YouTube videos to be able to rent indoor space for the boat in the boatyard, and I also started hiring skilled tradespeople to help with specialised jobs. This sped things up, but I found myself doing a lot more project management.

Combined with filming and editing the videos, I struggled to find time to do as much woodworking as I would have liked. I worked almost every waking hour, and it really took a toll on my mental health – there were points when I was very close to burning out, but the positivity and feedback from the online community kept me going.

One key milestone was recasting the lead ballast keel. The first attempt at repairing the original keel failed spectacularly when the molten lead blasted a hole all the way through it! The next attempt required recasting the whole thing; after weeks of painstaking work to create a perfectly fair mould, we melted 7.5 tons of lead in a worryingly ramshackle pot and, at midnight, opened the valve and crossed all available appendages. Mercifully,
the mould held fast and the pour was successful – though breaking the keel out of the mould was another challenge.

Hanging the new solid hardwood rudder. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

The team evolved alongside the progress on the boat. Volunteers who had got involved developed into marine professionals in their own right, which was very satisfying to witness. Over the next couple of years we worked steadily through a never-ending job list, making progress on the deck, bulwarks, cockpit, deckhouses, interior joinery, paint, varnish, electrical, plumbing, spars, rigging and sails, to name but a few.

In the end not much remained of the original boat: most of the transom, some bits of deck hardware, the lead in the keel (despite having had its molecules rearranged), some repurposed hull-planking, and the capstan. Comparisons to the Ship of Theseus are inevitable, but unconstructive – my goal was always to rebuild an ocean-going vessel, not a museum-piece.

In April 2024, after seven years of labour, we relaunched Tally Ho. It was an incredible day, though tinged with sadness – Darlene had passed away before the launch and was sorely missed. I dedicated the launch to her and we celebrated in her honour.

Reinstalling the 115 year-old capstan – one of the few original pieces that were able to be saved.
Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

We had more work to do with Tally Ho afloat, which included reinstalling the restored original capstan and a lot of wiring, but eventually we slipped out of the harbour and hoisted the sails for the first time. Hauling on the two halyards that control the timber gaff, we watched the mainsail climb the mast before adjusting the tiller, bearing away and letting it fill – this was a momentous moment for me, and feeling the boat come alive with the power of the rig, the hull heeling for the first time in many decades, is a memory I will never forget.

Sailing Tally Ho

After just a few short sea trials in Port Townsend bay, we set off on a serious shake-down cruise; a 1,500-mile trip north to the remote islands of Haida Gwaii and back. Our route started in the sheltered waters to the east of Vancouver Island. With good weather but without a lot of wind, we found ourselves motoring a lot.

I had chosen a Beta 85T, a reliable unit that didn’t miss a beat as we navigated the significant tidal currents in this area – in some places large whirlpools can sink unwary vessels and passages have to be timed carefully, especially when several sets of narrows follow each other.

Launch day was a big occasion after seven years of work. Photo: c/o Leo Goolden

As we cruised north we encountered beautiful scenery and serene anchorages, but I was also happy to be testing the systems in a variety of conditions. Although Tally Ho maintains a very traditional appearance, there are some modern installations hidden beneath the brightwork.

For example, while the Beta 85T is a very simple diesel engine, the one on board Tally Ho was modified to be a parallel-hybrid system with the addition of two 10kW electric motors. These can provide electric propulsion using power from the large LiFePO4 battery bank, or when the unit is running on diesel they work together as a 12kW generator to charge up again quickly. The parallel system provides backup if either fails, and another advantage is a generous supply of electricity on board – allowing the use of an induction/electric cooking stove and therefore a propane-free boat.

The rig also features some well-hidden technology; the standing rigging is constructed of modern high-performance fibre wrapped in traditional ‘service’ to protect from UV and chafe, and also to maintain a classic appearance. The Dacron sails (Ratsey & Lapthorn/NW Sails) are constructed from Contender’s Fibrecon Classic Cream Fabric, giving them the look of traditional cotton.

Sails are Dacron, in a traditional cream cotton colourway. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

As we emerged from the lee of Vancouver Island we were able to sail more often and in more open water, and we started really getting to grips with different sail combinations. Tally Ho is a gaff cutter and can fly up to five sails on her single mast, but with an assortment of different topsails and headsails for different conditions we usually carry at least nine on board.

The headsails hank on to the stays and there are no winches for the halyards – just block and tackle. The most exciting sail to hoist is the jackyard tops’l, which fills in the gap between the gaff and the topmast (much like the working tops’l) but also extends beyond both of them, thanks to the two spars which are lashed to the sail. Hoisting the whole arrangement up to the top of the rig without catching the web of other lines can be quite a challenge.

Continuing north, I found myself more and more impressed with how Tally Ho sails. Her tonnage makes her feel steady and reliable in heavy conditions, but I was also surprised by how easily she slips along in light airs.

Tally Ho’s next mission is to sail from the North Pacific back to the UK in time for the 2027 Fastnet race. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

It may take more time (and canvas) to get her moving in the first place, but the momentum of so much mass carries her through the lulls when lighter boats find themselves dead in the water. In stronger wind the huge mainsail demands respect, and when beating it must be reefed early or feathered in the gusts to avoid excessive weather-helm – a common feature of gaff cutter rigs.

The long keel helps the boat track well at sea, but means that manoeuvring in tight spaces must be carefully planned and executed. With such a long turning circle, intentional use of prop-walk is essential, but even in docking situations the weight of the boat and the long keel can be advantageous – she reacts less to gusts and will stay head-to-wind longer than many.

Early sailing included tranquil passages in the shelter of Vancouver Island, as well as heavier conditions. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

There were four of us on board for the majority of the trip, plus extra friends who came and went. Tally Ho can sleep eight or nine at a pinch, but sailing with six or fewer is more comfortable. The interior was redesigned to better suit long-term cruising (the original layout was very dated, with the galley in the forepeak) and now features two double berths, fridge and freezer, and a – relatively – spacious engine room.

The boat is heated with a diesel-fired hydronic system as well as a woodburner in the saloon, can desalinate water at 60lt/h, and carries approximately 1,000lt of diesel, meaning she can be fairly self-sufficient for long periods. Although we don’t currently carry solar panels, the hybrid propulsion system can theoretically regenerate electricity from the propeller spinning while under sail.

Saloon and galley, with a chart table behind the bulkhead. The stained glass conceals a drinks cabinet. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

The highlight of the trip was our visit to Haida Gwaii, a remote island group in northern British Columbia that can only be reached by crossing the notorious Hecate Strait – apparently the most dangerous body of water on the entire Canadian coast.

The few who choose to sail to Haida Gwaii are rewarded with a strong and fascinating indigenous culture and a unique ecosystem. We were humbled by the kindness we encountered there, and awestruck by the huge carved poles at the ancient Haida village sites.

Woodburner keeps the saloon cosy and allows Goolden to contemplate high latitude sailing. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

The uninhabited West coast is a vast and dramatic lee shore, exposed to the unrelenting ocean swell and completely uncharted in many places. Sailing Tally Ho in these waters felt like a true test, but she handled herself as well as I could have possibly hoped. Even among the big seas and strong wind of the open Pacific, she felt sea-kindly and comfortable.

Fastnet 100 years on

After finishing our trip with visits to Victoria and Port Townsend’s Wooden Boat Festivals, I spent a few months working on the boat before embarking on some slow winter cruising, which gave me time to reflect. The rebuild had been a real challenge and taken a toll on me, but it had paid off – and brought unexpected benefits along the way. As well as many wonderful new friendships, one of the greatest rewards has been to hear from people for whom the project brought inspiration or meaning – or even helped through their own challenges.

Tally Ho’s original iron tiller was long lost – a replacement was cast in bronze. Photo: Neil Rabinowitz Photography

People sometimes ask me how I attracted so many people to watch and support this project (the rebuild of Tally Ho has attracted 120 million views) and I have to say I don’t know – perhaps a mixture of luck and determination, with elements of risk and storytelling?

But whatever it was that caught people’s attention, the real magic ingredient has been the kindness and generosity shown by so many people both locally and around the world, and for that I am so very grateful.

The adventures (and the YouTube videos!) of Tally Ho will continue – the challenge now is to sail back to the UK to race her in the Fastnet race 100 years after she won it. So, picture another summer’s day in the Solent, but this time there are hundreds of yachts lined up for the start line. The year is 2027, and among the colourful spinnakers and carbon sails you might just see a jackyard tops’l.

Watch all the videos of Tally Ho‘s restoration on the Sampson Boat Co Youtube channel.

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The post How this boatbuilder and Youtuber restored the 1910 £1 wreck ‘Tally Ho’ appeared first on Yachting World.

As a trained fine furniture maker and lifelong sailor, Ben Gray’s search criteria for a restoration project to which he could bring his woodworking skills to bear would seem, on the face of it, entirely practical.

“I understand the charm of a classic yacht. But there’s something nice about having the people who built the boat still being there to come and say, ‘Here’s what I reckon you should do’.”

Delve a little deeper into the story of Gray’s ownership of the Doug Peterson Three Quarter Tonner Impeccable and his restoration philosophy becomes less one of pragmatism and more concerned with the yacht’s legacy and the people who brought that to life.

Built in Sydney in 1980 this modest 34-footer has legacy in spades, in no small part due to the extraordinary life story and sailing history of her original owner, the late John Walker.

Walker and his wife, Helen, fled the Czechoslovakian communist regime in 1949 and migrated to Australia, both having survived Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Not speaking a word of English – and having to constantly spell out his Czech name (Ota Wachtel) – Walker assumed his new name in Australia, having been beguiled by the famed whisky advert.

Racing in the Classics and Veterans Race in Sydney Harbour. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

He started out in Sydney as an ice skating teacher (he’d been Czech Figure Skating Pairs National Champion at 16) and went on to complete engineering qualifications and set up a highly successful timber business, building roof trusses and frames.

Aged 60 and with virtually no sailing background, Walker decided to take up yacht racing, commissioning Doug Peterson to design a competitive yacht suitable for offshore racing under the IOR rule. In an era that was fast adopting glassfibre construction, his boat would be built in timber, of course.

Having assembled a loyal crew, he set out in 1981 on what was to become an extremely successful offshore sailing program with Impeccable, which included 25 Sydney Hobart Races. His last race to Hobart in 2008, aged 86, made him the oldest skipper in the race’s history, an honour later claimed by Australian sailing legend Syd Fischer.

Impeccable won its Sydney to Hobart Division in 1986 and 1993 and several times came close to claiming the coveted Tattersall Cup for overall winner, taking 2nd place in 1986, 3rd place in 1993 and 5th in 2006.

The 34-footer took part in 25 Sydney Hobart races. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Walker became an accomplished offshore navigator with a finely tuned sense for changes in wind and current, receiving the Ocean Racing Veteran of the Year award from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on five occasions between 1994 and 2008. His home office still holds the plethora of trophies that he also won with Impeccable over three decades of offshore and club racing.

The original distinctive coloured stripes on Impeccable’s topsides remained a familiar sight on the Sydney Harbour racing scene until shortly before Walker’s death in 2014, aged 91.

Working from home

Such was the family’s attachment to the boat that Impeccable was never put up for sale and remained on the Walkers’ mooring outside their home. Through a sailing connection Ben Gray contacted John and Helen’s son, Gary, to express his interest in buying and restoring Impeccable.

“We kind of interviewed each other a bit,” says Gray as he recounts the unusual agreement that they struck; much of the restoration would be carried out alongside the Walker’s pontoon below their house on Long Bay, where Helen still lives.

New laminated timber tiller made by Ben Gray. The middle eight of the 11 laminates were tapered from 11-6mm over their length for strength. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

“All of a sudden, I have this amazing project on a waterfront around the corner from my house and I have the keys to the garden gate. You kind of go, ‘Wow!’” recalls Gray, who gave his venture the working title ‘The Mission Impeccable’.

A workbench was set up on the pontoon and, along with shipwright Simon Clark, Gray got to work on rebuilding the deck and cabin top. Fortuitously, a neighbouring property was in a major construction phase at the time, rendering the noise nuisance from work on the boat almost insignificant.

Gray described the old cockpit layout as a ‘winch farm’ – the hatch area rebuild has greatly simplified the systems for improved efficiency. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Inevitably, a number of the restoration tasks required the boat to be lifted out of the water, not least of which was completely rebuilding the transom when rot was uncovered. That set the team a new raft of challenges, as there are vanishingly few yards around Sydney Harbour today where you can work on your own boat, without facing significant cost and working limitations. But such is the regard for Impeccable on Sydney’s maritime scene, that various yards – most notably White Bay 6 Marine Park – offered a place to carry out differing parts of the rebuild.

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Authentic restoration

Gray’s aspiration to restore the yacht authentically with input from its original creators was realised with remarkable serendipity. Firstly, he found Impeccable’s builder Doug Brooker, then its mast builder and rigger from Whale Spar, John Denton, and finally he made contact with Ben de Coster of Hood Sails. All three still had paper records from the boat’s early days and willingly offered technical advice.

“It’s like someone’s smiling over you and you keep getting served up the right things,” says Gray, recalling wryly that he also found six brand new unused winches online, being sold by a woman whose ex-husband had abandoned his yacht restoration!

The mast step needed to be replaced when rot was found underneath it. The timber block is made
of jarrah. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Respect for the yacht’s original design and intent benchmarked Gray’s restoration approach; but he is happily agnostic too, where improved efficiency or safety requires a more contemporary nod here and there. The three-skinned cold moulded hull, built in Douglas fir, over Queensland ribs was found to be in good shape, but the transom, stem and cockpit floor all required rebuilds, as did the mast step.

Two features that had weathered hard ocean racing also warranted a rethink. Firstly, Doug Brooker suggested that the replacement keel – added later during Walker’s ownership to assist with IMS rating – would benefit from a stronger connection between the floors and the keelson, for which he drew up a quick sketch.

Secondly, the timber seating under all the stanchions had rotted over time. Scarfing in new plywood seats, glassing the whole deck to hull join and adding extra bracing has made the stanchions stronger and safer.

Impeccable has a wide beam with the chainplates well inboard, permitting the use of overlapping headsails. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Eighties sail plan

John Denton inspected the 1990s replacement mast that he’d built and found it to be in good condition, only requiring some new sleeving close to the deck level. For the rigging, it would have been understandable for Gray to forego the running backstays in favour of a more easily managed set-up with swept back spreaders. But that idea did not rest easily with The Mission as it would exclude options for overlapping jibs, a feature emblematic of the 1980s IOR era. Most of the sails were still in reasonable condition, as Walker regularly updated them.

Some parts of the interior such as the galley and the proposed icebox-cum-navigation desk are yet to be completed, which reflects Gray’s pleasure in bringing his craft to these details and ‘nibbling away’, as he puts it.
The restored Impeccable was relaunched in 2022 and retains its mooring off the Walkers’ house. Sailing under the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club burgee, she is now raced at a less intense rate than under Walker’s ownership.

The subtle flare in the topsides at the stern was a common feature of IOR boats of this era. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

“[John’s are] big shoes to fill and I don’t think I have the appetite to do 25 Hobarts,” says Gray, adding “but it does seem like the right bookend of the project to at least do one more.”

Impeccable specifications

LOA: 10.36m / 34ft 0in
Beam: 3.45m / 11ft 4in
Draught: 1.99m / 6ft 6in
Displacement: 4,045kg / 8,917lb
IRC Rating: 0.959 (2022)
Designer: Doug Peterson

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The post Extraordinary Boats: The Three Quarter Tonner ‘Impeccable’ appeared first on Yachting World.

“Go small, go cheap, go now,” famously said Lin and Larry Pardy, who sailed for decades aboard small engineless yachts they built themselves. For Don McIntyre, the restless mind behind the Globe 5.80, his newest race is an idea with simplicity and accessibility at its core.

And while his previous events – the Golden Globe Race and Ocean Globe Race – were ‘revival’ events that specified vintage designs to race in modern recreations of races from the 1960s and 1970s, the Mini Globe Race is an all-new concept that called for an all-new design.

“I just love little boats and big adventures,” he explained. “I’m not doing it for money. There is none! It will be a low impact and sustainable adventure for all those who choose to take up the challenge. Perhaps, where the comfort of a high standard of living we all aspire to is flat-lining, the Mini Globe will be a chance for individuals to define who they really are.”

While established rallies and races offer a high level of support, and boats can be built with an abundance of comfort and greatly increased levels of safety, the uptake of the Globe 5.80 challenge would suggest many are seeking out something more pared back to bare essentials.

Downwind the 5.80 can carry a 25.6m2 A3, or a 19.3m2 A5 asymmetric. Photo: MGR2025

The Mini Globe Race promises an adventure that will not only connect each participant – 15 skippers are currently bidding to qualify – with the challenge of ocean sailing, but also the experience of living very simply on each passage.

Many participants are not only racing, but have also built their 5.80s from a series of licenced plans and kits, adding another dimension to the challenge and a unique sense of satisfaction to each project.

Human scale

In a yacht that was created for single-handing from day one, there is a rare singularity to the design of the 5.80 that is striking as soon as you step on board. The rigging is slight, the sails small, the overall scale diminutive. Despite this, it works elegantly, and it’s not a huge leap to imagine a long ocean passage aboard.

Article continues below…

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At the helm, with the tiller extension in hand, skippers’ shoulders will still sit below the doghouse and there’s a surprisingly high freeboard relative to the length of the boat. Aft, one part of the yacht that appears almost overbuilt is the wind vane self-steering gear, the primary autopilot.

However, it’s when stepping down into the yacht – a surprisingly long way down – that you feel most at home. There are two well-sized bench berths, a navigation station, and a single burner. Forward, beyond a watertight bulkhead, is a large storage area.

Jack Johnson, winner of the 2023 Globe 5.80 Transat, hand steering at the Lanzarote start (without wind blade fitted and with servo pendulum blade out of the water). Photo: MGR2025

Unlike the Mini Transat 6.50 designs or other modern ocean racers, it doesn’t have a canting keel or even water ballast. Instead, it has a simple bulbed fin keel, a single, transom-hung rudder and
a standard aluminium rig of modest proportions.

Home built

While some yachts have been professionally built, a condition of the race is that all home-built yachts must document their build on a blog with photographs. “It’s important that the fun of the build can be seen, but more importantly it’s a mechanism to ensure yachts are being built safely, that’s why we’ve made it mandatory,” explains McIntyre.

A Globe 5.80 can be built from a set of plans available for a few hundred pounds, or from a plywood kit, which makes the project significantly simpler, while also reducing the number of tools the builder needs. In the UK the kits are supplied by Fyne Boat Kits in Cumbria. “Standardising the design, the components, and build process has many advantages. The cost is reduced and more easily estimated, but it’s also safer because at each stage we can ensure that the boat is built with sufficient strength,” McIntyre says.

High-visibility paint on the cabin sides and a raised coachroof (or observation dome) are specified in the 5.80 class rules. Photo: David Harding

Build times were estimated at around 500 hours when the kit was designed, and completed boats are matching up to that estimate. Most builders are outsourcing the build of metal parts and the keel, while some components, including the chain plates and stainless steel rudder fittings, must be ordered from the approved supplier for safety reasons.

There are component packages on offer, including spars from Seldén, though you can buy from elsewhere or even make your own rig if you prefer; a deck-hardware package (excluding winches) is available from Blue Shark in China, and a sail package by Quantum. The mast and boom can be home built (using extrusions of a specified size), along with the self-steering gear, though it’s envisaged most will use ready-built servo pendulum systems.

Watertight bulkheads and forward bulkhead hatches are a mandatory part of the design, along with a brightly coloured doghouse, which must have 360° vision.

Grab handles have to be fitted in specific places, but most of the rest of the deck hardware choices are down to the builder. Photo: David Harding

The three watertight areas of the 5.80 are designed to protect it in the event of a collision, and race organisers claim it is better placed in such an event than almost every other yacht ever built of its size. Additionally, builders can choose to add removable foam pieces to the hull with buoyancy in excess of the total weight to make the yacht ‘unsinkable’.

Personal goals

“I started building during lockdown and began by building a tent on my driveway,” explains home builder Peter Bumby.

“Initially some neighbours thought I was putting up some kind of Covid test centre on the driveway – since learning what I was really doing they have shown a lot of interest.”

A crew member on the 2013 Clipper Round the World Race, Bumby’s 5.80 build is not entered in the 2025 Mini Globe Race, but he has ambitions for his small yacht.

Access to the cabin is via a watertight hatch. It doesn’t make for easy entry or exit, but is one of many features designed to maximise safety. Photo: David Harding

“A really good friend I met on the Clipper was trying to persuade me to buy a boat with him, but sadly he passed away, so this is also a mechanism to have those big sailing adventures in his memory,” he explains.

“There was a lot that appealed about the design, it was obviously incredibly strong, something that’s become even clearer as it has come together. I’d say that I have average DIY skills and the learning part of building her has been tremendous. The 5.80 builder’s group on Facebook is a source of a lot of help and there is a great sense of community between builders across the world.

“My build has slowed, as I went back to work, but this year she will be completely watertight, at which point I can take the tent down.”

Building the 5.80 from plywood, Bumby explains, has also been a journey of discovery into the realities of home boatbuilding with only a basic level of skills and equipment. “You start off aiming for perfection, but as it progresses you realise that you are ultimately aiming to build something strong, then add strength with the fibreglass. It’s an exercise in building a tough boat to do a job, rather than something perfect.

Accommodation is basic and functional; raised coachroof aft gives good visibility from below decks; watertight hatch to forward compartment. Photo: David Harding

“Building the 5.80, as I move towards middle age, was an answer to feeling that I needed a project to get stuck into. I’m really glad I did it.”

The Globe 5.80 specifications

Hull length: 5.70m / 18ft 4in
Beam: 2.27m / 7ft 5in
Draught: 1.40m / 4ft 7in
Weight: 700kg / 1,543lb
Ballast: 220kg / 485lb
Sail area (main & jib): 20.1m2 / 216ft2
Kit price: From £4,145 (basic ply) to £9,115 (CNC’d sapele)
Designer: Janusz Maderski
Typical cost for a basic home-built boat (plans, hull kit, materials): £25,000–£30,000
More: classglobe580.com

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The post Extraordinary boats: The Mini Globe Race Globe 5.80 appeared first on Yachting World.

Charlie Dalin approached the 2024 Vendée Globe with a unique perspective. Dalin’s previous boat, Apivia (now Clarisse Cremer’s L’Occitane en Provence) was one of the benchmark IMOCAs of its generation. So fast, in fact, that it wasn’t until Dalin arrived in Les Sables d’Olonne in January 2021 that it became obvious just how hobbled Apivia had been, with a MacGuyver-esque arrangement of improvised stays supporting the port foil for 13,000 miles.

Dalin was first across the line in the 2020/21 race, though eventually finished 2nd after Yannick Bestaven received redress time for his part in the rescue of Kevin Escoffier.

So when it came to creating a boat for the 2024 race, his target was to try and improve on a design so quick that it had effectively dominated the Vendée Globe fleet while sailing at reduced performance.

“Apivia was a really good boat,” Dalin explained. “In almost any condition, it’s just an amazing boat. It’s easy to go fast and it’s easy to maintain a high speed. But the boat had a small weakness: running dead downwind with a big sea state. That was a bit complicated.”

Fellow Vendée Globe skipper Yoann Richomme went further. “The conclusion of the 2020 generation was that they were bloody fast, and the foils were improving all the time, but the hulls were awful in the way the bows were digging all the time,” he told us in Les Sables d’Olonne.

Designing and building Macif took a team of 50 people, over 20 months and 60,000 hours of work. Photo: Ronan Gladu/Disobey/Macif

For the 2024 IMOCA cycle the design evolution has mostly centred on two major areas of improvement: hull shape and ‘liveability’. The aim is to create a hull shape that can handle big seaways without the huge speed losses – and damage potential – of slamming and nosediving into waves, but maintain fast, smooth averages.

Meanwhile there has been an increased focus on the interior spaces and how the skippers can safely survive – let alone perform at their optimum – at the sustained high speeds and brutal motion of a foiling IMOCA. Across the fleet there has been an intriguing variation in how to solve these problems.

Moving the volume

To draw his new Macif, Dalin returned to work once again with legendary IMOCA designer Guillaume Verdier. Verdier’s wizardry is evident from first glance with Macif’s complex hull form. There is a lot going on here.

Macif’s complex hull form with wave deflecting strakes and chines running forward. Photo: Maxime Horlaville/Disobey/Macif

The overall shape is the first thing that’s most striking; long gone are the days when IMOCA transoms flared out to maximum beam. “Because of how we managed to harness the power of the foils, we realised that there was a possibility to make a narrower hull shape, especially on the transom. And because we really wanted to get rid of this nose-dive problem, we essentially moved the volume forward,” Dalin explains.

“So we got narrower at the stern and made the boat as wide as we could, according to the rules, further forward, to give it as much power as we could in the forward sections, to avoid the boat going down [the mine].

“We’ve also got a bit more rocker, so the boat can sit a bit higher naturally. It’s a more natural position for the boat to sit when you’re sailing downwind, but reaching is not so good. [Combined] with the width distribution, we got a smaller wetted surface area compared to Apivia, so it’s better all round. The first time we went sailing on the boat, I really felt like the boat was less draggy in the water.

“If you look at the bow, it’s vertical at the sprit, at the very tip. Then we’ve got a hard chine all the way forward.”

Richomme also observed that the lower chine helps Macif take off at lower angles of heel, and lower speeds, for earlier flight.

The curved, slightly convex deck shape is inherently stronger and also disperses water. Note the toerail/flanges are also structural. Photo: Maxime Horlaville/Disobey/Macif

A ‘drier’ ride

As well as a hard chine, there is a relatively deep ‘strake’, which helps wave deflection – keeping water off the bow and off the deck is key. Again, designers of the newest boats have tried to tackle this problem in different ways.

On Macif the deck has a slightly ‘gull-wing’ organic shape, rising to mounds on either side, with its higher freeboard also helping keep the bow out of the sea. Dalin says there are multiple gains to it: “Having a deck which is this shape gives it a natural rigidity. The water presses against it, and if it was flat, that would just break.

“It’s like the inside of a cardboard box; you find this little wavy pattern. This makes it more rigid naturally, so you can put in less carbon.

“The second reason is because you’re lower down in the middle of the boat, you’ve got smaller bulkheads as well. And also, you lower your centre of gravity on the deck.”

The hatches can be partially closed from the bottom to keep out deck water, from the top to protect against spray, or left fully open/closed. Photo: Guillaume Gatefait/Macif

Structurally, getting the sides of the deck to take some of the loads and bending forces is advantageous, as he explains: “Basically, you’ve got 20, 25 tonnes pushing on the mast step. Then you’ve got the runners at the back and the stays forward. So the boat wants to bend. Having the sides of the boat higher means that some of the efforts are running on the side part of the deck.”

And because every part of the boat has been thought through in enormous detail, what looks like a simple toe rail is also structural trickery.

“We’ve added this little flange on the bow. With this feature, the water is just evacuated to the side. And it helps the structure for sure – instead of having something that’s useless inside the boat, like a horizontal stringer, this is multi-purposed.”

The winches have been arranged so every sheet can be used on three out of four units. Photo: Guillaume Gatefait Macif

Cockpit evolution

The area where Macif most departs from the rest of the fleet is inside. Covered cockpits have become a huge trend, with everything from Ultims to Class 40s pulling protection further and further aft to keep skippers safer and drier. Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss was probably the most radical IMOCA of the last generation for this, with a completely enclosed cockpit. Thomson’s ‘living’ space was something of an afterthought though – with a combination of bean bag and chair wedged in.

Skippers have gone for different arrangements this time around, with a raft of solutions to create a protected navigation and sleeping area. Sam Goodchild and Sam Davies both have aft-facing reclining and canting chairs in a central companionway, so they can view their screens while hurtling along, and won’t get thrown forwards. Alan Roura, whose Hublot is the former Hugo Boss, has a reclined ‘double’ chair behind the cockpit aft bulkhead so he can sit or lie on either tack. Richomme’s cockpit is entirely covered, and has a forward-facing chair with mountain bike suspension (Davies’ seat also has suspension based on that used on RIBs).

Dalin has gone for a unique solution: a covered cockpit forward, with an even more protected living ‘pod’, which he calls the studette (or studio) aft. The whole premise is based on reducing movement – both for efficient ergonomics, and the more dangerous involuntary movement of being thrown around as the boat nosedives or falls off a wave.

Dalin’s customised bunk and deep foam mattress went through several iterations to perfect it for the Vendée Globe. It’s also the only IMOCA bunk with a sea view… Photo: Macif

The less energy Dalin spends on clinging on, or staying warm and dry, the more energy and focus he can spend on eking out every fraction of performance.

The spaces are intentionally small – just 5m2 – and the number of steps between each ‘function’ has been carefully thought out. It’s just 1.5m from his bunk to the chart table, and 1.5m from chart table to winch column.
To create the spaces, a 1:1 scale model of the cockpit, including articulated coffee grinders, and living pod was set up in Dalin’s team base at MerConcept, Concarneau, while the boat was built at CDK, Port la Forêt.

In the cockpit, he opted for four winches rather than five for reduced weight, but the team worked hard on finessing the ergonomics. “On Apivia, we had the four winches in a line. At the beginning we thought that was a good set up. We tried, but it was not really working well with the tunnels on Macif. This set-up is actually better.

“The jib sheets, J0, fractional, the runners… everything goes through these tunnels. And for all these sheets, we can use three out of the four winches.”

Charlie says that on the last Vendée even a simple act like filling up his jet-boil to make food involved frustrating, energy-sapping scrambles around the cockpit. This time everything has been packed into a compact space with everything Dalin needs in arm’s reach from his mission control chair, like the pilot’s seat in an aircraft cockpit. The main screen is repeated in both the cockpit and nav station also.

Built-in ventilation hatches – Dalin says that temperature management was a big problem in the last race. Photo: Guillaume Gatefait Macif

Ventilated

Keeping the water out is of essential importance, but Dalin emphasises that ventilation was also given a lot of focus. He has two access hatches on either side of the cockpit which have a three-way closure that can keep out water sweeping down the deck, spray from above, or be fully closed/open. There are also aft facing portholes that can be opened for ventilation, and air circulation has been built into the studette. Forward facing perspex ‘look outs’ offer visibility.

Both his bunk and chair went through several iterations. The bunk is lengthways in the compact space, with Dalin’s feet up against the forward bulkhead, and a deep custom-shaped mattress that might just be the most comfortable racing yacht bunk ever.

A 1:1 scale mock up of the cockpit and living area was created at the MerConcept team base. Photo: Macif

His chair was created after a 3D body mapping process and built to his exact shape. A window aft lets Dalin keep an eye on conditions outside as well as the mainsheet track. It also means his is, he believes, the only IMOCA to offer a bed with a sea view!

Enjoying the process

For Dalin, who is a trained naval architect, the process of designing and building Macif has been fascinating and he was closely involved in all areas. “It’s such an amazing, interesting part [of the campaign] because you take decisions every day that are programme-changing decisions. Once you hit the button of your hull shape, that’s it. You’re committed for four years.

The ‘nav station’ has a custom-built chair, plus lanyards and stow pockets dedicated to everything – from forks to headphones. Photo: Macif

“I had something to say on everything. The hull shape, foil case positioning… things that are not impossible to change, but are pretty fundamental, and extremely expensive and time consuming to move. I think we moved the foil cases just at the last minute!

“I always loved to think and rethink about it during the night. Then in the morning, I’d come up into the design office and say ‘I had an idea last night. Maybe it’s bad, but listen up, guys!’ Sometimes we keep it, sometimes we bin it.

“But it’s such a fun project, such a fun process. You are making a boat just as you want. As a naval architect, it’s something I really enjoyed, both for Apivia and Macif. It was really cool.”

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post The design secrets of Charlie Dalin’s Vendée Globe winning IMOCA revealed appeared first on Yachting World.

Zipping through the herd of mainly production family cruisers enjoying the sunshine on a picture postcard Sound of Mull at Scotland’s ever popular West Highland Week, the Cayman 28 Rooster is instantly recognisable as a wolf in, well, wolf’s clothing.

The low freeboard, slender hulled Mills-designed all-carbon sportsboat with its big bowsprit, powerful rig, large A-sail and crew on racks slides effortlessly past Duart Castle – ancient home of the marauding Maclean clan – on a passage race to Tobermory where a night in the infamous Mishnish bar awaits.

Cayman Islands-based Canadian businessman, Alex Laing. and his long-time crew of sailing mates might not be winning races on handicap but their huge smiles tell all you need to know about the Cayman 28 which he and Mark Mills brought to life.

Built by Code Yachts in Hungary, the boat was launched over a year ago. Designed specifically for what the Americans euphemistically call ‘skinny’ waters, particularly the shallow Inner Sound where Laing and his crew live and daysail in the Caymans, Rooster has yet to ruffle the locals’ feathers among the native fleet of J/22s which, let’s just say, Laing has grown out of.

So far Rooster has been raising eyebrows and bucket loads of interest at an eclectic itinerary of major races and events, which have taken the fancy of the Rooster team.

Designed to provide fast and safe fun, Rooster can easily maintain speeds of 20 knots and more. Photo: BrigiPix

A bit like the boat itself, the itinerary to date owes more to fun and indulgence than hard logic. Hence Oban, Tobermory and West Highland Week, where the magical scenery is the best cure for the hangover, in late July this year was the latest date on a tour which started after launching at Lake Balaton’s 155-mile 680-boat Blue Ribbon (which celebrates July’s full moon) and has taken in Lake Garda’s Centomiglia and Florida’s races between Miami and Key Largo.

A decision was still being mulled over as to whether to return Rooster back to Miami for this winter or to finally head to Grand Cayman and the Inner Sound.

The whole concept is to keep it in the container for hurricane season in the Caymans. Photo: BrigiPix

No rules

A lifetime sailor who grew up on the Canadian lakes, Laing is in the construction business. He took many years away from sailing to grow his business and enjoy his family’s formative years, but is now making up for what some might call ‘lost time’. He also has an Ice 52 called Goose and a share in the famous successful RP Maxi Capricorno, which he will race at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup this year. Then there are whispers of a bigger project with Mills, who he says he loved working with.

“The mandate was to sail in the Inner Sound of the Cayman Islands which has 5ft 6in controlling draught. And as the only boat going to be there it was not built to suit any rules. We wanted an easy boat to sail, off the dock, quick to go sailing. No hiking – such as you do in the main fleet in the Cayman Islands which are J/22s, and I just don’t enjoy sailing that boat.

Article continues below…

Extraordinary boats: Cape 31

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We did not want any runners or backstay, just easy easy. Typically we get 12-14 knots of wind and the boat really shifts in that breeze,” says a smiling Laing as he embraced the Highland hospitality.

Of choosing Mark Mills he says: “I knew of him. We’d never done this before and we asked around. We liked the Cape 31 and, I suppose, thought of a smaller, shoal draught Cape 31, or a shorter draught Melges. But we’ve always had the problem with a shoal version of something existing in that they don’t generally work.

“It was a really fun process. I am a contractor and build things, but I had never built a boat. This was very much an ‘eyes open’ way to build with a meeting every week to discuss everything. But don’t get me wrong – I have always thought there is no boat out there like this, because if there was I would have just bought that.”

Small winches are fitted to each rack, primarily for spinnaker trim. Photo: BrigiPix

Light loads, big speeds

The boat is all carbon including a pre-preg carbon keel fin and the transom-hung rudder which drops into a cassette. It all fits neatly and quickly into a 40ft container including the one-piece mast.

The rig by Axxon Composites owes more to a 49er, with no backstay and no runners. Primary adjustment is the forestay while the shrouds are on racks and pins with turnbuckles for easy fine adjustment.

All halyards are on locks which had to be custom made. The cockpit is super clean with no clutter. The original scheme had no sheet winches as the loads are generally light, but the little Karver snubber winches really make life easier. They’re mounted at the crew position on the racks, where bracing the legs against the gunwale gives considerable leverage.

Bowsprit length is 1.85m. The chines have some flare which gives upwards dynamic lift. Photo: BrigiPix

The boat is very stiff. Laing wanted to be able to daysail with family and friends for fun. Mills says there is righting moment to spare and a future boat could shed a little weight from the bulb. But the crew weight – in the case of the Rooster crew of four or five probably close to 400kg – adds considerable righting moment while the racks are very comfortable. You’re sailing high above the water and even in waves and chop it is dry and safe.

The cockpit floor rises slightly into the bow leaving a safe, protected working space which is good for sail handling. A retrieval line may be spec’d in the future but so far this is not a buoy racer so super-rapid drops are not a major priority. All the sails are by Doyle, chosen especially for their structured luff jib designs and supplied through Doyle Italy.

Downwind boat speeds are usually around 16-18 knots, the maximum record so far is 26 knots and the 28-footer will comfortably sit at over 20 knots for sustained periods in strong wind.

Slight concave to the topsides completes the look, racks slid to their ‘in’ position. Photo: BrigiPix

Out of the box

From opening the container doors to sailing is reckoned to be about 10 hours with occasional help from one or two people. The 1.4m racks slide in and out simply; dinghy-style. The boat drops onto the keel which is easily secured by a couple of big bolts. And rather than messing about with an outboard there is a small Lombardini inboard, a pragmatic choice for safety and simplicity.

The Cayman 28 price is marketed at around €165,000, which may sound a lot but Mills and Laing both point to the new Juan K ClubSwan 28 which is selling at around €200,000 all in and is built in reinforced glassfibre not all-carbon.

The cockpit is open and uncluttered, making it easy for crew to cross from rack to rack. Photo: BrigiPix

A second Cayman 28 is built and racing out of New Orleans by an owner who had a Cape 31 but found his sailing options inhibited by its draught. In contrast to the one-design Cape 31 or ClubSwan 28, the idea was never to go into full scale production with the Cayman 28. That said, it’s easy to imagine more Cayman Islanders might follow suit and a fleet might grow, but equally it would turn heads at the likes of the New York Yacht Club or Porto Cervo…

Cayman 28 specifications

LOA: 8.52m / 28ft 0in
LWL: 8.37m / 27ft 6in
Beam: 2.53-3.90m / 8ft 4in-12ft 10in
Displacement: 1100kg / 2,425lb
Draught: 1.67-1.92m / 3ft 7in-6ft 4in
Sail Area Main: 27m2 / 290ft2
Sail Area Jib: 19.46m2 / 210ft2
Sail Area Spinnaker: 84m2 / 904ft2

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Extraordinary boats: The Cayman 28 ‘a gentleman’s skiff’ appeared first on Yachting World.

If you could own any boat, what would it be? And just one? Does it exist, or would you have to create your own? What follows is no ordinary review, of no ordinary yacht nor owner, but a story about a particularly unique new vessel and the visionary owner behind it.

This 60ft daysailer is the latest commission by French businessman and serial boat owner Jack Setton. Those familiar with Setton’s yachts over the last few decades will know he is a pioneer who has owned a fleet of vessels ranging from a catboat to an ice-breaking tug. This latest carbon creation is the pinnacle of the purist ‘upwinder’ daysailers he has long been passionate about.

Setton has arguably done more for the innovation of boat design than any other individual enthusiast of our generation. He opened my eyes to the efficiency of certain craft when I sailed with him 12 years ago on his converted maxi catamaran Swift. So when he invited me out to Sardinia to sail his latest custom project, not only was it a chance to sail a finely tuned one-off yacht but also to learn from someone who has probably had a hand in designing or influencing most types of vessels we see today.

I could also witness how he typically daysails from his home, which very much affects his boat choices.

I came to appreciate that the more you understand the man and his mindset, the more you understand and respect the logic of the design. Setton long ago lost count of the number of boats he’s owned – some he keeps for years, some only days, as he is quick to realise their merits or weaknesses.

His business life started with marketing Pioneer car stereos, and grew to include real estate and one of the world’s most prized racing car collections. From this you may deduce he’s a perfectionist, but first let’s, meet his latest ‘daysailer’, the Judel Vrolijk-designed Jaro.

In full sail mode: a lot of canvas but just two sails that are push-button controlled. The bimini is architectural but sturdy and very welcome. Photo: Richard Langdon

A punchy introduction

Flying in over Sardinia’s ‘emerald coast’, you could tell it was seriously windy. Superyachts were hugging the coves, tucked into the cyan shallows to escape the worst of the Mistral which was tearing the sea to white caps offshore.

Walking down Porto Cervo’s dock further confirmed this, as sunbathing cushions were upended from monstrously large RIBs. Yet, as Setton greeted us, there was no question of whether or not we should go sailing – just how much to reef down by and how best to stay in contact with the photographer’s chase boat.

Here was a man who had complete faith in the design and ability of his yacht, and for good reason. He has spoken before about wanting a design capable of handling such lively conditions and the sharp Bonifacio chop typical of these waters.

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Jaro is the culmination of many of his previous daysailers, including his most recent 30ft Puja and 37ft Roljack (combinations of the designer’s name and Jack Setton). These descend from perhaps his most influential project, the 2010 Frers-designed Ciao Gianni, a stunning white 60ft daysailer much admired and imitated.

Jaro is the same length because Setton wanted her to compare to, and even improve upon, Ciao Gianni. She is also heavier with extra ballast, higher freeboard, and a classic sheerline to sail offshore. Setton’s custom daysailers all share this feature of a formidable ballast ratio (typically over 60%), to help power to weather without needing crew on the rail. And as he sails solo he keeps it simple with white sails including a self-tacking jib. The narrow hull shape equates to less wetted surface so if built light it should plane easily without needing larger headsails.

Designed for a solo pilot’s ease of use and pleasure. Photo: Richard Langdon

Within minutes we were out of the marina, the reefed sails set at the push of two buttons and we were into 25 knot winds, gusting to 40 over the deck.

Wow… what a missile! After being handed the helm immediately, it took only a couple of minutes to familiarise myself with the captive winch controls to quickly and confidently trim and sail solo. Under Setton’s calm instruction, I was soon filled with confidence in the boat as it’s remarkably stiff and reassuring.

Jaro boasts a unique combination of a light carbon hull but with excellent manners. We didn’t slam once, she just sliced through the waves, even when beating into 30-plus knots of true wind. The double-digit consistency of speed stuns: we clocked 15 knots reaching and maintained 12-14 knots for long periods. Cutting back upwind through a narrow pass between islands at 20-25° to the apparent wind, the dial didn’t drop below 9 knots!

We had both reefs in the main and put some furls in the jib when sailing upwind. While it didn’t feel near to being overpowered, I really appreciated how quickly you can dump the mainsheet via the captive remote switch, a critical feature in such conditions.

Jack and Toby enjoyed many a discussion on yacht design. Photo: Richard Langdon

I admit to being a little sceptical on seeing the designs and renders while Jaro was in build, as it has a quirky look, particularly the deck. However, within minutes of sailing it completely clicked – this is the culmination of a lifetime of design thinking and experience.

“The whole idea was how I could sail alone – and really sail alone – tack and gybe around the bay,” Setton explains. “My quest from the start was to find any boat in production that does that. The answer was no, so I was obliged to design them.” Ergonomics and safety always come first, he adds.

Setton has a skipper who maintains his fleet and readies his boats for him. Jaro and two more of his daysailers are berthed on the hammerheads of Porto Cervo, the prize positions in a billionaires’ carpark. His boats are the least ‘showy’, just efficient and fit for purpose. But he has shared his life between Sardinia and Virgin Gorda for decades, and really uses these boats, often two or three different vessels a day, his skipper Jimmy handing him the helm and disembarking as they exit the marina.

Reefed and ripping along: our first sail was a lively introduction to Jaro – her V-hull responded by cutting to weather with ease and without slamming. Photo: Richard Langdon

Wow again!

If our first sail was a clear proof of concept, our second outing, an early morning sail, with just Jimmy and I aboard in utterly perfect conditions, was an exhibition of the purity of its design. Jaro’s simplicity makes her inviting: hoist sails, square away line tails in deep bins aside two central winches, then it’s just you, the wheels and the winch remote controls.

The Harken winches are deliberately large so you can hoist the mainsail quickly in a breeze, while the lazyjacks are rigged wide through the centre of the spreaders to prevent the leech snagging.

“It’s a train!” the softly-spoken skipper remarked with a knowing smile as we headed upwind. He was spot on, Jaro is just so easily driven. In the lighter breeze, we matched the true wind speed to the decimal in the late single figures. Further north, we felt more of the Bonifacio breeze barrelling down from the north-west, where it rose up to the mid- to late-teens.

Spartan: impressive carbon grid structure around the mast and keel. Photo: Richard Langdon

Typically these days you might work your way uphill in such conditions, probably not all that comfortably, to earn yourself an offwind ride. Not so aboard Jaro. There’s as much pleasure going to windward, slicing up to weather like a knife at 20° to the apparent wind – thanks to having the equivalent of an army stacked on your rail in bulb ballast (minus the testosterone or race crew wage bill).

With full sail up it remained super light on the helm. The only movement needed here is to adjust the angle of the helmsman’s footplate on the camcleat, or the occasional nudge of the remote switches controlling the sheet captive winches.

Goes like a train

We then cracked off onto a fetch and the JV60 hit locomotive mode, spray flying off that leeward bow. Again we clocked over 15 knots, and again it was the consistency of high speeds that really hit home as we averaged around 13 knots for mile after mile. Remember, this is with white sails only and one of these is a self-tacking jib! Bear off another 30-40°, Jaro’s heel flattens off and you may feel like you’ve parked the boat… until you look at the speedo and notice she’s still doing over 10 knots. The waterline length just keeps doing its thing.

Only the central section around the engine box is painted white. Photo: Richard Langdon

This is such an addictively playful yacht. Sailing it was a privilege and highlight of my career. It could arguably benefit from a sprinkling more weather helm, but Setton wanted ‘the lightest helm in the world’. The ease with which you can trim from the wheel also makes you more active, attentive, and engaged, playing the angles more, trimming to the shifts. It’s all about pure helmsman’s fun.

Jaro is one of many of Setton’s custom creations by Multiplast, built like the yard’s renowned race boats using a vacuum-infused carbon hull and prepreg deck. The stainless steel keel fin, which submerges nearly 4m to carry that whopping 6.9 tonnes of ballast, goes right up through the hull to join at the deck for rigidity and ease of construction. There’s nothing below decks, no toilet even, it’s just structure.

The design is so slender, so minimalist, with no-frills, no gimmicks, just a low freeboard and very narrow beam.

Setton originally wanted an open hull like his previous 30-footer Puja, but the low single-level deck is more practical and helps provide the stiffness needed.

Jaro in her element. The wheels are positioned this far forward to manage the winches single-handedly and because Setton didn’t want to see anyone in front of him. Photo: Richard Langdon

The deck features a novel T-shape cockpit with two canvas stowage bags and that’s it – no swim platform, no benches, not even an anchor roller. Jaro’s purpose is to sail in and out of the marina – Setton has other boats for anchoring. There is a fairlead on the straight stemhead so an aluminium Fortress can be secured on a cleat there, but the minimalism shows his design mindset: this is how he uses his boat, so neither needs nor wants anything extra.

It’s evident how carefully this cockpit has been considered, from the ideal bimini height and perfect sitting-out positions, to the central winch and clutch set-up between the wheels. Everything points to how ergonomics and practicality always come first for Setton.

The robust sliding bimini structure is cleverly designed and built to offer shade in all conditions and winds – it slides fore and aft on Harken cars to protect the helm, or offer a full view of the main as it is raised or lowered.

The design borders on a utilitarian mentality in some instances, such as with the engine throttle control, which looks like it belongs on a dory from the 1990s and is at odds with the minimalist deck. Setton wanted it to be simple to use and easy to reach – a case in point being when we returned to the berth at full revs in reverse, only just making enough way against the gale to make the dock. The throttle and thruster controls need to be to hand at such times, he maintains.

It’s a focussed approach, but the result is close to perfection. Photo: Richard Langdon

A central hatch opens to reveal steps into the ‘interior’. This midships section houses the engine and battery boxes, LED strip lights illuminating the carbon carcass while fabric satchels hanging on the hull sides are the only superfluities. No-one will spend any time down here, it’s too loud and spartan. The rest is bare hull only, including the mighty structural framework around the keel trunk and mast step.

“It looks like a simple boat but it was a very intense, very special project,” Rolf Vrolijk told me. He added that it had much owner input, combined with Setton’s “particular upwind-oriented way of using the boat”.

Distilled enjoyment

We were off the dock at 0745 and back for brunch late morning having had a more rewarding experience than I would normally get in days of sailing. It’s all about concentrating the pleasure for one person, really efficiently using any time afloat, something Setton has got down to a fine art. It’s a focussed approach, narrow-minded even, but the result is close to perfection for him.

Later, Setton and I took his 10-year old JV36 Roljack out for a spin, which really helped me to understand Jaro’s evolution. It’s a similar style (albeit with flatter aft ends), with low freeboard and a flush deck with just a central well.

Setton doesn’t use offwind sails because he considers them a practical complication when solo sailing for their comparatively small angle of use. Photo: Richard Langdon

Again, Roljack lets its performance speak louder than its looks. It’s another rocket to sail, especially upwind and fetching in the bay, where we weaved around the megayachts, touching double figures with just the main and self-tacking jib hoisted. And with a similar uber high ballast ratio as Jaro, it slices to weather, giving a similarly intoxicating helming experience, but this time on a lighter tiller-steered daysailer with less complexity. Sensational.

“It gives the feeling of a pure race boat but without needing the crew,” Setton pointed out in response to my beaming grin. The helm position is also about the best I’ve come across. Using simple canvas backrests (Setton designed), you sit with your legs fully extended over the deck to the foot brace, as if perched in a dune chair. Combined with remotely operated reversible winches each side you can adjust trim with one hand while helming.

Loving the process

One of the reasons Setton has had so many custom yachts is the enjoyment he gets from the design process, working with a naval architect to tailor-make a vessel to his exact requirements. The reward is when they come alive.

Helming Jaro is a money-can’t-buy experience and yet, ironically, Setton’s custom creations are hard to sell. He admits they aren’t always attractive, and knows he’ll lose big money on them, which is a frustration.

Tan colour continues inside the bulwarks showing the sheer rising to the bows. Photo: Richard Langdon

Jaro is a purist helmsman’s daysailer – built for a driver, it’s all about the ergonomics and driving experience. Being light on the helm and seakindly is crucial. “It’s like cars – if the steering is heavy, the pleasure goes away,” Setton comments.

So which was the best racing car he drove? “The 1975 Niki Lauda Ferrari,” he answers without hesitation – “that’s the only one I wanted to drive on my race track, for its perfect ergonomics. And it’s the same here. Ergonomics are so important.”

Yes, Jaro is a crazy amount of money for a toy kept in one of boating’s glamour capitals. But for someone with Setton’s means and lifestyle, someone who absolutely lives and breathes for the joy of helming and daysailing, you can appreciate how he reached this purity of paired back design through decades of trial and error.

There’s perhaps no other yacht in existence that sails upwind so easily, so efficiently, so ruthlessly in the hands of a single pilot. For a boat testing nerd, this was my version of driving a classic F1 Ferrari on a private race track!

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Granted, it’s a novel-looking shape, but why all the fuss I wondered as a crowd formed around the transom of the Cape Cod 767 in La Rochelle? And then as I took in the numerous clever features being demonstrated on deck I began to understand the interest. The 767 packs plenty of new ideas into a 25ft daysailer and is certainly worth a closer look – or a sail if you can.

Unearthing a genuinely different design is a highlight of being longterm members of the European Yacht of the Year scheme. A fellow jury member nominates a design we’ve never heard of (typically French) and we get to sail a yacht we might never otherwise stumble across.

Given its particularly modern and quirky design, including the pronounced reverse sheer and chines, you may also find it surprising to learn that the Cape Cod 767 hails from a yard more used to building classical-style boats.

Hervé Nollet is the Rosewest yard’s founder and designer. Following design school in Paris and 25 years running an industrial design agency, Nollet drew a neo-classic daysailer for himself 20 years ago. Demand from friends grew this into a small series production, the Cape Cod 896, of which 30 have now launched. One glance at this daysailer, with its gorgeous traditional sheer, elegant counter and large oval cockpit, helps explain where the brand name comes from – it befits that New England sailing lifestyle.

The link with that yacht and the starkly different, contemporary Cape Cod 767 is that they’re both shoal draught daysailers that are easy to manage, with large cockpits, modern appendages and rigs. The Cape Cod 767 ramps up the ease factor: it’s easier to sail fast, with an integral centreboard that makes it easy to beach or trail, and you can rig it single-handedly.

The novel 767 trailable daysailer, with its large cockpit and surprising space under the foredeck, is easy and reactive to sail, particularly with the furling gennaker. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/imacis.fr/EYOTY

An ideas boat

The concept is a sporty daysailer, yet a fun, spacious boat that can be trailed (it weighs just over a tonne).

It’s clearly a design that suits fair-weather sailing and has a cockpit to entertain plenty for its size, while its raft of clever features has inspired many positive comments on Yachting World’s YouTube channel.

For starters, there is the ease with which it can take to the shallows. The kick-up rudder pivots on a single point on its casing head. At first glance I thought this was some sort of wind vane, until I got closer and saw it was the blade in its fully vertical ‘docked’ position.

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The 350kg swing keel uses hydraulic power to raise it from 1.8m to just 22cm at the push of a button by the throttle control. It takes 20 seconds to lift, and it has an inbuilt fuse so will automatically raise if you hit the beach too quickly.

When you are beaching, you want to be able to both lift the outboard and use maximum cockpit space. The retractable outboard – an electric Torqeedo or 5hp petrol – is offset to one side to avoid the rudder and mounted on a hingeing bracket. This lifts and rotates inboard directly into a cockpit locker. A box then seals the transom slot for when sailing.

Hulls and decks are infused polyester, with composites all designed and built in-house. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/imacis.fr/EYOTY

Telescopic swim steps also retract neatly into the transom, while another large cockpit locker in the sole swallows fenders and gear.

How to include a table large enough for the numerous guests the cockpit can host? The solution on the Cape Cod 767 is recessed into the cockpit sole and raises up on X-legs (like an ironing board). Similarly, cockpit cushions with folding backrests are built into the benches, so you can choose to have these raised for support or flush to the side decks.

The swing keel weighs 350kg and raises hydraulically at the push of button. It will also lift automatically if beached. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/imacis.fr/EYOTY

When I arrived for a sail on the Cape Cod 767, the rep was having a siesta on the foredeck sunpad, the hatch raised to act as a reclining position. But the real surprise lies beneath here in a forepeak area that is spacious enough to accommodate two single berths and a chemical heads. Admittedly there’s no natural light and it’s more a space meant for stowage (Nollet says his clients are as likely to sleep on their boat as in their car), but it shows how the full bow has been put to good use.
Neat features abound, including the Seasmart recessed fittings on deck for attaching blocks easily or clipping on fenders one-handed and the cup holders in the tiller.

The Cape Cod 767 can be launched and rigged without needing a crane and comes with an aluminium mast with an option for carbon. A single Torqeedo battery provides two hours motoring at max speed (9.7km/h) and powers the keel. It can be recharged from the dock or taken home.

The large table is recessed into – and forms part of – the cockpit sole. It raises up on X-legs. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/imacis.fr/EYOTY

Reactive sailing

The Cape Cod is not just an ideas platform, it offers easy, fun sailing too. It’s designed to be narrow and flat enough to trailer, yet Rosewest has kept the composite build light and slippery. The single rudder proved nice and responsive, allowing you to feel each small increase in wind strength (we clocked 5-5.5 knots upwind and 7+ knots offwind).

The jib is on a curved track and can be sheeted inboard using the windward block, which is useful considering the full-bodied shape of her forward ends. The purchased mainsheet is controlled using a central ratchet block. You can also attach a block and tackle to this to aid fine trim and sheeting to windward.

The forepeak area below contains two berths, a large amount of stowage and a chemical heads. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/imacis.fr/EYOTY

Unfurling the gennaker is fuss-free with the furler line led underdeck and controlled from the pit. This reaching sail helped the Cape Cod 767 come alive and prove reactive to sail. You can cross sheet easily to trim all sails from the windward side. I’d look at fitting a simple tiller clamp so you could leave it locked off centrally while sailing solo and attending to the sails.

The helmsman has sturdy foot chocks and the natural place to sit at heel is up on the windward deck. But in heavier seas or winds you’d want more security in higher backrests. As it is there are no rails, an open transom, and little to keep you in the cockpit (or on the foredeck). And it could get a little wet in a seaway, which is why I consider it a design for calm weather (it’s RCD Cat C/four people).

But for a fun sail across to a beach or island to anchor up with friends for lunch and a swim, the Cape Cod offers a relishing prospect. Extraordinary? Perhaps not, but it’s certainly different and full of original features, which certainly got our attention!

Cape Cod 767 specifications

LOA: 7.67m / 25ft 2in
Beam: 2.54m / 8ft 4in
Draught: 0.22-1.8m / 0ft 9in-5ft 11in
Light displacement: 1,100kg / 2,425lb

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Designed by Olin Stephens in 1938, at 72ft LOA Baruna was at the top of the size limit permitted by the Cruising Club of America (CCA) to race offshore. The year of its launch, Baruna took part in and won the biennial 635-mile Newport Bermuda offshore race, creating a storm of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic. Olin was the navigator, and Baruna got in eight hours ahead of the next boat.

Seven years previously Olin and his brother, Rod, with their crew had won the 1931 Transatlantic Race, as well as that year’s Fastnet Race in their revolutionary new 52ft (15.8m) yawl Dorade. Olin was then just 23, and America was so pleased with him, his crew and his design that they got a ticker tape parade in New York on their return.

Sparkman & Stephens, Olin and his brother’s company, went on to dominate yachting, from the early Corinthian days of the 1930s to designing six out of the seven successful 12-Metre America’s Cup defenders between 1958 and 1980. Dorade was followed by a series of highly successful yawls, including the famous Stormy Weather (1934). Olin was a rules-beating designer over a wide range of developing hull shapes, but when I interviewed him at the age of 80 in 1998 he maintained that Dorade and her type of hull and rig were still the best mix of speed and seaworthiness for sailing and racing offshore.

While these yawls are all slightly different and vary in size they can nevertheless be considered as a kind of special class boat. Being superbly comfortable and stable at sea they remain very popular with yachtsmen who want a great seaboat. This year at Les Voiles de Saint Tropez the Rolex Trophy was awarded for the yawls – 12 raced, of which seven were S&S designs, including Baruna.

Fully restored, Baruna is a slippery hull that requires up to 20 crew on deck to maximise performance. Photo: Kos

Tech test bed

Baruna was built at Quincy Adams yard in Massachusetts for the New York textile agent Henry C Taylor, with a twin skin of mahogany over cedar planks on oak frames. Taylor, an ex-wartime naval officer who served his country in both World War I and World War II, wanted a large yacht within the CCA rules to race offshore. But he also wanted a comfy cruising boat for his family. He’d gone to S&S and ordered her after spending a bumpy family night aboard his yacht in Massachusetts Bay; Taylor told Olin it was a matter of either giving up cruising altogether or getting a better boat.

The boat went on to win the Newport-Bermuda race again in 1948 – booming along at nine knots with Henry’s oldest son, Stillman, in command. Taylor owned Baruna, notching up a distinguished racing record, until 1953 when he was nearly 60. The yacht then went to California.

Baruna’s long-term owner on the west coast was Jim Michael who, in partnership with Tim Moseley, formed the Barient winch company. Moseley was a fellow S&S fan, owning the 1938 cutter Orient, and the company was named after compounding the names of their yachts. Both boats were used for the development of deck hardware, especially winches and pedestal grinders, or innovative running backstay drums.

Work begins on dismantling Baruna to see the full extent of how much timber needs to be replaced. Photo: Kos

Pieces of wood

Tara Getty had wanted to buy Baruna since 2009. “We were looking for a suitable yacht to restore. But back then Baruna’s owner wanted something like $2m in gold bars delivered to a place in Mexico and we were never going to do anything like that. We ended up buying Skylark at the end of 2010. And she has been a great boat.” Skylark is also an S&S yawl, a 53ft (16.3m) LOA 1937 design, which Getty also restored.

“But then in 2015 Baruna was for sale at a much better price,” he recalls. “I think it was $200,000 which is about the right price to pay for a few pieces of wood.”

At the time Baruna was languishing at Marina del Rey in Los Angeles, California, and when Getty’s long term Australian captain and shipwright, Tony Morse, went to pay for her he found she was dilapidated. “Lifting up the floorboards you could see the water coming in. And the pumps were running continually to keep up with it,” he says. “There were no headsails and it looked like the mast was going to go through the bottom of the boat – especially if you put any pressure on it. We could motor her but not sail her.”

The new planking, with yellow cedar above the mahogany, is in place under Baruna’s new frames. Photo: Kos

Baruna was moved by ship, first to Fort Lauderdale and then to the Robbe & Berking yard in Flensburg, Germany, which has a very high reputation for restoring wooden yachts. Robbe & Berking did the hull, and at first it was thought the team could preserve some of the timber, but Morse, who was project lead under Tara Getty, found that every frame, apart from some in the forepeak, was cracked under the bilge stringer.

“We had thought we could keep some of the original material, but as we started, we realised that almost everything would have to be changed out,” Morse says. “Plus there’s the problem that if it isn’t in good enough condition now then you’ll end up redoing it anyway in three years’ time.”

Work began with replacing the frames, laminating in new ones in white oak (as Baruna had originally) before the work of replacing her planking could begin. The double skin hull was replaced with mahogany planks outside a skin of yellow cedar. The cedar, all from one tree, saves weight but is only used from the sixth strake up to the strake below the sheer. The planks were fitted over the oak frames, in a style of a careful restoration. The sheer clamp, beam shelf and bilge stringer, all structurally vital, are made of Douglas fir from Oregon. In many places aboard, the hull structure is fully visible.

Wedges in place prior to dropping off the lead ballast keel, which appeared in remarkably good condition for its age. Photo: Kos

Morse was able to source an original builder’s plan which he used – and needed – to recreate the detail of the 1938 boat, especially where some material or joinery had gone missing over the years. To hear him and Getty talking about the work it sounds more like they were restoring the Mona Lisa. Asked how much it might have cost Getty says “It’s too much to mention,” before adding: “Let’s just say she is by far the most expensive 72ft boat ever built, modern or old.”

On the move

When the hull was finished Baruna was trucked to VMG Yachtbuilders at Enkhuizen in the Netherlands for her interior to be fitted. Even though VMG made a full-size model of much of the boat to see how all the installations could fit into it, craftsmen were challenged by the nature of a 1938 hull which had been restored with the original imperfections of the Quincy Adams yard replicated, with brand new materials.

The 100ft hollow main-mast is built of pieces of spruce that were sonic-tested to measure their elasticity. Photo: Kos

The modern way of working is to design using CAD drawings and then make things in a workshop before bringing them on site to fit. But Baruna is not completely symmetrical and so making something like a water tank for one side of the boat and then fabricating its mirror image for the other side created several headaches for specialists unfamiliar with traditional methods, such as making spiling patterns.

Some 18 people were employed on the project with some craftsmen coming from Southampton Yacht Services in Hampshire, and naval architect Andre Hoek also consulted on the restoration.

Interior fit-out is traditionally sumptuous, but systems are fully up to date. Photo: Kos

Gleaming finish

Baruna’s deck is swept teak with her teak deckhouses varnished in one-pack Epifanes, while the two-pack system is used for all the mahogany and joinery below. Her hollow main-mast was designed by Jim Gretzky, of Sail Spars Design in Connecticut, and then built of spruce by Ventis at Enkhuizen.

Morse says the 150hp engine, generator and watermaker are all as low as possible. The 950lt of fuel are carried in two main tanks plus a day tank. Water capacity is 540lt, with the watermaker able to produce 150lt an hour.

With Getty’s in-depth restoration knowledge of his motor vessels Talitha (1930) and Bluebird (1938), and the S&S yawl Skylark (1937), together with Morse’s undoubted appetite for detail, the project became highly specialised with every single piece of equipment or fitting being of bespoke design and make. Thus even the below-decks nickel-plated door handles and striker plates for the doors’ latch bolts are unique (nickel is the typical material for metal fittings on mahogany in traditional yachts).

Baruna has a suit of Dacron sails for Classic CIM racing. Photo: Kos

Race pace

Baruna has a suit of 3Di North Sails for IRC racing as well as Dacron for classic CIM racing. Since her relaunch in late 2023 she has been put through her paces racing in classic fleets at Antibes, Argentario and Les Voiles de St Tropez, where she scored two podium places. The 1938 design also took on the moderns at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2023 in Porto Cervo, where Baruna averaged 9.6 knots over a 38-mile course in 9-ish knots of breeze.

Getty reports that he has got the boat he wanted, since the project began all those years ago, though notes that it is still early days to be getting the best from her. However, he maintains that tacking is a joy, she never gets stuck in stays and the sense of balance on the helm when trimmed is superb and much better than Skylark.

Baruna’s aft cabin retains the twin bunks layout Stephens designed, a surprisingly ascetic choice, though made slightly larger for comfort. Photo: Kos

Baruna sails with up to 20 crew on deck, four of them professional, and Getty and Savage, his tactician, have noticed that the yacht is not losing VMG while tacking.

“We have cameras on the mast and deck and we are running Expedition software during races,” Savage explains. “And interestingly the boat speed drops down and picks up again but the VMG line stays flat.”

Effectively the boat is being carried to windward by her weight in these conditions. “So that changes the strategy hugely,” Savage continues, “it means you can pop a tack in without worrying about it. In fact, provided you are up to speed, it can benefit you to tack.”

One of Baruna’s hatches in early morning light after rain, note the protected mushroom vents and blanked off dorade (cowl) vent. Photo: Kos

Baruna’s hull and deck gear have been designed to take the full loads of her powerful rig as she was restored to be capable of racing or cruising offshore. The team has been able to push the yacht hard early on, sailing upwind with a full flattened main in 29 knots true wind.

“She’s a rocket ship. Beautifully balanced with mizzen lowered, the board [centreboard, original] deployed giving zero degrees of weatherhelm, pointing high, slippery as hell,” comments Savage on sailing her fully pressed.
Getty envisages cruising her in the south of France before perhaps taking her to the Caribbean. “Then of course,” he says, “the Newport Bermuda Race is calling…”

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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One thing you should do is take your watch off. If you start looking at your watch you’re going to do your head in!” said Sean Langman, owner and skipper of the diminutive 91-year-old Maluka. He’d been asked, just days prior to competing in the 50th edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race, how best to approach an ocean race in a boat of this nature.

Langman, who still races Sydney Harbour 18ft Skiffs and has competed in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race in supermaxis, knows better than most the importance of changing mindset when switching from super fast grand prix yachts to a gaff-rigged classic.

“The goal is to just keep her trundling along. Don’t try and sail too high, just keep getting water under the keel and staying on a making leg,” he says about racing Maluka, which typically sails at much the same speed upwind as downwind.

As the smallest yacht in the 2023 race at 30ft (9.01m) – and indeed the oldest boat to complete this famous ocean race – Maluka boxed well above her weight, dealing handsomely under two reefs and a staysail with the first day’s brutal upwind conditions and going on to win IRC Division 4B.

Maluka’s pace is modest at best, and when Langman answered a journalist’s question some years ago on how she’d sail when up against a super maxi like Wild Oats XI, he answered: “We can go about five to six knots into the wind, whereas a boat like Wild Oats XI may do 10 or 11 knots. With the wind behind us we may still do about five knots, yet they may be doing 25 knots!”

Maluka was built in 1932 for the Clark brothers, wealthy graziers from New South Wales, who used her to cruise Australian waters extensively. They enjoyed many adventures, including a successful voyage from Sydney to Hobart (after an earlier attempt saw them being blown onto rocks), some 10 years before that challenging passage became today’s renowned race.

Maluka competing in the 2022 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

An emotional attachment

The yacht was conceptualised by amateur yacht designer Cliff Gale, assisted by naval architect AC ‘Archie’ Barber. He was also the designer of Rani, the first winner of the Sydney Hobart race in 1945, and ‘the unsung hero of Australian yacht design’, according to Langman.

Maluka’s distinctive raised deck design and robust construction in Tasmanian Huon pine led to a series of similar designs during the 1930s, collectively known as the Ranger class. A number of these still race regularly on Sydney Harbour.

For Langman there is a strong emotional tie to this class, as his father owned a Ranger called Vagrant, built a year after Maluka, which he sold when Langman was 12.

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“I cried for a month and said I’d get it back one day,” said Langman. At the age of 30 he did just that, and restored her to her former glory. Vagrant still sits on a mooring off Langman’s Noakes Boatyard in Sydney.

“I look at her and say to myself: that’s all I really need. The other 37 boats I’ve had probably were a mistake!”, says Langman with a laugh.

Maluka was in a sorry state when Langman purchased her in 2005, subsequently restoring her from top to bottom with the team at his yard, over an estimated 10,000 hours.

The planking and decking were kept and reused, but to meet the stringent American Bureau of Shipping scantlings that Langman wanted to achieve for racing the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, he tasked renowned naval architect Andy Dovell with the required engineering.

The cockpit was too large and deep, so the raised deck was extended one frame further aft and the cockpit sole was raised, resulting in one unplanned upside,

“It opened up these massive aft bunks – just glorious” says Langman with a big smile. “It’s now got a 9ft long quarter berth with a very thick cushion. And I bought new pillows!

“The rule actually pushed the boat into a place to make it much better. She’s a little truck now, she’s very strong.”

Sean Langman (left) and some of his crew shortly before this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race start. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Langman’s commitment to the traditions of classic yacht building is also matched by a practical approach to the use of contemporary design elements which make the boat more user-friendly and comfortable to race.

Notable among these additions is the recent replacement of the boat’s engine with a lighter and smaller Nanni 3.8 diesel engine. The mainsail sheet now has a winch pedestal, while the sails and rigging have been redesigned to allow a more effective combination of headsail and spinnakers. A babystay allows her to be sailed triple-headed.

The wood-like painted spars disguise a carbon fibre mast and an aluminium boom. Note the winches and cleats at the mast for the main halyard and reefs. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

The Doyles/McDiarmid sail wardrobe is modern in its intent too, with three downwind sails comprised of a Code 0, an asymmetrical and symmetrical spinnaker. Headsails include a yankee, working jib set on the end of the bowsprit, staysail and storm jib.

Although none of these contemporary additions seem to impinge in any way on Maluka’s classic looks, there are some aspects of a boat of this vintage that simply can’t be updated.

“You know you’re sailing when you’ve got to put a block and tackle on the tiller to change direction in heavier airs. not because it’s got weather helm, but because there’s no balance in the rudder,” says Langman.

Original charm

With the exception of the necessary modern navigational equipment and instruments, Maluka’s interior retains its original character too. Traditional lanterns, a brass-cased barometer, hardwood timber cabinets, various race winning plaques, a white-painted, planked timber deckhead and round portholes all lend Maluka’s cabin the air of a reassuring and cosy retreat when the conditions get challenging on deck.

RORC worked with the Maluka team to consider if the jib set at the end of the bowsprit could be considered a flying jib (as per traditional working boats). In the end it was deemed a working jib. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

The only practical way for Maluka to be transported to Europe for the Rolex Fastnet Race was aboard a ship that was carrying two New Zealand Navy vessels being sold to the Irish government and delivered to Cork. The result was that Maluka sailed a large part of the Fastnet Race course in reverse to reach the Solent from the south coast of Ireland a week before the race.

Langman said they drew a number of helpful lessons from that journey, but the most significant learning for the skipper was: “It’s perfect for small draughted boats in this part of the world. There are many beautiful rivers and they all have beautiful English pubs. I’ve had a great time!”

The eclectic selection of acquisitions in the cabin – including mounted postcards from Maluka’s delivery journey up England’s west coast – add colour to her traditional interior. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

A cruise to Iceland is also on the cards. So it’ll be a while before Maluka is back in Australian waters.

When asked why, having competed in fast yachts for years, he has returned to racing a classic yacht, Langman turns philosophical for a moment.

“I think a lot of what it’s about is the inner child. It’s where you started and for me this is where I cut my teeth, sailing these boats with my dad. It’s gold! Pure joy, that’s what it’s about.”

A shot from Maulka’s past. Photo: Australian National Maritime Museum Collection

The history of Maluka

Maluka was built in 1932 for bachelor brothers, William and George Clark, who wanted to enjoy their retirement from farming. After first using her to potter and fish round Sydney Harbour they started to plan more adventurous cruises. One early photo shows her in an idyllic anchorage up the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney.

In 1933, they spent five months sailing to North Queensland, encountering heavy weather that proved Maluka’s seaworthiness and gave them confidence to go even further. So in 1934 they sailed to the remote Lord Howe island in the Tasman Sea.

Their third voyage didn’t go well. While sailing south of Eden after Christmas in 1935, they encountered a southerly gale. The three crew hove to for days, eventually lashing the tiller so they could go below and rest.

What they didn’t realise is that the strong current had been sweeping them south along the coast of Victoria and in the early hours they grounded off Cape Conran.

A series of waves pushed them higher over the rocks until Maluka came to rest, high and dry, on her starboard side, clear of the waves and with relatively little damage.

Maluka specifications

LOA: 9.01m / 30ft 0in
Beam: 3.18m / 10ft 5in
Draught: 1.71m / 5ft 7in
Mast height: 9.10m / 30ft
Displacement: 7.5t / 16,535lb
Mainsail: 46m2 / 495ft2
Downwind sail area: 130m2 / 1,400ft2
Upwind sail area: 69m2 / 742ft2
IRC Rating: 0.868

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Californian sailor Terri Nelson likes nice things. One of her pet peeves, she tells me from her home in San Diego, is that even when checking into luxe hotels, as a wheelchair user she misses out on some of the finer design elements that other guests enjoy.

So it’s no surprise that when she commissioned a custom-designed trimaran, one of the key briefs was that it should not look like an adaptive boat. Instead it needed to combine performance, style, and a certain luxuriousness: a tough brief.

Terri Nelson had sailed for much of her adult life, initially on Hobie Cats, then Catalina 30s, and bareboat chartering with friends all over the Caribbean. Always highly active despite her limited mobility, she enjoyed adaptive snow skiing and, as she puts it, “trying almost everything except parachuting”. For many years she used crutches to get about on land, and found the confines of a cockpit relatively easy to manoeuvre herself around in. After Nelson became a parent she began using a wheelchair more frequently. Her love of sailing never waned, however, and once her daughter had grown up she began to mull the idea of building a custom boat that would be fully wheelchair accessible.

“One day I thought, it’s either now or never. So I looked up who the local marine architects were, and I decided to drive down to Shelter Island and just see if there’s a parking place, because that’s important to me. Sure enough, there was a place right in front of Reichel/Pugh’s office.”

The spontaneous trip led to a meeting with the Reichel/Pugh design team, and the concept of Trinity was born.

Trinity is optimised to perform well in light winds, with Nelson planning to race locally in San Diego. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

“When she came to us, neither one of us had any idea what this boat would look like,” recalls Jim Pugh of Reichel/Pugh. “But it evolved from discussions with her about her past sailing – her experience was on monohulls – and we sort of discussed and sketched up some different concepts. A trimaran offered good feel and sensation while being very stable and sailing at low angles of heel, which is pretty important.”

There are few fully adaptive sailing yachts in existence – the catamaran Impossible Dream was an early reference point, but the design quickly set off in a different direction. “I wanted to race, so Trinity is called a cruiser, but I consider it a performance cruiser,” explains Nelson. “I wanted it all. And Tony [Beale, senior naval architect] at Reichel/Pugh knew that.”

Article continues below…

“That was quite a big challenge,” says Jim Pugh. “Incorporating that accessibility combined with aesthetics and performance, and designing a beautiful yacht was a top priority for her and for us. We wanted to incorporate a design that had the graceful curves and proportions that Reichel/Pugh designs are known for, without compromising that accessibility.”

Trinity is constructed of carbon and foam core with light weight being a key objective, and was built at New Zealand Yachting Developments in Auckland. ‘We had to initially do a very extensive weight study – like you have to with any design, but we didn’t have a lot of comparable data for a design like this,” says Pugh. “Doing that weight study early, and tracking and monitoring the weight through the design and build, allowed us to evaluate decisions as the project went forward and through construction.”

The layout is designed to maximise both usable and wheelchair accessible space. The entire main deck is accessible, including a cockpit forward of the main saloon, the helm stations, and the aft deck, while Nelson’s master cabin and heads are also on the same level. An automated sliding door to the master cabin creates an open plan living area. The (non-adaptive) guest cabins are located down in the ama hulls, along with a second head, with machinery space below in the central hull and a sail locker in the forepeak.

Owner Terri Nelson taking the helm during sea trials in Auckland. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

Access all areas

Full-width retractable doors that slide flush into the bulkhead create a single level area between the main saloon and aft cockpit as well as creating a sense of spaciousness.

The helming and sailing controls are also designed to be entirely accessible to Nelson from her wheelchair, with multiple helming positions: two outboard helm stations, and a third inside forward. “We designed some steering stations and then the yard [in New Zealand] actually built versions of them and sent them up to [California], with the wheel and everything. We had them in our office so that Terri could come in and try them,” recalls Pugh.

Flush sliding doors create a single level space between main saloon and aft cockpit. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

The interior helm station sits next to an inside cockpit area with control lines led under shelter. Overhead windows provide sight lines for sail trim. The mainsheet is hydraulic with an in-boom furling main, furling jib and fully powered winches for push-button control.

The controls are designed so that, in time, Nelson will be able to sail with a high degree of autonomy. “I’m not there yet because it’s still a learning curve for me. I haven’t sailed for a really long time, and this is all new, and I have to figure out how I’m doing things,” she explains. “I’m not a skipper right now, I’m learning the boat, so I’ve got a skipper, and she’s really good. I’m going to gradually get more and more responsibilities, but it’s set up for me to go everywhere.

“Everything is push button. And everything else is [controlled] on an iPad – so the hatches open and close, right down to the screens and the shades.” The powered systems which control the doors, hatches and blinds are integrated into the boat’s C-zone system.

The mast base cockpit area with powered winches and push-button controls allows all sails to be adjusted from a protected internal position. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

One of the key accessibility goals was for Nelson to be able to board the yacht on her own. Hull topside doors aft open to create an adjustable height boarding platform and ramp for access to and from the dock. “Getting off and on is really important, and I want to do it myself. I told them, ‘Make it so that I can go by myself.’ I won’t, I know that – mainly because I can’t dock her. Though I even looked into fenders that kind of go in and out of the hull, but really, you still need somebody else to tie up.”

Besides the access ramp there is also a lowering platform on the transom that Nelson can swim from, cunningly disguised as an aft cockpit seat, and bearing no resemblance to a conventional swimming pool hoist. “The middle of the rear of the boat has the teak seat. You sit on it and it will lower into the water or lower me into the dinghy – but you wouldn’t know that,” she says.

The inside forward helm station is designed for excellent visibility with curved windows outboard and glass panels in the roof. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

Custom details

The interior is by Design Unlimited. Designer Nigel Jones explains: “The layout and functionality of Terri’s living spaces was particularly fascinating to develop. From corridor and open spaces to placement of taps, handrails and customised wardrobe handles there was an extra level of meticulous planning and design reviews that were required to ensure everything worked for Terri as seamlessly as possible.”

Some of Nelson’s favourite details include a custom-designed coffee station to house her beloved Keurig coffee machine, and a wardrobe with stowage that raises and lowers to make stored clothes easily reachable – based on a design she has in her own house.

There are two outboard helm stations, each with joystick and touch-screen controls. Photo: C/O Reichel/Pugh

The soft furnishings echo the seafoam green-blue of the hull, with crisp white and orange leather accents together with black carbon trim detailing. “I really wanted it sporty, I really wanted it to represent performance. And that means more contemporary.”

So far Nelson’s first custom-built yacht is exceeding expectations for sailing performance. “For a big boat, she handles really well. She is sharp and responsive and handles turns extremely well.”

Her sailing plans include some exploring of the local Coronado and Catalina Islands, and likely cruising south to Mexico. However, she’s also keen to put Trinity through her paces. “I want to do some club racing and probably longer races.

I want to put her out in everybody’s face!”

Trinity specifications

LOA: 13.71m / 45ft 0in
Beam: 8.30m / 27ft 3in
Draught: 1.93m / 6ft 4in
Displacement: 11,900kg / 26,235lb
Upwind Sail Area: 109m2 / 1,173ft2
Downwind Sail Area: 253m2 / 2,723ft2

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Followers of the IMOCA 60 fleet will know that two names have dominated the class over the past two generations when it comes to design: VPLP and Verdier. So, it’s no surprise that all five of the IMOCAs competing in The Ocean Race come from those same drawing boards (and in the case of the oldest boat in the fleet, the 2015-launched Guyot Environnement, a VPLP/Verdier partnership).

Of the four designs, three are by Verdier – 11th Hour Racing Team, Holcim-PRB, and Biotherm. This leaves Boris Herrmann’s Malizia-Seaexplorer as the sole latest generation VPLP IMOCA in the race, but the differences in its design concept run much deeper. Malizia-Seaexplorer was, uniquely among the fleet, designed from the outset for both the 2023 Ocean Race and the 2024 Vendée Globe. The result is a distinctively different looking IMOCA.

VPLP explains that the design differs markedly from previous iterations of IMOCA, particularly in the shape of the hull. Much of this was the result of lessons learned during the 2020 Vendée Globe. The main aim of the hull studies VPLP undertook was to optimise Malizia-Seaexplorer’s performance in the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean without compromising its ability to perform in the more moderate conditions expected on the Atlantic stages of both The Ocean Race and Vendée Globe.

Damage to the original L-shaped foils proved fortuitous – the replacement C-shaped ones actually performed better. Photo: Ricardo Pinto/Team Malizia

Bow shape

German skipper Herrmann had made three laps of the planet before the Ocean Race start and had specific ideas he wanted to incorporate into the design. Malizia-Seaexplorer has noticeably full bow sections, a higher freeboard and more curved sheerline. Co-skipper Will Harris explained that the boat’s bow shape and volume are two of its key design features.

“The first 3.5m of the bow were cut off, in effect giving us a scow bow,” Harris said while showing me around the boat in the Newport stopover. “It means we’re less likely to catch the bow as we plough into the wave in front of us. And the added volume up front helps lift the boat back out of the water. You look at a boat like Biotherm, it has a bullet nose. Once it digs in a wave it’s hard to get it back out.

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“We really thought about this design for the Southern Ocean, and it really pays off in the heavy conditions. It might not be so good in other conditions, in lighter winds the extra volume means it’s heavier, but in the rough conditions it pays off for us.”

Among the Verdier designs, overall race leader Holcim-PRB seems the most similar in terms of bow shape, though it lacks the volume of Malizia. Not surprisingly, the two designs were clearly superior in the arduous 12,000-mile Southern Ocean Leg 3 of The Ocean Race. Holcim-PRB and Malizia-Seaexplorer were 1st and 2nd through the mid-leg scoring gate. Approaching the gate at longitude 143 East, Malizia-Seaexplorer overtook 11th Hour Racing Team in strong north-westerly winds of 20-25 knots to earn 2nd place.

Malizia-Seaexplorer’s notably high freeboard translates to greater headroom inside the cockpit. Photo: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

11th Hour’s onboard reporter Amory Ross ruefully described Malizia’s superiority in the sea state as they went past: “After working our way through Biotherm it was Malizia’s turn to do the same to us this afternoon. They seem to be able to carry more sail and keep their bow up, presumably with the shape of their hull, and while we struggled in the waves to keep from nose diving, they were able to sail at the same speed but lower.

“We watched as they sailed down to us, around our bow, and then continued on in a more southerly direction.”

Malizia kept that pace up in heavy conditions on the approach to Cape Horn and rounded the iconic landmark ahead of Holcim-PRB.

Racing at full bore in the Southern Ocean during Leg 3 of The Ocean Race. Photo: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

Banana boat

Another design feature Harris credited to their success is the boat’s rocker, the curvature of the hull from bow to stern. Harris said that because the rocker rises up in the stern, it also aids the bow in staying out of the water.

“The rocker continues well into the back of the boat, so the whole boat is like a banana,” Harris said. “The idea behind the rocker rising in the stern is to help lift the bow up even more. By having the stern high we can stack more gear, people and equipment in the back of the boat so the bow comes out even more, so it’s less likely to dig into the waves. The tradeoff is it’s less efficient in marginal planing conditions, it’s a little harder to get on a plane just before foiling, but we feel it’s a very small difference.”

The added freeboard also has multiple benefits, including the boat’s ability to self-right. All IMOCAs must be able to self-right after passing 110° of heel angle. “The higher freeboard means more volume at the front. So, when the bow digs in a wave, there’s a lot of buoyancy to help lift it out of the water. Higher freeboard also means more volume for life onboard. And in the IMOCA rules, a high freeboard means more form stability so we can have a lighter ballast bulb for the 110° test,” Harris adds.

The new borrowed c-shape foils were something of a blessing. Photo: Antoine Auriol / Team Malizia

Foil changes

However, it’s Malizia’s foils that have proven to be an unexpected benefit – especially since they’re not the intended foils, but rather a spare set the team had to switch to after Malizia-Seaexplorer’s version one foils were damaged beyond repair before the race start.

The team’s original set suffered damage on the delivery from Guadeloupe at the end of the Route du Rhum to Alicante for the start of The Ocean Race. Harris said that they experienced some rough conditions on the passage and that when the boat nosedived the loads on the foils were counter to the designed loads. There’s a shaft inside the foils around which the carbon fibre is laid, but the carbon wasn’t strong enough to support the huge loads the foils undergo.

An ultrasound check revealed internal damage, and was followed by a frantic search for a replacement set – the team was fortunate to be able to use a set from designer Sam Manuard, similar to those built for Sam Davies’ new Initiatives Coeur.

“To be honest, it’s been a bit of a blessing,” Harris said. The original foils were L-shaped in profile, whereas the replacements are C-shaped. Harris says the biggest benefit is the way the foils regulate the boat’s motion through waves.

There are 54 separate control lines running into the enclosed cockpit. Photo: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

“The C-shaped foils are more polyvalent, they’re good in all conditions,” said Harris. “They’re more vertical in profile, which means there’s more righting moment, more of a daggerboard effect. And when the boat starts to lift out of the water the foil comes out in a natural way and helps stabilise the flight of the boat. It doesn’t leap as much. The L-foils are not as good at managing those leaps, you must play more with their extension. With the C-foils, if they’re extended a bit too much in a gust it’s OK. They allow the boat to lift over the wave and not jump so much that it ventilates.”

The C-shape foil versus L-shape played out dramatically on Leg 5 of The Ocean Race, when 11th Hour Racing Team, Holcim-PRB and Malizia-Seaexplorer all took turns blowing through the race and outright monohull 24-hour records (previously standing at 602 and 618 miles respectively, the latter set by the 100ft Comanche back in 2015). During what’s been dubbed the ‘North Atlantic Speed Sailing Seminar’ Malizia-Seaexplorer ended up with the top number, setting a new record of 641.13 miles in 24 hours on 26 May, having maintained a breathtaking average speed of 26.71 knots.

By IMOCA standards, Malizia’s living quarters are comfortable, with curtained bunks. Despite how snugly the crew are wedged in, Rosalind Kuiper was thrown from her bunk and suffered a head injury in Leg 3, due to the foiling IMOCA’s extreme motion in rough seas. Photo: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

“We had exceptional conditions with a flat sea, the wind steady from the right direction, the right angle for such a long time,” said Herrmann.

“No sail changes – actually, we took a reef in and out, so we slowed down for these two moments, but apart from that nothing slowed us down for a longer time. Sometimes, the waves got a little bit shorter and we’d slow down to 18 knots and get a bit stuck in the sea. But most of the time the boat would pass the sea perfectly and fly at 27-34 knots, it felt really relaxed.”

Bulletproof IMOCA 60

Regardless of the foil shape, Malizia-Seaexplorer is a beast of a boat. Harris noted that the boat has 30% more structure than the other IMOCAs. The hull is solid carbon fibre, no foam core, up to 16 layers thick in some places. The trend among the IMOCA class is to eliminate the foam cores and use a monolithic construction process that eliminates the possibility of core failure. Given the 30-knot speeds these boats are capable of, their skippers must have confidence that the machine will not break.

“This is a very good boat for the Vendée Globe, it is very good for the overall campaign,” said Herrmann. “I don’t foresee broken stringers or a delamination after a cold front. We have a monolithic very strong hull, a little heavier but when we are up on the foils we perform very much like the pack.

“We are seeing sensational performances downwind and upwind, a few knots quicker than the old boat, the ergonomics are so much better than the old boat. There are so many good things about this boat.”

Extensive solar panels from Solbian on the side decks and coachroof produce 60% of required power, the rest being generated from two hydro-generators. Photo: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

Malizia-Seaexplorer specifications

LOA: 18.28m / 59ft 11in
LOA inc bowsprit: 20.12m / 65ft 5in
Beam: 5.70m / 18ft 3in
Draught: 4.50m / 14ft 8in
Displacement: N/A
Mast height: 27.24m / 88ft 9in
Sail area upwind: 270m2 / 2,906ft2
Sail area offwind: 550m2 / 5,920ft2
Design: VPLP
Builder: Multiplast

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post World’s fastest monohull: Malizia-Seaexplorer IMOCA 60 appeared first on Yachting World.

When it comes to displacement, racing yachts today cover the widest spectrum – from fully flying AC75s to the heavyweight J Class. In between lie light displacement and planing boats, and now, filling their own unique sector, are yachts fitted with a lateral foil, or retractable Dynamic Stability Systems (DSS) foil, the latest of which is the Infiniti 52.

The Infiniti 52 follows on from the company’s Infiniti 36 and Infiniti 46. The first example of this Hugh Welbourn-designed offshore racer, Helsinki lawyer Arto Linnervuo’s Tulikettu, was launched in early 2022.

She was sea trialled on the Solent in the spring of 2022 where she managed 28 knots, while her creators anticipate the design is capable of regularly achieving 30-plus knots. 

Sadly Tulikettu suffered a severe collision during a delivery trip off north-west Spain at the end of April 2022. Her crew abandoned ship and after an unsuccessful search she was presumed sunk.

However, in an incredible turn of events, Tulikettu was spotted by a passing yacht. That yacht’s crew reached out to the team via their social media channels and the search operation was immediately restarted.

Tulikettu was found on Saturday, June 4, approximately 100 nautical miles west of Cape Saint Vincent, the southern tip between Lisbon and Gibraltar. The yacht was towed to the port of Portimão where she underwent a thorough inspection and assessment of damage sustained.

In another incredible turn of events, the damage was not as significant as was originally thought and the boat was able to be repaired and relaunched. She recently completed the very heavy weather 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race, so any fears of another failure will have been very much allayed.

Tulikettu taking part on the 2023 Rolex Fastnet Race. Photo: Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com

DSS myths

The basics of the DSS foil are generally understood – deployed to leeward, it provides lift that is ‘dynamic’, ie the faster the boat goes, the more lift and righting moment the foil automatically generates. It’s like having extra crew miraculously appear on the rail or bulb weight increase whenever a gust hits.

But many of the DSS foil’s characteristics are less obvious. For example, the foil providing righting moment ‘on demand’ allows the keel to be both lighter and shallower with less need to follow the trend of maximum hull volume and a scow bow providing form stability. This equates to a lighter, not to mention better looking, boat.

The shape and configuration of the DSS foil has been refined over years with computer modelling, tank testing and tens of thousands of race miles. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Infiniti Yachts

In light conditions, when the foil on the Infiniti 52 isn’t doing much, it can be retracted leaving a ‘regular’ hull shape. However, the Infiniti 52 comes into its own when sheets are cracked and the breeze is above 10 knots – thus its true forte is coastal and offshore racing.

Another subtlety of the DSS foil is how it ‘locks’ the boat to the water, not only reducing heel, but also pitching. A side effect of this is improved flow across the rig and the foils, increasing their efficiency, especially upwind and/or in waves.

However, there are several myths and misunderstandings surrounding the DSS foil. It does not produce massive (or indeed any) lee helm when it is deployed. While,the DSS foil provides righting moment on demand, it also creates significant lift beneath the boat. Thus most of the time it is reducing displacement and speed-sapping hull drag, but there are times (and I can attest to this first-hand) when suddenly it goes quiet on board and for a few seconds you are fully flying, IMOCA-style.

Below: the DSS foil gives the Infiniti a much more bow-out attitude compared to other 52 footers. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Infiniti Yachts

Third parties have unsuccessfully fitted small DSS foils forward on racing yachts with the sole aim of keeping the bow out. While a properly positioned Welbourn-designed DSS foil achieves this too (compare the videos on social media of the Infiniti 52 at pace to that of the Pac 52 Fox at St Thomas International Regatta) this is but one small part of what the foil is designed to do.

Critics of the system argue that the DSS foil ‘cannot be as good’ as the foils used on IMOCA 60s or America’s Cup yachts as they are not trimmable. For example, there are no complex hydraulics to adjust rake.

However, that fails to appreciate the difference in approach: the DSS foil is designed to provide, on the one hand, a turbo boost to performance at times, while on the other being simple and easy to use (you pull the foil out and that’s more or less it) thus allowing it to be used by regular sailors without physics degrees or supreme athleticism. And far from the lack of trimmability making the DSS foil ‘dumb’, it takes a keen eye and some wisdom to appreciate the subtlety of its shape, curvature, and section, as well as how it relates to the water plane, the centre of buoyancy, and the boat’s centre of effort.

Obviously a DSS foil doesn’t provide benefits in all conditions. The foil is usually retracted upwind unless there are waves and when sailing VMG downwind in up to 15 knots: less boat speed equals less lift.

Thanks to the DSS foil, typical heel angles are less than 20° and as a result it was considered there was no need to have twin rudders. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Infiniti Yachts

Taking on TP52S

Fifty-two feet is an interesting length for a new pure racing design as it allows direct comparison with Super Series 52s and Pac 52s. In comparison to the former, the Infiniti 52 has a slightly taller mast, deeper keel and is fractionally heavier. Kiwi pro sailor and sailmaker Stu Bannatyne is well placed to make comparisons: he sailed extensively on the Infiniti 46 Maverick (class winner in the Rolex Middle Sea Race, RORC Transatlantic, Newport Bermuda, etc.) but among his many accolades also won the 2022 RORC Caribbean 600 on Christopher Sheehan’s Pac 52 Warrior Won.

Bannatyne notes that even the offshore-orientated Pac 52s to date have come from hull moulds of boats designed for windward-leewards in the 52 Super Series. By contrast, the Infiniti is one of the few 52-footers designed for offshore racing from the outset.

The case for the DSS foil runs discretely across the cabin sole. On larger boats it can be hidden beneath soleboards. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Infiniti Yachts

“If it was to line-up against a Super Series boat in 12 knots upwind or anything similar, it would probably be a bit slower,” notes Bannatyne. “Anything outside of that – any reaching or downwind sailing, the Infiniti should be faster and as soon as you get powered up reaching and running it should be a good chunk faster. And not just in conditions where the DSS foils are being used – it should be faster in all underpowered conditions, when the Infiniti has lower form stability and therefore lower drag.”

While the Infiniti 46 has twin DSS foils that ‘flipped out’, with one on each side, the 52 has a single DSS foil that slides laterally across the bottom of the boat within a casing. Instead of the 46’s canting keel and canard, the 52 has a fixed keel and 600kg water ballast, split into twin tanks each side aft. This provides stability upwind and Welbourn says he prefers this arrangement as the added weight of the water need only be brought on board when required. The water ballast also permits crew numbers on the Infiniti 52 to be reduced to between seven and 12 depending upon the race.

The carbon fibre wheels are made by French company Isotop, who also built the rudder, DSS foil and foil case. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Infiniti Yachts

Offshore focus

Compared to a TP52, for example, the Infiniti 52 has a much smaller cockpit with a sliding companionway hatch, while considerable effort has gone into preventing water getting below, such as avoiding apertures in the deck. In case of dismasting while at sea, the mast (from New Zealand Rigging) is deck stepped.

Offshore capability has also affected the sail wardrobe from Doyle, with a broad inventory, including many reaching sails. To permit varied cutter-type headsail configurations (up to three sails can be hoisted up front at a time), there are six tack positions from the spinnaker flown from the end of the 3m long bowsprit to the furling J4/staysail and storm jib mid-foredeck.

The net result is a boat that is one of the world’s fastest 52ft monohulls: particularly impressive is its ability to hold sail in 20-plus knot winds with the TWA just forward of the beam. While Tulikettu had been optimised for fully crewed offshore, the 52 could be reconfigured for short-handed offshore racing.

Infiniti 52 specifications

LOA: 16.0m / 52ft 6in
Beam (max): 4.5m / 14ft 8in
Draught: 3.6m / 11ft 9in
Mast height: 21.5m / 70ft 6in
Weight: 7,200kg / 15,873lb
Water ballast capacity: 600kg / 1,322lb
Mainsail area: 103m² / 1,108ft²
Headsail area: 68m² / 731ft²
Spinnaker area: 278m² / 2,992ft²

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“Wait, you bought that boat?!” That was 59º North’s bosun Adam Browne’s reaction when I showed him the Farr ‘Millennium’ 65 on the hard in Lymington, which we’d just closed a deal on. “The massive green one that looks a bit abandoned?”

Adam wasn’t referring to the paint job. Coated in algae and slime, Falken was green-hued, her tattered mainsail cover hanging limply from the boom, jack-lines from her last offshore passage still rigged to rusty shackles on deck, water nearly up to the floorboards down below. The boat was rotting.

That sailing yachts, particularly race boats, are often referred to as ‘thoroughbreds’ is an apt comparison. Race horses are living creatures and I like to think of sailboats as much the same. Falken began life with a promise by Bruce Farr to deliver a design that would be “faster on all points of sail than her peers,” as described in a 1998 Yachting World article.

Ten yachts were originally commissioned for the 1999 Millennium Round the World Race, an event designed to compete with the likes of the Clipper Race and BT Challenge, but on a boat that more closely resembled a Whitbread 60 in performance.

But economics and luck dealt a tough hand to the fledgling event. Only four boats took the start, and the race folded after just one edition. The fleet were used as sail-training boats for various organisations over the next 20 years. And then, like a racehorse past its prime, too old to compete yet too beloved to put down, the 65 originally christened Spirit of Diana was put out to pasture, left to live out her days on the hard. Until we came along.

Sails up and heading for the open ocean, Falken sets off after a year-long major refit. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

Custom dreams

I’d previously entertained thoughts of building a custom yacht for 59° North Sailing, our adventure sailing charter business. What sailor doesn’t dream of building their own boat one day? But besides the cost, which would have been substantial, something about building a brand new boat just didn’t sit well with me when there are so many great older boats lying in boatyards. Building a new boat would undermine one of my fundamental values – that of using what already exists.

Enter the Farr. She was a stripped out, purpose-built racing boat that just didn’t have the charm or ‘soul’ of the cruising boats I’d grown up on, and which we’d had in spades in our first boat Isbjörn, a classic S&S Swan 48. But despite this, and the Farr’s apparently abandoned state, I saw potential. The Farr deserved a chance at a new life.

I called legendary yacht designer Bob Perry, whom I’d gotten to know through interviewing him for my podcast On the Wind. Bob has a reputation as a curmudgeon, but I found him engaging. I happen to agree with most of his curmudgeonly opinions and respect the passion with which he defends those I don’t. He accepted the job with a level of gleeful enthusiasm that made it exceedingly fun to work together.

The pre-refit Farr 65. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

We asked Perry to rework the interior of this Bruce Farr-designed racing yacht into a fit-for-purpose commercial cruising layout to my annoyingly specific specifications. The Farr office happily provided Perry with the original 2D CAD drawings of the boat and consulted on structural items when necessary.

First principles

“Andy sent me a long list of requirements and pdfs of the existing layout,” he explained in an update about the project. “Knowing Andy’s experience I took the list seriously.” Perry initially had doubts that the complex list of requirements was possible, that there was too much existing structure in the yacht. But it was the complexity of the task which meant Perry was the right person for the job.

Mainsheet traveller and pedestal winch run across the cockpit but the transom has room for twin liferafts and hidden ‘bathtub’ for al fresco showering. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

Our boats need to be more reliable than an airline’s fleet of planes, with systems simple enough to be maintained by our rotating cadre of skippers and mates during brief stints in port between trips. The equipment must be durable enough to withstand the abuse of 10-15,000 ocean miles every year, and yet the yacht must feel comfortable and ‘soulful’ enough to provide the type of experience we want to give our paying crew.

The fundamental philosophy behind Falken’s systems is simplicity and redundancy. Where possible I wanted to future-proof the boat too. This translated to an electrical system designed by former Vendée Globe sailor Bruce Schwab at Ocean Planet Energy in Maine, and consulted on by systems guru Nigel Calder.

Nigel, Bruce and I based the system around old-school, mechanical breaker panel switches coupled to the latest in lithium battery tech with a nearly 1,000Ah, 24V LifePO4 battery bank by Lithionics. Each of the three batteries that make up the overall system are themselves isolated banks — were one to fail, two would remain.

All lines are led aft, while newly shortened tracks declutter the side decks. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

The boat would be entirely DC-based, including watermaker, fridges, freezer and all electrical components, meaning a genset would be unnecessary, freeing up space in the engine compartment for a manually-operated, Spectra Cape Horn watermaker. The giant Lithionics bank is charged at sea by a Watt & Sea 600 hydrogenerator, and at anchor by two enormous engine-mounted alternators cranking out 450A of power at 24V.

While most modern cruising boats are opting for induction cooking, we deliberately stuck with propane. In doing so this both de-coupled cooking from the electrical system (meaning we can still eat a hot meal even without any electricity should that system fail), and dramatically reduced electrical consumption. We can now go nearly a week between battery charges at anchor, and can operate continuously without charging at sea thanks to the hydro, so long as there’s enough wind to sail.

We applied this logic across the entire boat. Take navigation; instead of a modern MFD chartplotter system that ties radar, AIS, charts, ship’s data etc into a single network, we de-coupled this too. A dedicated Furuno 1835 commercial-grade radar at the new Perry-designed navstation has its own screen and the ability to do full-on ARPA target tracking thanks to a satellite heading compass. A NMEA2000 network links to several 4.5in Furuno MFD displays below decks and at each helm. Electronic charts are displayed on one of three ship’s iPads running Time Zero nav software, and with a wireless NMEA2000 gateway, all data from the ship’s sensors can be displayed on any mobile device.

Falken’s largely original cockpit boasts a pedestal grinder and no fewer than 13 winches. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

What we’ve created is a truly redundant Navionics suite. While we can indeed overlay AIS on the radar, for example, should one or the other fail, it won’t take the rest with it. Paper charts make up our primary passage charts while each iPad runs independently downloaded charting software in both raster and vector formats and can be updated in the local coffee shop before each passage.

The iPads also double as the ship’s computer for sat comms and weather forecasting. From their bunk, the skipper can log onto the NMEA network and see everything from wind and boat speed to engine gauges on their phones. Should the network fail completely, a GPS with its own antenna provides backup.

About midway through the refit we realised the need for a dedicated project manager working on the boat daily. I live in Sweden and was managing the refit from afar, travelling to Gosport about once every six weeks, but this wasn’t enough to stop the bottleneck of small decisions required daily by the Vortec team. We hired Adam Browne in June 2022 as ‘Ship’s Bosun,’ streamlining the communication between Vortec and 59° North, and giving me eyes on the ground. Adam works full-time for us now, and his role has since transitioned from refit project manager to ongoing maintenance manager and part-time mate at sea.

The grinding pedestal is foward in the cockpit. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

Made for sailing

When we first announced to our crew and online audience our plans to refit the Farr, several people were confused as to why we’d part ways with the warm craftsmanship of our previous ‘big boat’, the Swan 59 Icebear, in favour of the seemingly sterile fibreglass of the Farr. Even my dad, a lifetime sailor who’d been involved with our business since its inception in 2015, was worried that 59° North’s well-earned image of ‘adventure cruising’ would be negatively altered by us buying what clearly looked like a racing boat.

Testing out all the sails, including trysail and spinnaker. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

And yet therein lies the beauty. That Falken was designed as a racing boat on deck meant that she’d be fun and easy to sail. My taste in boats has evolved dramatically from my days as a kid sailing on my family’s distinctly cruisey ketches and my fascination with two-masted schooners, traditional tall ships and the like. While those boats remain wonderful to look at, they are often heavily compromised when it comes to actual sailing. A cruising boat design will always have to walk that line between ease of sail handling and creature comforts. Not so a racing boat. The Farr 65, being that she was designed for racing especially with an amateur crew, strikes a good balance between ease of sail handling, safety, comfort and durability of hardware.

Sail handling controls are where they should be; the cockpit is huge and filled with winches, 13 to be exact, and big ones at that. Lewmar 88 primaries are operated by a central grinding pedestal with 66s under the new dodger for halyards and reefing lines. The mainsheet attaches at the back of the boom and mainsail trim is controlled by a traveller that spans nearly the entire beam of the boat just forward of the twin helms. While the traveller and pedestal definitely get in the way at anchor — you’ve got to step around these to take a swim, for example — they are right where you want them at sea, and with an annual sailing schedule of 16-18 passages that’s where Falken will spend most of her time.

In short, on deck we didn’t change much at all. The winches were thoroughly serviced and re-mounted; two aft-mounted genoa tracks were removed since the new sail plan doesn’t include any overlapping headsails; all the hatches and portlights were removed and replaced with new; decks and coachroof got new non-skid paint; the cockpit got a heavy-duty canvas dodger at the companionway and the sole and seats were treated with closed-cell foam SeaDek non-skid. The central liferaft cradle was removed and in its place went the ‘bathtub’, an area near the transom with pressure hot water where crew have the luxury of an offshore shower courtesy of the watermaker.

Down below

Bob Perry’s patience with my ever-evolving design process paid off. The crux of the design challenge was the conflict between three elements — the need for a large but cosy communal space; a galley big enough to comfortably cook for 10-11 at sea on both tacks; and a walk-through to pass into the forward cabin. Bob drew every conceivable version of this but it wasn’t until the mock-up phase that we incorporated some ‘hanging’ cabinets to starboard.

Thanks to his attention to detail at the design phase, the interior fit-out went smoothly and the end result is in my mind an ideal cruising interior. Each crewmember who sails with us has their own dedicated space, with eight more-or-less equal sea bunks divided between the forward and aft parts of the boat. Each bunk has a reading light (with USB outlet for charging), a small canvas pocket for personal effects like headphones and glasses, a fan for the tropics and actual mattresses with real sheets and pillows. The lower fixed bunks have plywood leeboards in lieu of lee cloths for added comfort and security for sleeping when heeled, while the upper pipe bunks get cushions, a lee cloth, and the ability to adjust the angle when heeled via a block and tackle. Each crew has their own storage locker for clothing and gear too. That extra 6ft of LOA over Icebear allows for a separate dedicated sail locker in the forepeak.

Cosy saloon with surrounding ship’s library seats 10 and backs up to the central sink and worktop unit. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

Gone is the blue-painted plywood cabin sole, in its place easy-to-maintain faux teak-and-holly, with a headliner in the main saloon and white SeaDek foam to provide insulation throughout the rest of the deckhead. Sapele wood trim, chosen for its superior sustainability compared to teak, abounds around all locker openings, door facades and fiddle rails. Where hull sides are exposed on the interior, teak from old interior trim was re-milled and ‘upcycled,’ used as slats to provide a warm feel and prevent condensation. Locker openings have canvas zippers instead of fragile doors which always break at sea.

Further aft, what used to be stowage lockers abaft the engine compartment are now dedicated wet lockers big enough for all crew to hang their foulies and store boots and gloves. Hot air via two Eberspächer forced-air heaters is piped into each wet locker, guaranteeing warm and dry gear for every watch change. Bob converted the starboard head into a roomy navstation, which is both the brain of the boat and my favourite spot at sea. The Farr’s original navstation aft in the staff quarters remains, but is mostly used as a writing desk and private space for the staff to be alone with their thoughts.

Every crew gets their own bunk, the bottom bunks have lee boards, the top bunks lee cloths. Slatted teak hull lining is repurposed from the old boat. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

The central area of the boat is now a dedicated community space for briefings and meals before heading offshore, and houses our extensive ‘ship’s library’, filled with both technical and inspirational tomes past and present, with dedicated shelf space for the Tamaya sextant. We can seat 10 around the saloon table and, since all the crew have comfortable, dedicated sea berths and nobody needs sleep on the settees, it makes for a great spot to spend off-watch hours reading or playing cards.

To starboard is Perry’s pièce de résistance, the fore-and-aft galley. We’re cooking for 10-11 on Falken, so the galley is practically a small commercial kitchen, and looks the part with stainless countertops, enormous double sinks, and an oven/range by GN-Espace large enough to accommodate full-size gastronorm 1/1 trays. In fact, these modular trays, which come in a variety of sizes, materials and depths, are designed-in throughout the galley as clever storage solutions for everything from cutlery to pantry items, olive oil, hot sauce and water bottles.

Falken’s dedicated sail locker forward. Photo: James Amstrums/59° North Sailing

Bob designed the galley countertops to be 2in higher than standard, knowing we’d often be cooking on a heel and needing the extra height to feel secure when leaned on for support. The galley is wide enough to walk through comfortably while passing by the cook, and yet crucially narrow enough to wedge yourself in on either tack for washing up or cooking at the stove. A drawer-style day fridge gives access for the entire crew to the essentials, while a large top-loading fridge and freezer aft provide storage for the bulk of the fresh provisions.

The first 3,000 miles

“Well, Falken is a fast boat,” I noted during our first international passage from the UK to Ireland in February. “I had the first watch and after four hours of double-digit surfing I tried to get some sleep. The whine of the Watt & Sea kinda provides a narration of our speed bursts. I woke up from a shallow sleep with one particularly high-pitched whine, followed by [relief mate] Alex hooting and hollering from the helm, Falken planing down a wave face and the water rushing by my bunk. 19.9 knots (!) registered as our max STW from tonight. Okay!”

As I write Falken is in port in warmer climes, having a short rest in Las Palmas while bosun Adam performs the first weeks of routine maintenance for the year. She’s already sailed four official trips, plus our staff sea trial, covering over 3,000 miles with 32 paying crew, and we’re less than three months past her christening in Gosport. Next, my wife Mia flies out to sail with skipper Chris Kobusch on what will be Falken’s first transatlantic under the 59° North flag, bound for Antigua.

Of course there are things I might have done differently during the refit process. The biggest one is location — part of the reason we chose to have the boat refit at Vortec in Gosport was due to the timeline, but ideally having the work done closer to home would have been far easier to manage. And we’re learning that this first full year is really an extended sea trial, what with all the small items that will inevitably pop up on Adam’s maintenance list. But my overarching feeling is ‘we really nailed it.’ She might not be as sexy as the Swan 48, or as classy as the 59, but the Farr 65 ticks all the boxes. There’s not a thing about the new design of the boat or the systems we chose that I’d change.

We set out to build a most practical boat for offshore sailing and in the process have returned Falken her thoroughbred ocean-going soul.

Falken restoration costs

Purchase price: £65,000
Rig refurb &new sails: £150,000
Parts & materials: £400,000
Labour, storage, crane, lift etc: £400,000
Total sailaway cost including refit & purchase: c £1,000,000

Falken specifications

Year built: 1999
Number built: 5
Builder: Colvic Craft, UK
Designer: Bruce Farr
LOA: 19.8m 64ft 6in
LWL: 16.9m 55ft 5in
Beam: 5.2m 17ft 0in
Draught: 3.2m 10ft 2in
Displacement: 27,500kg 60,600lb
SA/Disp ratio: 21.4
Disp/length ratio: 166
Theoretical hull speed: 9.9 knots

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This heartening story involves a crew of Italian sailing friends, who fostered a desire to do something different, to make a change. The fact that this Ecoracer ‘garage project’ has met with award-winning success is due to it using innovative sustainable materials which it then proved can work in a race-winning shape.

Arguably above that though, is the notion that it has taken a small startup to show the way forward and to shine a light on the dark and all-to-often brushed aside underbelly of conventional composite boatbuilding.

The crew behind it formed in 2012 as a sailing team on a Dufour 34 called Northern Light. In 2019 they established Northern Light Composites (nlcomp) to research and develop recyclable composites. Their first project was the most economical possible, an Optimist called ecoprimus, on which they could try out techniques and materials.

Just one year later they presented this prototype Ecoracer 25 at the Genoa Boat Show, as the world’s first recyclable sportsboat. Constructed from sustainable materials, largely flax fibre with a recyclable core, it went on to win the 2022 ORC Italian Sportsboat Championship on Lake Garda in its first post-lockdown season.

Upwind mode. The helmsman sits forward of the main trimmer for a clearer view. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/IMACIS

The fact that in-demand naval architect Matteo Polli is one of this team is also pretty crucial to the Ecoracer’s success on the water.

An ORC specialist who has designed winning yachts for Italia Yachts and Grand Soleil recently, Polli chose a contemporary shape with a particularly angular reverse bow and sheer, as seen on some of the latest generation raceboats – but did so for other reasons too, in particular the task of trying to combine greener materials with a lightweight construction.

“The aim was to design a racer that could compete successfully in the Sportsboat ORC classes being at the same time a fast and nice to sail boat,” he explains. “The real challenge was to build with eco-friendly materials that would have not allowed a super light construction weight.

“The characteristic shape exploits the use of chines to reduce the structural elements and therefore secondary bonding, which is a complex matter when using these materials,” Polli continues. “So keeping all this in mind I went for a high form stability hull shape that incorporated features to reduce shell areas like very low freeboards, a chamfered bow and shallow cockpit.”

Making a point. The forward chine acts as a sprayrail – “it prevents deep nose diving (a risk with such low freeboard), while allowing a fine entry,” says designer Matteo Polli. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/IMACIS

Ship in a bottle

When I asked why the 7.69m size was chosen, I was told it was because ‘the garage was not so big’! Built in Monfalcone, the Ecoracer 25 uses a cocktail of different materials, all aimed at trying to solve the problems related to end of life glassfibre composites. The hull is a mix of linen (flax), basalt fibre (from volcanic rock) and some recyclable carbon for increasing stiffness on a recyclable PU core.

Perhaps the most innovative ingredient is a new concept resin from Arkema, a thermoplastic which helps make the boat recyclable after use because the fibres can be separated from the resin again after immersion in a solvent. Unlike thermosetting matrixes, which can only be wasted at end of life, this new resin can “separate itself from the fibres and reuse the polymer with normal industrial processes,” reports nlcomp’s materials expert Andrea Paduano.

The deck is made from flax fibre, the decking from cork. The mainsheet is on a central ratchet block, with backstay and traveller controls led to camcleats on the side deck. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/IMACIS

“We decided to use bio-based fibres to reduce our carbon footprint and flax and cellulose fibres are the best candidates for a strong yet light composite material,” Paduano continues. The result is recyclable fibres and recyclable resin which can be reused to build composite parts again. It comes at a cost of around 7-8% more in weight over glassfibre but at a much larger gain with regards to the holy grail search for circular boatbuilding materials.

The composite was vacuum infused, while painting was avoided in favour of using films for the external coating. The mast, keel and rudder structures are made of aluminIum and steel, the engine is electric and the sails are filmless 4T Forte ‘sustainable’ types from One Sails (which can be broken down and reused).

Solar panel charges a battery for the bilge pump and electric outboard, which mounts below. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/IMACIS

Under sail

Designed to race with a crew weight of 400kg, the Ecoracer 25 backs up its sharp looks on the water. When I had my chance for a quick trial, there was only a few knots of breeze, yet it still proved enough to actively enjoy the sailing. We easily matched the 3-4 knots upwind, before gennaker sailing at 5-8 knots, the minimal wake parting from the transom at around 6 knots.

It’s ever so slippery, fast and enjoyable to helm, just what a sportsboat should be. Alberto Mariotti, our Italian European Yacht of the Year jury representative, sailed in 15 knots and clocked double figures with the gennaker.

Two deck winches are used for sheets, with cross-sheeting angles to trim from windward. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/IMACIS

However, I’ll leave the final thoughts on this extraordinary boat to another jury member, Morten Brandt-Rasmussen from Denmark: “The Ecoracer 25 project points the finger where it hurts. Let’s face it – leisure boats of today are not in any way the green product that the industry claims. Without changes the leisure boat market will be regulated and potentially fade away. The 100% recyclable Ecoracer 25 has shown that it’s possible to turn green for real.”

The future Ecoracer 30

After scooping a special European Yacht of the Year sustainability prize, the eco-focussed Boat of the Year at the Boat Builder Award at METS, and the Design Innovation Award at Genoa Boat Show with the prototype Ecoracer 25, nlcomp and Matteo Polli have now designed a larger 9.15m production version.

The Ecoracer One Design 30 is the first recyclable one-design sportsboat. Optimised for ORC, it has a retractable keel and electric propulsion. It uses nlcomp’s rComposite method, a thermoplastic matrix combining carbon fibres for the hull and linen fibres for the cockpit, which is guaranteed recyclable. The prototype will be unveiled in late June at the Ocean Race finale in Genoa and will cost €130,000.

Ecoracer 25 specifications

LOA: 7.69m / 25ft 3in
Beam: 2.75m / 9ft 0in
Draught: 1.80m / 5ft 11in
Displacement: 1,150kg / 2,535lb
Sail area: 40m2 / 431ft2
Price: approx €80,000

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The post Extraordinary boats: Sailing the sustainable Ecoracer 25 appeared first on Yachting World.

The past few years have seen an explosion of activity in the Mini 6.50 class, with qualifying races for the iconic Mini Transat race oversubscribed by up to 100% and two-year waiting lists for new Series-built boats.

Yet the front of the fleet is no longer an economic place to go racing. Typical fully equipped prices for new Series builds are around €150,000, while the bill for new one-off Protos is well over double that figure, reflecting the costs of full carbon one-off boats that incorporate build knowledge gained from America’s Cup campaigns, plus in some cases the enormous cost of foils.

Innovation hotbed

Historically the class has been a hotbed of innovation. It’s here that twin rudder designs and canting keels were first refined and proven to be reliable, even if some of the latter initially had problems when scaled up to much larger yachts. However, for the past few years almost all new development has been in the lower-powered Series fleet, where scow bows have been the norm for several years.

In contrast to the IMOCA 60 fleet, foiling designs have so far been slow to take off, but that’s changing rapidly. This year sees nine new Proto boats set to be launched, many of which push the boundaries of yacht design.

Carlos Manera’s Xucia is designed to be a low-riding foiler with the transom just maintaining contact with the water. Photo: James Tomlinson

Unlike foiling IMOCA 60s, Minis are allowed T-foils on their rudders, which opens up the prospect for a full flying boat. This was the approach taken by the early foiling Minis, including Seair’s David Raison-designed #747 in 2017 – the first-ever flying offshore monohull – and the Verdier-designed Pogo Foiler that launched in 2019.

When I visited Lorient-based Seair back in 2018 development engineer Hugo Feydit told me they were seeing speed advantages of up to 30% compared to the Archimedes Protos of the time. This boat was originally intended as a proof of concept, so it was judged imprudent to build both foils at the outset, in case testing showed a different foil shape was needed and as a result it could only foil on starboard tack. Funding was not forthcoming to build the other foil, which means the boat never raced so direct comparisons with the fleet could not be made.

However, the Pogo Foiler is a different matter. Although Covid forced a break in his early racing schedule, Tanguy Bouroullec, skipper of the first boat, produced some stunning results in 2021, winning the first two races of the season. However, he’s yet to convert the boat’s obvious potential into a Mini Transat win. Although his is a full-flying boat, Bouroullec is very conscious of avoiding heavy splashdowns and when I sailed with him a couple of years ago we kept the leeward corner of the transom just in contact with the water. Nevertheless, it was an exhilarating ride, with boat speed hovering around 17-18 knots for extended periods in 18-20 knots of true wind.

With retracted C-foils. Photo: James Tomlinson

Low riding option

One of the most recent of the new boats is Xucia, sail #1081, a Sam Manuard design for young Spanish skipper Carlos Manera that’s been professionally built at the Sinergia Racing Group’s yard in Cartagena. Manera says he and Manuard shared a similar vision and philosophy for a low-riding foiling boat with retractable C-foils that would offer a significant speed boost in medium and strong winds, without being at a disadvantage in light airs.

This is notably a different philosophy to that of another new Manuard design, Caroline Boule’s #1067 Nicomatic (aka Bill), which is a full flying boat. It was launched last year, but foils weren’t fitted until autumn 2022, so we can’t infer anything from race results to date. A full-on flying Mini is arguably still a risky strategy, but it’s one that Boule, a Franco-Polish nuclear engineer with a background in team racing and foiling Moths, is well placed to capitalise on.

In the past Mini sailors were renowned for getting their hands dirty building their boats, but the popularity of series designs means that’s far less common today. Instead the focus is on maximising time afloat, honing skills and gathering data. Bucking the trend, both Carlos and his sister, Elena, helped hands-on with the build of Xucia, spending six months at the yard. “Some bulkheads and many of the smaller parts were done only by me,” he says, “and we have been learning from the professional team at the yard all the time.”

A clearer view of the C-Foils deployed. Photo: James Tomlinson

Although the boat is a one-off, all tooling was made using CNC moulds – believed to be the first time for a Proto Mini 6.50. “We used the same technology as INEOS Britannia and other America’s Cup teams,” says Manera. Close attention to detail during the build means the boat came out a little lighter than expected, despite the additional weight of the foils and associated structural reinforcement compared to a conventional design.

Clear vision

Manera, who completed the last Mini Transat in an 11-year-old Series boat, started this project with a crystal clear vision of what he believes to be necessary for such a tiny foiling boat to perform reliably in an oceanic race. His overriding priority is avoiding the big loss of speed, and decelerations that can be damaging to both boat and skipper, when a boat suddenly drops off the foils. Instead, his boat is not intended to fly high and the transom will always be in touch with the water. The foils therefore help increase righting moment and reduce wetted surface area to an absolute minimum.

“The main idea was not to fly,” he told me. “Sam Manuard originally proposed the same design as Caroline’s boat to me, but I turned it down because I don’t want to fly. The reality at the moment is we are too far away from being able to cross big waves in hard conditions and stay flying. Maybe it can be achieved in the future, but I don’t believe it’s possible right now.

Gooseneck, boom and mainsail are all designed to boost end-plate effect to maximise the power that can be derived from the bottom of the sail. Photo: James Tomlinson

“The human factor means we need to be relaxed and need to have constant good mental strength. When you are full flying, it’s difficult to rest, it’s really difficult to keep the trim right, and it’s really stressful for you and the boat.”

Xucia therefore has relatively small retractable C-foils that boost righting moment, while producing a bows up attitude. This reduces the propensity for the boat to nose-dive into a wave, giving a smoother ride, while the extreme scow bow shape offers a lot of reserve buoyancy if the boat does splash down.

Manera says this means good control of the boat is maintained all the time: “You are not flying, so the autopilot can manage and you can rest, because the boat doesn’t smash into waves, it just passes over them.”

The now-standard scow bow shape provides both form stability and reserve buoyancy forward. Photo: James Tomlinson

Getting the bows well up also reduces wetted surface area by up to 80%, which creates a massive speed boost compared to conventional boats. When the C-foils aren’t needed in light airs they can be retracted clear of the water – a big gain compared to the big foils of flying boats whose drag can never be eliminated.

High averages

I first spoke to Manera four weeks after the boat was launched, during which time he’d been training in mostly light to moderate winds of up to 20 knots. “The feel of the boat is really, really good,” he says, “and it has the behaviour we wanted from the design, with a very soft ride on the foils and no big bursts of speed. But what’s really interesting is the speed is always very constant. That was the main goal – to maximise the average speed, not peak speeds.”

He also reports the boat is “really balanced and smooth” and that the pilot – currently an NKE GyroPilot 3 while waiting for the HD version to be available – works really well.

In lighter airs the C-foil (left) can be retracted, to sail with canting keel and twin daggerboards. Photo: James Tomlinson

Key priorities before the first Classe Mini races this season are to continue testing to build a full set of data that will identify the fastest mode in all conditions. Despite their diminutive size these are complex boats, with a myriad of sail plan permutations and many options for fine tuning the foil settings, so this is far from a trivial task.

Accurate instrument calibration, for instance, is critical for a good pilot response and to build the data needed for sail selection. Given the complexities of measuring variables such as upwash angles at the top of the rig over a full range of wind speeds and angles, this takes a huge amount of effort at the highest levels of racing. So for most, perfect calibration is a distant goal you’re always working towards.

It’s even more complex for foiling vessels, whose boat speed sensor – one of the four critical components needed to calculate true wind speeds and angles – regularly lifts out of the water. This whole area is one that Feydit told me was “a huge challenge that required a vast amount of work” for the Seair boat.

Slick twin-winch layout saves weight and borrows cockpit ideas from IMOCAs and Class 40s. Photo: James Tomlinson

Manera has only limited time to achieve this before the first races in the Atlantic season, starting with the 250-mile two-handed Plastimo Lorient Mini race, in which he will compete with Elena as co-skipper, just after this issue goes to press. While others are struggling to get a place on this autumn’s Mini Transat (starting September) Manera has already secured one of three spots reserved for boats measured for the first time during the year of the race.

Xucia is not the only entry with C-foils in this year’s Mini Transat. Geoffrey Morel’s #945 Tartine, a Marc Lombard design from 2018, was designed at the outset to be retrofitted with foils. However neither of her first two skippers, Axel Tréhin and Fabio Muzzolini – who finished 2nd in the last Mini Transat, took the plunge. The boat’s new C-foils have a very large chord measurement and again provide plenty of stability while also lifting the hull just above the water.

Given the two different schools of thought among foiling boats – full flying or low-riding – plus five new non-foiling Protos from the same mould as the winner of the last two Mini Transats, it will be interesting to compare their respective performance both in the shorter races this year and in the Mini Transat. The history of the Mini class tells us the outcome of the battle between the different styles of foiling boats and the latest Archimedes designs will have big ramifications for future developments in the wider offshore racing world.

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I used to do a lot of skydiving,” Simon Mitchell told me. “While you’re still in the aircraft you have options but, once you leave the door, gravity takes over and you hope you make a safe landing at the bottom. But you can’t guarantee it.”

He likens the process of completing Cass, his blue-hulled 40-footer, to “financial skydiving”. But while with skydiving it’s the landing that’s tricky and the falling that’s supposed to be fun, in Cass’s launch, although the process might have been painful, the end result is, as Mitchell puts it, “an extraordinary statement of craftsmanship which needs to be told.”

In the early 1990s, house builder-turned-boatbuilder Barry Cass was keen to buy a 1968 Holman & Pye design called Negomi (later renamed Cerinthe) but another buyer got there first. He instead decided he’d build another Holman & Pye boat, from a design originally conceived as a fast family cruiser for the Walker family to self-build.

The Walkers did so in Ayrshire, completing their yacht in 1975 and naming her Saboo. Cass was to begin his build at the other end of the country: putting up a purpose-built shed on some friend’s land just outside Truro, Cornwall, and work on the yacht started in 1998.

Slippery and well mannered, Cass is right at home in Falmouth’s Carrick Roads. Photo: Nigel Sharp

For the first couple of years, Cass employed a local boatbuilder, who carried out the majority of the work on the hull. But from then on he was working largely single-handedly, and unsurprisingly progress was slow. Cass took a great deal of care in meticulously sourcing the best quality timber and other materials, and occasionally recruited friends to help with specific jobs like riveting, but also spent long periods of time away from the project doing paid work. By the early part of 2012, he decided that he’d had enough and that it was time to look for someone else to complete the project.

At that point the boat consisted of a 4½ tonne lead keel; a complete hull with an iroko centreline, agba strip planking and laminated oak frames; iroko and cast bronze floors; beam shelf, deck beams and carlins in Douglas fir; and a ply sub-deck.

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The partially-built yacht was put up for sale with Peter Gregson at Wooden Ships. Some discussions with a potential client led to drawings for an alternative gaff yawl rig being commissioned, as a replacement for the Holman & Pye-designed masthead Bermudan yawl rig on Saboo, but nothing further came of it.

However, in 2015 Simon Mitchell, a former Royal Navy pilot who now runs an aviation company flying VIPs and heads of state in helicopters around the world, was looking for a boat to buy, having previously owned the 1911 Paine Clark double-ender Lora. Repeatedly browsing the Wooden Ships’ website he couldn’t help thinking Cass’s boat would be a good project for the right person but that person wasn’t him – the timing just wasn’t right for his career.

Photo: Nigel Sharp

Out of retirement

Then in early 2016 Mitchell went to see the boat with his old friend David Bentley, who’d recently retired after working as part of the management team at Pendennis Shipyard for over 25 years. Bentley could see the partial yacht had been well built so far, and Mitchell realised the boat represented a “once in a lifetime opportunity to do something really special,” even though, he admitted, “I had no idea how I was going to pay for it or how it was going to work out.”

But Mitchell did have two key factors on his side. The boat could stay in its custom shed until completed, and he had two highly experienced boatbuilders who were happy to work on the boat: Bentley himself and Nick Byatt, another recently retired long-term Pendennis manager.

Neither, however, had used their tools professionally for about 30 years, though Bentley recalls that it all “came back quite quickly”. Initially they planned to work on the boat for a couple of days a week, though they ended up doing four or five, and they also occasionally brought in other former Pendennis colleagues.

The cockpit and deck layout was designed to let the owner sail the boat solo, and allow novice guests to enjoy the view without getting involved. Photo: Nigel Sharp

Deck construction was completed with the addition of the coachroof. This was made up of teak coamings, laminated meranti deck beams, Douglas fir planking with ply laid over it and then sheathed in epoxy fibreglass. It was done to the same design as Saboo but with the addition of a traditional skylight. “I had one on Lora and loved it,” said Mitchell, who got hands-on with the coachroof construction.

The cockpit was enlarged slightly compared to the original design with the seat margins in teak, and planking in agba that had been salvaged from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal on which Mitchell had served for a couple of years and which was scrapped in 2011.

When it came to the interior, Mitchell says he was “really keen to ensure that we looked at everything that makes a boat work as a good sea boat. In particular I wanted a good wet locker, well thought-out stowage areas, and good access everywhere to make sure everything could be maintained.”

Celebrating a job well done: Simon Mitchell (nearest camera) and Jack Gifford (at wheel) sailing Cass. Photo: Nigel Sharp

Experienced eyes

Bentley and Byatt spent many hours mocking up each area of the yacht and it was here that their wealth of experience really came into its own. The result is, from aft: a galley to port in a snug seaworthy space outboard of a fore-and-aft half-height bulkhead; a chart table to starboard; a pilot berth and settee/berth each side of the saloon; a heads compartment; and a forepeak with a berth offset to starboard and an infill to port to make it into a double. The internal joinery is in European oak with white painted bulkheads and utile soles.

Around the time that Mitchell took on the project, Jack Gifford established his own marine design studio in Falmouth and Mitchell became his first client. One of Gifford’s first jobs was to help specify the engine, a 45hp Yanmar 4JH45, and design the engine beds. “Getting this massive lump down in the tuck of the bilge took a bit of thinking,” Gifford recalls.

European oak interior joinery with laminated hanging knees. Photo: Nigel Sharp

The boat is also equipped with a Mastervolt management system and inverter; an HEM watermaker; a Leesan electric toilet; fuel, fresh water and black water tanks by Henderson Plastics; a Webasto warm air heater, with one of the outlets in the wet locker; and LED lights throughout, including inside most of the lockers.

Sit back and relax

Mitchell was particularly keen that the deck fittings and rig should both look aesthetically pleasing and be simple to use, so that the boat was suitable for short-handed, even occasionally single-handed, sailing. “I wanted a boat on which people don’t have to help unless they want to,” he explained.

This resulted in a slightly enlarged cockpit with the mainsheet track moved aft of it; and a single-masted fractional cutter rig with swept-back spreaders and no running backstays, a foretriangle height and overall sail area about the same as Saboo, and a mast height almost 2m taller.

By coincidence, Gifford also knew Saboo’s owner, who was able to give him invaluable information regarding his boat’s behaviour under sail in various conditions, and this helped him develop the new sail plan.

The coachroof was modified to allow installation of a traditional skylight. Photo: Nigel Sharp

Mitchell and Gifford specified Antal for most of the proprietary deck fittings, Facnor Flat Deck furlers for the headsails, Eurospars for the spars and Penrose Sailmakers for the sails.

Meanwhile the custom deck fittings such as the stanchion bases (all of them different to match the changing angle of the toerail), the stem head fitting and winch plinths were produced by another former Pendennis Shipyard employee, Sam Coltman, and by local fabricator Sandy Creadon at Seaweld.

Just as preparations were being made to launch the boat, the first Covid lockdown saw the yacht literally put under wraps. When eventually launched at the end of June 2020 she was christened Cass, “in appreciation of Barry’s ingenuity and dedication,” said Mitchell.

Original drawings had a pilot berth outboard of the chart table, but Cass has a larger navstation with more room for electronics. Photo: Nigel Sharp

Well mannered

The result is hugely pleasing. “I knew she’d sail well but wasn’t prepared for just how good a sea boat she is,” Mitchell told me before we took her for a day cruise, “she sails brilliantly.”

“She seems quite slippery,” adds Gifford, “The fully battened main gives her a lot of power off the wind: when you bear away she really takes off.”

Mitchell freely explains that Cass cost him considerably more than he was expecting, but he was determined to do the boat justice.

“Repeatedly it was a question of having the guts to do what was right for the boat and resist the temptation to save money,” he said, “and now I keep seeing things which remind me of that and make me happy about the decisions I made.”

Cass specifications

LOA: 13.10m / 42ft 5in
LWL: 9.14m / 30ft 0in
Beam: 3.58m / 11ft 9in
Draught: 1.90m / 6ft 3in
Displacement: 12.2 tonnes
Sail area: 108.8m2 / 1,270ft2

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Scow bow designs are still very rare in the UK and mostly elsewhere in northern Europe. The exception is France, especially on the Atlantic coast, where their distinctive spatula-shaped forward sections are an increasingly common sight on Mini 650s, Class 40s and IMOCA 60s, and now the new Ace 30.

Scow designs are now even pushing into the cruising domain. The Mojito 650, for instance, is a detuned version of the phenomenally successful Maxi 650 that took five of the top nine places in the last Mini Transat, with demand outstripping the rate at which builder IDB Marine can produce them. The Mojito 650 offers huge accommodation volume for a 21-footer, along with distinctive style, yet still offers planing performance downwind and a surprising turn of speed close hauled.

With the explosion of interest in short-handed offshore racing on both sides of the English Channel, it’s perhaps no surprise to find a new scow bowed yacht aimed at IRC racing, even though that’s a much harder challenge to overcome. While planing designs now dominate among new IRC boats launched in the 40-45ft and upwards sector, the opposite is the case for smaller boats, where heavier displacement designs still dominate.

Scow hulls aim to keep the boat going above the waves rather than through them. Photo: Photo Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

The problem is that getting a decent IRC rating for a smaller lightweight boat is seen as being next to impossible. As a result, some of the most successful designs this season, such as the
JPK 10.10 and Jeanneau Sun Fast 3600 – between them accounting for all of the top four places in the 2022 RORC overall season’s points, weigh 4 or 5 tonnes and therefore have relatively heavy displacement length ratios.

Attempting to disrupt the status quo with a radical lightweight design is a brave move, but that’s what the new Ace 30 is hoping to achieve. At the same time, the boat is intended to appeal to former Mini 650 owners – this class has a huge number of alumni, many of which continue to seek fast and innovative new boats.

Downwind performance should be impressive. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

Ace 30 – a tardis concept

When viewed from the dock the Ace 30 looks like a small boat with slab sides and a big chunky coachroof. However, once on board, whether above or below decks, it feels like a much larger vessel with very impressive stability. The reverse sheer is not a style statement. It increases the intrinsic stiffness of the hull, increases volume in the central parts of the accommodation and reduces weight in the ends of the boat.

The deck layout is very similar to that of JPKs and Sun Fasts, although the benches forward lack even the smallest of coamings. Even so, anyone who has sailed these or similar boats will feel instantly at home.

My sail on board wasn’t in optimal conditions for the boat, with true wind of mostly 5-6 knots. Nevertheless, it immediately proved to be quick, with boat speed of 6-7.5 knots even when VMG running at 140° true wind angle in these light airs. Upwind 5-6 knots was possible, though you have to sail at wide angles of around 50° TWA and it’s important not to pinch too close. Bearing away as little as 5° can increase boat speeds by 1 knot and markedly reduces slamming.

The cockpit layout of the Ace 30 is broadly similar to that of Sun Fasts, JPKs and similar boats of this size. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

In stronger winds during the European Yacht of the Year trials at La Rochelle, we could see the boat matching the close hauled speeds of around 7 knots achieved by the much larger Linjett 39 and First 36, albeit sailing noticeably lower.

Like other scows it’s when power-reaching and downwind in a blow that this boat will really come into its own. A very different setup and sail trim are required compared to conventional boats. The mast is very well aft in the boat and needs a lot of both mast rake and bend.

Transom-hung rudders reduce weight and complexity, while also allowing easy adjustment of toe-in angle. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

Designer and builder Antoine Mainfray of Atelier Interface in La Rochelle says he worked hard to keep the IRC rating down, while also keeping the weight of the boat low. During the design process he applied for three trial certificates, with the last of these coming in at a respectable 1.014. During the build he moved the engine back slightly to trim the stern down, made the interior more comfortable, and further tweaked sail sizes.

The final rating of 1.001 also reflects the setup of the first boat, which is optimised for transatlantic races such as the Transquadra, Cap Martinique, and RORC Transatlantic. It therefore has a very short luff J2 jib and is not rated with the J1 that would be needed on shorter offshore races, where more light air upwind sailing is likely to be experienced. Nevertheless, this is a figure very close to that of older successful and heavier designs such as the JPK 10.10 – and several per cent lower than the Sun Fast 3300.

The stability of this boat is such that the J4 doesn’t need to be used until the true wind speed is greater than 25 knots. Equally, the 100m2 A2 spinnaker – a very large sail for a boat of this length and weight – is intended for use in true wind of up to 25 knots, after which you switch to the A5.

Eco footprint

Sustainability is also an important element of the concept and Mainfray, who has also recently delivered a foiling Mini 650 that uses bamboo – “a material that can have a negative carbon footprint” – in the structure, appears to do as much as possible to live by his values.

This is one of the reasons for the plywood build of the Ace 30. The carbon footprint of this boat is 1.9 tonnes, whereas an equivalent GRP hull would be over 6 tonnes, even before making allowance for building moulds.

Plywood is also inherently lightweight and stiff, making it ideal for building one-off raceboats and small production runs without a mould. This boat also includes carbon reinforcement, primarily around the chainplates and a spider of unidirectional fibres on the coachroof.

The okoume ply used for the hull is mostly 12mm thick, with 15mm used for some parts of the structure. Outside of this are two layers of biaxial rovings, plus a third at 45°. These are laid up using bio resins and increase strength, particularly around the keel, where the lay-up is thicker, while also providing impact resistance to protect the timber. Inside the boat, the ply is coated and impregnated with epoxy, but is not sheathed with glass.

Interior is functional but spacious and light and includes a settee each side, central table, nav station and galley. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

The coachroof is partly made of GRP, using bio epoxies and recycled PET cores, but again without a mould.

Mainfray says that in areas without much curvature the sandwich can be laminated and infused in one go. Where complex curves are required he moulds one skin on a jig or template, then adds the core material and the second laminate in another phase.

The computer monitor is on a big swing arm, so can be moved to each side of the boat or viewed through the companionway when on deck. Photo: Ludovic Fruchaud/EYOTY

Roomy interior

Below decks is functional, but surprisingly spacious, with enough volume to make a reasonable ultra-fast cruiser. The low freeboard means there are no sole boards, so you stand on the hull and have to step over the structural members to get around. This gives reasonable 1.75m (5ft 9in) headroom near the table, increasing to well over 6ft under the cuddy.

The saloon has a long settee each side, with sitting headroom under the very wide side decks, plus a central table that houses the diesel tank, keeping weight central and low down. There are twin open plan double berths aft, and seats each side for taking a nap near the companionway.

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Note: Since this piece was written Tapio Lehtinen had to be rescued in the Golden Globe Race after his beloved yacht, Asteria sank in a mere 5 minutes. It is unclear at this moment what the cause of this abrupt sinking was. As this article attests, Lehtinen was meticulous in his preparation for the event and was dismayed to lose his boat in such a fashion. 

Sparkman and Stephens aficionado Tapio Lehtinen believes his Gaia 36 Asteria is the perfect vessel for the rigours of the Golden Globe Race, despite being the oldest yacht in the fleet having been built in 1965. Lehtinen completed the 2018 edition, the first ‘re-running’ of the famous solo non stop race, in 5th place in the same boat, after being hampered by ineffective antifouling that resulted in massive underwater growth.

However, a bigger refit than anticipated meant Lehtinen was not able to fully realise his vision for the boat last time. He bought her in 2017 in Italy, but it was only after sailing home to Finland that significant delamination was discovered in the deck. Eventually the entire deck and coachroof was sliced off and used as a male mould for its replacement.

At the same time, the hull was stripped right back to a shell, with all furniture and bulkheads removed. Even the gelcoat and top 1mm of the hull laminate was ground away and then relaminated with Kevlar to improve impact resistance against collision with floating objects.

“The boat is now how I would have liked it to be four years ago,” he told me in Les Sables d’Olonne the day before the start, “but then we just didn’t have the time to get to this standard.”

The Gaia design dates from 1961 and Asteria is the second boat of a total of 15 built. She has very similar lines to the Swan 36 which was first launched just two years later, although Asteria’s rudder is mounted on the trailing edge of the keel, rather than the Swan’s more modern fin and skeg profile.

Although much modified, Asteria is the only boat in the Golden Globe Race that was originally designed for racing. Photo: Golden Globe Race

“It’s the only boat in the GGR that was originally designed for racing,” Lehtinen added, “and I wouldn’t want to race with a cruising boat.” Nevertheless Asteria is much modified compared to her original specification.

As well as three watertight compartments and foam buoyancy in the bow, there’s a pair of watertight bulkheads aft, which are not required for the race, but make sense for the rigours of the course. The first is just ahead of the rudder tube, while the second is a couple of feet further forward. All through-hull fittings are positioned between the two, virtually eliminating the chance of a failed skin fitting sinking the boat.

Conventional cockpit locker lids are notorious for letting in water during severe weather. Therefore flush-fitting Lewmar hatches were used instead when the new deck was fitted. The deck now also has a wider cockpit coaming to facilitate the fitting of large winches – there are three each side. At the same time the cockpit well is narrower than the original. It was specified to exactly fit the width of the liferaft, minimising the volume of water the cockpit will hold when pooped by a wave.

Hand and foot steering

The very substantial aluminium tiller has an extension that in benign conditions enables Lehtinen to steer from the front of the cockpit, where there’s a clear view of the telltales. Noting that Jean Luc Van Den Heede, who won the first edition of the revived Golden Globe by a large margin, hand steered for a lot of the race, Asteria is also set up so that Lehtinen can steer from a position of comfort and safety in properly challenging conditions.

As we publish this, Lehtinen is in second in the 2022 Golden Globe Race. Photo: GGR/Etienne Messikommer

To do this he adapted an idea from Bernard Moitessier in the original 1968 Golden Globe. He can sit in the companionway, completely enclosed by the cuddy and washboards, steering with his feet in stirrups, from which lines are led back to the tiller.

The ultra-sleek cuddy is also a unique feature. Those of some Golden Globe boats look vulnerable in a knockdown, or add considerable windage aft, which may impair steering downwind in wild conditions when these boats lack the control of more modern designs with spade rudders. However, Asteria’s cuddy design was based on those used for racing powerboats and, despite being extremely lightweight, is rated to withstand capsizing at around 100 knots of boat speed!

The 12mm standing rigging is massively oversized, while the mast, chainplates and surrounding structure are beefed up to match. Photo: Rupert Holmes

Durable rig

When the coachroof was rebuilt Lehtinen took the opportunity to reduce the width of the companionway. It now exactly suits his frame, so he doesn’t rattle around in the space in rough weather. There’s also extra strengthening at the companionway, with full height fore and aft bulkheads each side that are bonded into the hull structure.

Lehtinen says the importance of that is something he remembers from Miles and Beryl Smeeton’s experience on their 46ft ketch Tzu Hang, which lost the coachroof when pitchpoled on the approach to Cape Horn in the late 1950s.

Lehtinen demonstrating the webbing ‘cage’ over his bunk to stop him being thrown out in the event of being rolled over or a severe knockdown. Photo: Helen Fretter

For this edition of the race he also changed from a WindPilot to a Hydrovane. This suits Asteria well as the chord length of her keel is unusually short, which means the rudder hung on its trailing edge is a long way forward and has limited effect. However, the Hydrovane’s auxiliary rudder, mounted on the back of the long, drawn out counter exerts lots of leverage. In many ways it therefore works more like the spade rudder of newer designs and allows Asteria’s main rudder to be locked off, acting like a trim tab.

Three furling headsails make for quick and easy sail transitions. Photo: Rupert Holmes

One of the changes Lehtinen has made since the 2018 race is to fit a continuous line furler to the forward forestay that enables hank-on sails to be furled. Towards the end of the race, when his big lightweight genoa was worn and weak, there was a risk of it being irreparably damaged in squalls as it was time consuming to douse. The reefing system means the sail can be wrapped away very quickly.

Downwind this stay can also be used for the hank-on storm jib. However, when sailing upwind the storm jib can be flown from the babystay in conjunction with a fourth mainsail reef (in lieu of a trysail) to give a more balanced sail plan. To give the mast appropriate support for this Asteria has a second pair of running backstays.

Standing rigging, normally 7mm or 8mm wire for a boat of this size, is upgraded to a massive 12mm, with Norseman-style terminals and both chainplates and the surrounding structure beefed up to match. The mast, new for the 2018 race, is of a heavier section than standard.

The Yankee on the main forestay and staysail are both roller furling sails and were used for the previous GGR. They’re made of very heavy Dacron, with substantial reinforcement, and have been fully serviced including re-stitching where it was found necessary.

Mainsail reefing is done entirely in the cockpit, using separate luff and leech pennants. The sail is set up with twin sheets, each with a purchase leading to opposite sides of the cockpit. It’s a simple arrangement that gives fine control over sail shape without the need for a traveller. The boat is set up with two poles for gybes, while the leeward foreguy can be led aft as a preventer. There’s also a jockey pole to keep the spinnaker pole off the guardrails.

It’s also noticeable that there are many substantial stainless steel handholds on deck and that jackstays are as close to the centreline as possible. Given Asteria’s narrow beam and fine ends Lehtinen uses a short tether to ensure he can never be washed over the guardwires.

Confined space

His bunk is on the starboard side of the saloon, with a deep leeboard supplemented by webbing straps across the top, to ensure there’s no chance of being ejected and injured even if the boat is rolled through 360°. A steering compass and barograph at the foot of the bunk means Lehtinen can immediately check key data on waking up, including the rate of change of atmospheric pressure.

The sleek cuddy was originally designed for racing powerboats and can withstand a capsize at 100 knots. Photo: Rupert Holmes

The remainder of the interior is very functional, with a sail stowage area forward, a small navstation on the main bulkhead with the permitted electronics: VHF and SSB radios, plus an old school weather fax that allows synoptic charts and even satellite weather images to be downloaded via HF radio. These are all encased behind waterproof panels.

Asteria specifications

LOA: 10.97m / 36ft 0in
LWL: 7.77m / 25ft 6in
Beam: 2.95m / 9ft 8in
Draught: 1.83m / 6ft 0in
Displacement: 6,985kg / 15,400lb
Sail area: 50.17m2 / 540ft2

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The post Extraordinary boats: Tapio Lehtinen’s Gaia 36 Asteria appeared first on Yachting World.

There are some yachts which are beautiful, some which are successful, and some which are well loved. It’s a rare boat which combines all three, but Running Tide has always been that yacht.

The S&S 61 was originally commissioned by passionate big-boat racer Jakob Isbrandtsen, and on its launch in 1969 was one of the earliest stripped-out racers, designed for performance with scant consideration for comfort by the standards of the day. Built of aluminium plating by Huisman in the Netherlands, the design represented an evolution for Olin Stephens, with a relatively slender beam, long forward overhangs and a separate keel and skeg-hung rudder.

Running Tide was fast on its debut, winning class in the 1970 Newport-Bermuda Race for Isbrandtsen, and the following year taking overall victory in Florida’s SORC circuit. The yacht was briefly leased to ocean racer Ted Turner. Turner was so taken by Running Tide that he tried to buy it, but ended up in a bidding war with property developer Al Van Metre.

Van Metre took ownership in 1972, while Turner bought Tenacious, a former America’s Cup 12-Metre, and the two continued their rivalry on the racecourse, exchanging podium places at many of the major American offshores and big-boat series. In one Miami-Nassau race the two boats were inseparable for nearly 200 miles, the race result eventually decided in the protest room (in Tide’s favour) after a luffing match midway across the Straits of Florida.

The Washington Post reported that in the 1979 Annapolis-Newport race, Running Tide and Tenacious again duelled side by side, until “Tenacious went out to sea, following the rhumb line in light air toward the tip of Long Island; Tide ran up the coast, reaching for thermals that never developed. Turner arrived in Newport hours ahead of Tide. Van Metre, gracious in defeat, bought dinner for the entire Tenacious crew, but Turner didn’t stay around long enough to eat it.”

Van Metre’s aim was that the yacht’s profile be instantly recognisable as the original boat. Just six winches makes for a clutter-free deck. Photo: Billy Black

Family affair

The Van Metres competed hard in Running Tide for over a decade, Al often racing with his son, Beau, and friends. Modifications were made to try and keep the yacht competitive against newer designs, including a higher rig, which was later rejected.

“I think we lived and breathed sailing with Running Tide,” recalls Beau Van Metre. “It was something my dad and I did together. Every day, every night, we worked and we sailed that boat, and we just had a lot of fun with it.

“And it was just a lot of fun for he and I to be together doing something like that.”

Taller, lighter carbon rig led to a 20% increase in sail area. Photo: Billy Black

Al Van Metre gave up sailing in 1984, though Beau planned to keep going. “I ended up refitting the boat a little bit and with some friends sailed it over to Antibes, France. I was going to sail it around the world, but the Suez Canal was having a problem, so I left it there for that season, and after a while I never went back.”

Running Tide was sold in the south of France, where it remained for over 30 years, changing hands halfway. Members of the Running Tide crew would often spot the yacht while in France for events like Les Voiles de St Tropez and report back to Beau on its whereabouts. “On and off between the two [owners], I would call them up periodically and see if they wanted to sell it. They wanted to sell it for 10 times more than I sold it to them for, so I never went through with it – until the last guy.”

Running Tide had been run aground in St Tropez and sustained some damage, and its elderly owner wanted to sell up, so Beau Van Metre flew to France to see the yacht that had played such a huge part in his family’s life. They found a yacht that had been almost untouched since the early 1980s…

“It was pretty bad. The same Igloo Pearl cooler was down below that I had bought 35 years ago. The cushions were the same cushions, the gauges – you couldn’t even see through them, they were all fogged up and cracked. They had done absolutely zero, except painted it blue and the boat’s always been black. They did some modifications down below and tried to add some staterooms to it, which was ridiculous. But other than that, it was the same old boat, but in a lot worse shape.

Beau Van Metre enjoying finger-tip control of his new/old yacht. Photo: Billy Black

“We knew we were going to buy it. I didn’t care what it looked like. I knew it was in bad shape but I just wanted to get a first-hand look myself and was quite shocked. I was very attached to the boat personally,” Van Metre said.

In 2018 Running Tide was shipped back to the US, moving to New England Boatworks (NEB) in Rhode Island, where the project was managed by Bob Sharkey. There the process of stripping the yacht back to bare metal began.

“The hull was in very good shape, and the frames and the aluminium – other than the deck, the deck was actually cracked when it ran aground. The deck was half plywood and half metal to begin with, so we replaced the deck. And we basically gutted [the boat], sandblasted it outside and inside, and took it back to original condition,” explains Van Metre.

Performance boost

An early decision was made to increase the rig height by around 10ft. America’s Cup veteran Mike Toppa of North Sails was a rookie sailmaker in Running Tide’s original heyday, and was brought in to work on the new sail wardrobe.

“Bob buys the boat back, puts it on a ship, and the ship takes it to Fort Lauderdale,” Toppa recalls. “Beau and I, Tom Ridge from NEB, and David Pedrick, the yacht designer that Beau chose to do all the naval architecture, the four of us went down to Lauderdale and decided to go sailing before the boat was put on a truck.

“We took it out and one of the engine hoses failed and sprayed oil over the engine. There was smoke pouring out of all the hatches, 20 minutes off the dock! So that was the only chance to see what we had.”

The upgraded interior includes a carbon inlaid chart table and smart lighting system. Photo: Billy Black

Pedrick began modelling the effects of different changes, one of which was changing the mast to carbon, and changing the standing rigging from metal to ECSix. “Modelling those changes he realised that he could increase the mast height and the sail area for the same righting moment because we were reducing so much weight in the rig,” explains Toppa.

Originally Van Metre planned for Running Tide to have a dual role as a cruising yacht, and the rig plan includes an in-boom furling mainsail (which Van Metre may yet replace for a conventional boom) as well as furling headsails. The traditional dip-pole spinnaker set up has been swapped for asymmetric spinnakers and Code sails.

The original 16 winches have been replaced with six powered winches, just some of the complex systems that have been squeezed into the traditional hull shape. “I thought I was going to race it a little bit and cruise it a bit, and I find that I’m having a little bit more fun racing it. That was the other reason I put the hydraulic winches on there, I thought my wife and my kids and I would go sailing.

“Well, the boat’s easier to handle, but it’s got a hydraulic system down below that’s quite complicated. I mean, you’re not going to go down and work on it yourself. So it’s different in that I’ll always have two or three people on the boat when we go out, but we’re enjoying it, and actually the family is enjoying racing on it as well.”

The original Barient coffee grinder pedestals have been removed, though Van Metre admits that he couldn’t quite throw them away.

“They’re in my garage,” he laughs. “I was going to make a table or something out of the coffee grinders and make some lamps out of a couple of the winches.”

The pipecots, roof lights and hatch positions echo the original boat, although the interior finish is considerably more luxurious. Photo: Billy Black

Other mod-cons have also been added, including a heater and air conditioning unit at Van Metre’s wife’s request. “The air conditioner was kind of a luxury and took up a lot of space – tubes and vents and condensers and everything else. But I can tell you, everybody on the boat loves the air conditioner especially. It’s just been so hot sailing.”

The existing keel was kept, remarkably undamaged from the yacht’s grounding, though a new high aspect spade rudder was added and then further tweaked following the yacht’s relaunch in 2020.

“We had to add a little bit to the rudder after the Annapolis Newport race – we thought we needed a little bit more bite and so we just added five inches to the back of the rudder. And after the Bermuda race this year we changed the sprocket for the steering so we didn’t have to turn it so much – that’s the kind of thing we’ve been doing, little teeny tweaks here and there.

Back to black – the Van Metre’s original high gloss hull colour has been restored. Photo: Billy Black

“And that’s what Running Tide was. My dad and I were constantly tweaking. We ruined I don’t know how many dinners – our wives hated us because all we always talked about was sailing.”

Complete package

Both on deck and down below the refit follows the ethos of ‘like the original, but better’.

Van Metre was cautious when it came to changes which would change the lines of the yacht, and rejected suggestions to open out the cockpits for a more modern deck layout. The original giant metal wheel has also been retained. “When people saw Running Tide today, Beau wanted people that were familiar with the boat to be able to instantly recognise it,” explains Toppa.

Gauge positions have been kept where they were, but new B&G displays and powered winch controls have been added. Photo: Billy Black

“So the colour scheme was unchanged, the rake of the bow pushpit, the rake of the bow pulpit, was unchanged. Really the only thing that was changed in the profile look of the boat was the elimination of the grinder pedestals and the taller rig, but if you look at Running Tide today it looks like the original boat.”

All the woodwork was crafted from new, replacing bare teak with varnished brightwork, and roughly oiled floorboards with a gleaming cabin sole. The dirty maroon cushions which Van Metre found in France have been replaced with lustrous red upholstery, and modern touches include a carbon inlaid chart table.

“It’s more yacht-like now, as far as the interior goes. It was very utilitarian when we were racing it. It worked, but was built like a pickup truck,” says Van Metre.

The end result reflects the affection that both the Van Metres, and the many skilled craftsman involved in the refit, have for the yacht.

“There have always been iconic boats that represent a generation or a time in sailing that were pretty and successful and good looking – and in Running Tide‘s case, also had a fantastic, wonderful family that loved the boat, and loved sailing,” notes Toppa.

“Running Tide is one of those boats that checks all the boxes.”

Running Tide specifications

LOA: 18.40m / 60ft 5in
LWL: 13.11m / 43ft 0in
Draught: 2.74m / 9ft 0in
Beam: 4.34m / 14ft 3in
Displacement: 24 tonnes
Sail area (estimated): 186m2 / 2,000ft2

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Cowes-based businessman Peter Morton, widely known as Morty, is a serial winner who’s enjoyed a long career on the podium at everything from the Admiral’s Cup and Half Ton Cup, to the Quarter Tonners and the Fast 40 fleet. However, while much of the world was curtailed by Covid restrictions, Morton was busy establishing a complex two-boat campaign to take on another highly competitive class.

“I’ve always thought the 5.5s are fantastic, elegant boats,” he told me, “but it was only when the Worlds came to Cowes in 2018 that I took a closer look.” He liked what he saw and when a 2003 boat came on the market during the championship Morton agreed a deal to buy it.

“I thought it would be a nice little taster,” he says. “We started by looking at some of the systems and figured we could improve on them. So we did some modifications over the winter, then took it to Lake Garda in spring 2019 and won the Alpen Cup, sailing with Ben Cornish and Andrew ‘Dog’ Palfrey.”

Next was the 2019 Worlds in which they finished 5th, followed with a 4th place at the Worlds in Sydney in January 2020, but this time only three points behind the 2nd-placed boat overall. It was time to look for a new boat.

The 5.5 Metre class originated in 1949, based on the Metre Rule, and allows unrestricted development and a wide range of design interpretations, as long as each boat fits within the 5.5 Metre formula (a calculation of the boat’s length, displacement and sail area). Today the class races in three divisions: Classic, Evolution and Modern, with the latter including all boats from 1994 onwards.

Since 2000 almost every new 5.5 Metre has been built by Wilke in Switzerland, to designs by Sebastian Schmidt. Morton was tempted to do the same, but considered that if a 16-year-old boat was still competitive there might be scope for more development in the class.

Elliot Hanson, Andrew Palfrey and Sam Haines sailed Jean Genie to Scandinavian Gold Cup and World Championship wins in Hankø, Norway. Photo: Robert Deaves

“So I decided to look at some alternatives,” he recalls. “Back home at the start of Covid I was talking to a couple of the local yards, who were all very quiet, so I decided to build a new boat.”

Article continues below…

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Designer David Hollom had already done a presentation for existing owners, with velocity prediction polars (VPPs) that looked promising. So Morton talked with Palfrey and Sydney-based naval architect Steve Quigley of One2three. Quigley designs fast ferries, including the Red Jet cross-channel ferries for Wight Shipyard, the Cowes-based company of which Morton is CEO, and is also part of the team on the famed 30m Maxi Wild Oats, racing on board and responsible for a lot of the optimisation. He ran CFD analysis on four different 5.5 Metre hull shapes from Hollom against scans of the lines of Morton’s original boat.

Tuning partners

America’s Cup legend Tom Schnackenberg, who Morton first sailed with close to 50 years ago, then ran VPPs. These showed all the Hollom shapes would be quicker than the existing boat and one of them definitely a click better than the others above eight knots of breeze.

Most 5.5s don’t have a mainsheet traveller, but fitting one gave better balance control and helped the team develop more options for upwind modes. Photo: Robert Deaves

The seeds of the two-boat programme were beginning to germinate, with Quigley also designing a 5.5 Metre. Acquisition of a 2012 boat that had never performed well provided a donor deck, keel and rudder for the Quigley boat. This was built by David Heritage in Cowes, in strip planked western red cedar to keep the cost down, and became Girls on Film, GBR41. Meanwhile, another Cowes yard, Gavin Tappenden’s Composite Craft, got the order to build the Hollom boat, which became the Jean Genie, GBR42.

GBR41 is the more conventional of the two, partly due to the need to use an existing keel and rudder. But GBR42 is very different, with almost 20% more righting moment thanks to a fat keel with all the lead in the bottom. During the tuning process they also discovered it didn’t need its trim tab – it could be kept locked in the centre position – which simplified the sailing and massively reduced the potential for error.

The slightly wing shape mast from Heol Composites has a long chord and is immensely stiff, so running backstays aren’t needed. Photo: Robert Deaves

The Jean Genie is also an interesting design in other respects: the hull is longer than typical for a 5.5, but it has less sail area and is lighter. The mainsail and spinnakers are smaller than usual, but the jib, which unlike most boats in the fleet is not self-tacking, is slightly larger than the established class norm.

The build of GBR41 was finished first, so the team took it to Garda in October 2021, where, “We won pretty easily, to be honest,” says Morton. “Winning that regatta also gave us the best tool we could have,” adds Palfrey, “a trial horse we knew was fast.”

After launching GBR42 they did a lot of two-boat tuning from Cowes, with help from a bunch of top sailors including Graham Bailey, Andy Beadsworth, Laurie Smith and Jochem Visser. “The VPPs were uncannily accurate,” says Morton, “with 42 definitely having legs when there was breeze, while 41 probably had the edge when it was lighter.” Morton couldn’t make it to Garda for this year’s Alpen Cup, so Palfrey sailed with Ruaridh Scott and Etchells sailor James Howells, where they convincingly won again.

Being able to make finger-tip fine adjustments when racing in light airs is as important as control when drop hiking in a strong breeze. Photo: Robert Deaves

The two-boat tuning programme last winter was ‘massively beneficial’, according to Morton. This comprised several sessions, each of three or four days, just going upwind and downwind for four or five hours a day. As well as the performance data capture it also served to improve the boats’ reliability. Despite this year’s World Championships being a generally windy event they had no breakages. “That’s absolutely a benefit of time spent on the water,” says Morton.

Palfrey says the data captured during the tuning process was ‘fairly simplistic’ compared to an RC44 or TP52 campaign and included boat speed, rudder angle, trim tab angle and headstay load. This was analysed after each day afloat using Njord Analytics.

At this stage the team was also keen to develop the carbon rigs, which were all complex set ups with running backstays, checkstays and so on. Heol Composites in Brittany came up with two mast sections. The first was a pretty conventional section, while the other, which was ordered at a later date, has a subtle wing mast shape with a long chord.

In total there are 46 control points on the boat. Cleats are placed at the perfect angle for adjusting lines while hiking hard. Photo: Robert Deaves

When the rigs arrived in Cowes the first task was to bench test them. “We were alarmed at how stiff the first one was compared to the masts we had been sailing with,” says Palfrey. This stiffness enabled the runners and checkstays to be dropped, while still achieving the same headstay loads, which massively simplified boat handling. The second rig proved to be particularly good in this respect, with additional backstay tension going straight into the forestay, instead of bending the mast. Palfrey estimates the benefit of eliminating the runners as being in the order of multiple boat lengths in each race.

Talent pool

The programme benefited from the luxury of time, thanks to many events being cancelled due to Covid, as well as an exceptional collection of talent. By the time the two crews went to the worlds – Peter’s wife Louise Morton sailed GBR41 with Annie Lush and Hannah Diamond – the technical WhatsApp group had more than 30 people, all at the top of their game.

Even the mast step can be moved fore and aft while sailing. This allows the rig to be canted right forward on downwind legs. Photo: Robert Deaves

Unfortunately Morton couldn’t go to this year’s Worlds, so he sent the boat with British Olympic Laser sailor Elliot Hanson stepping in to helm, with Palfrey and pro sailor Sam Haines crewing.

The team knew that GBR42 was fast, and were confident in its radical new rig, but the results speak for themselves. GBR42 won the Scandinavian Gold Cup, becoming the first British boat in its 103-year history to win the trophy, and then the Worlds, achieving the rare distinction of winning all three of the big class events in the same season. “They just got faster and faster,” says Morton. “In the last race they couldn’t even read the sail numbers on the boats behind – they had a huge lead.”

5.5 Metre specifications

LOA (typical): 9.5m / 31ft 0in
Beam (minimum): 1.92m / 6ft 4in
Draught (maximum): 1.35m / 4ft 5in
Hull weight (minimum): 1,700kg / 3,700lb
Hull weight (maximum): 2,000kg / 4,400lb
Upwind sail area (minimum): 26m2 / 285ft2
Upwind sail area (maximum): 29m2 / 312ft2
Spinnaker area (typical): 50m2 / 538ft2

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Extraordinary boats: 5.5 Metre Jean Genie appeared first on Yachting World.

Last year’s Rolex Fastnet Race got off to a dramatic start, with over 30 knots of wind blasting through the fleet of 330 yachts lined up on the Solent. Not all the competitors were up to the rigours of such a full-on start, with 79 boats retiring in the first 24 hours. But one yacht truly in her element was the 74ft ketch Stormvogel. Despite being 60 years of age, the old warhorse not only took the near-gale conditions in her stride but finished a very respectable 6th in class and 7th in IRC overall.

It was an impressive performance by the yacht often described as ‘the first Maxi’, due to her radical lightweight construction, and marked a welcome return to northern Europe racing for the yacht after an absence of more than 30 years.

“We had a good strong wind at the start, which suited Stormvogel,” said skipper Graeme Henry. “We were pushing 100%, and didn’t take our foot off the pedal. It was a hard slog to start with, but she took the punishment and stood up to it. The fact she can finish up there with the modern boats shows what a remarkable boat she is.”

By the time he commissioned Stormvogel in 1959, Dutch wood merchant Cornelis ‘Kees’ Bruynzeel had already won the Fastnet Race: overall in 1937 on his traditionally-built Sparkman & Stephens yawl Zeearend and a class victory in 1952 on his plywood Van de Stadt sloop Zeervalk.

He had proven the suitability of plywood in building small and medium sized sailboats but, ever-ambitious, wanted to go a step further and build the biggest yacht allowed in ocean races: up to 70ft.

Stormvogel at the start of the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race. Photo: Rolex/Kurt Arrigo

A risky proposition

As the Van de Stadt office was apparently too busy to take on the commission, Bruynzeel asked Olin Stephens, but he was unwilling to risk his reputation on such an outlandish project. Instead, Bruynzeel approached a designer who was not afraid to take risks: Laurent Giles, who had drawn the radical Myth of Malham for John Illingworth.

Giles willingly took on the project. Somewhere along the line Illingworth was persuaded to sketch a design too. But when Bruynzeel showed the two designs to Van de Stadt he was unimpressed and agreed to draw preliminary sketches of his own design.

Faced with three different approaches, Bruynzeel had models made of all three designs and had them tank tested at Southampton University. The Van de Stadt design came out the best and was duly selected.

However, the method of construction, using a laminated skin on fore and aft stringers, was similar to that pioneered by Myth of Malham, so Laurent Giles was engaged to draw the construction plans. To complete the illustrious team, Illingworth agreed to design the yacht’s rig. Construction would be by Bruynzeel’s own company Lamtico, in Stellenbosch, South Africa, which had ample expertise in laminating timber – even if it lacked big boatbuilding experience.

Displaying an impressive full set of sails early in her racing career. Photo: Stormvogel Archive

The new design was built of four layers of Khaya mahogany: the inner and outer running fore and aft and the two middle layers in opposite diagonals. The planks were glued together with Resorcinol, which was the standard glue for laminating timber at that time.

Full length stringers complete with lightweight frames and bulkheads completed the aircraft-like hull construction. The deck and coamings were made of plywood and foam sandwich to produce a rigid, lightweight structure which was integral to the boat’s overall strength.

Stormvogel was built in just 10 months – a remarkable achievement working with such an improvised set-up. She was launched in April 1961 and, after brief sea trials, set off for England. Gordon Webb was the boat’s first skipper and he sailed her up to the UK with a crew of 13, including Bruynzeel. They completed the 7,660-mile voyage, via Saint Helena, Ascension Island and the Azores, in 51 days, averaging a very respectable 7.6 knots.

Launch day for Stormvogel at Cape Town in 1961. Photo: Stormvogel Archive

Fastnet 1961

Stormvogel’s navigator for the Fastnet Race was none other than Francis Chichester – not yet Sir Francis – fresh from winning the first OSTAR on Gipsy Moth III but yet to sail around the world on Gipsy Moth IV.

Stormvogel got off to a cracking start, leading the fleet out of the Solent, but was set back when her mainsail halyard broke and she was forced to pull into the lee of land to fit a new one. There followed a navigational disagreement between Bruynzeel and Chichester, in which Bruynzeel got his way but Chichester was ultimately proven right, costing them four hours of tacking across the Irish Sea.

Despite this, Stormvogel caught and overtook the rest of the fleet, being the first boat to round the Rock and, a day or so later, the first boat over the line in a time of 3 days, 20 hours and 58 minutes.

Her achievements won Bruynzeel both the Elizabeth McCaw Trophy (first around Fastnet Rock) and the Erivale Cup (first yacht home). Their final position was reduced to 6th on handicap, however, with another Dutch sailor, WNH Van Der Vorm, winning overall on a traditional S&S long-keeler, Zwerver II.

John Illingworth designed Stormvogel’s rig. Photo: Nic Compton

That first race set the pattern for the first 10 years of her career, as Stormvogel swept over the finish line first in race after race, only to be knocked back on handicap. It was the same story in the 1962 Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro Race, the 1963 Shaw Race, the 1964 Newport-Bermuda Race, the 1965 Sydney Hobart Race, the 1966 China Sea Race, the 1967 Transpac, and the Middle Sea Race in 1968 and 69 – to name a few.

But as Van de Stadt said: “Bruynzeel didn’t care much about the handicap, he just wanted to be the first to arrive and the final ranking didn’t matter to him.”

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In terms of sheer sea miles, the distance covered by the yacht in its first 10 years is extraordinary. Bruynzeel thought nothing of sailing from Europe to Cape Town, to Buenos Aires then to the Caribbean, to the US and back to Europe in a single year, taking in half a dozen ocean races along the way.

In 1965/66, Stormvogel took part in the Transpac, followed by the Sydney Hobart and the China Sea Race, before heading back to California for the Big Boat series in San Francisco. In her first six years alone she sailed 200,000 miles, the equivalent of sailing around the world once a year.

By 1968, Bruynzeel had already moved on and built himself a new toy: the 53ft Van de Stadt-designed Stormy, featuring a strangely incongruous clipper bow. Stormy came 3rd overall in the inaugural Cape to Rio Race in 1971, and won both line honours and overall race victory in the 1973 edition of the same race. In 1980, aged 80, Bruynzeel died on board Stormy while cruising in the Mediterranean.

Second life

Meanwhile, Stormvogel went through two owners in the 1970s before being acquired by an Italian owner in 1982. It was a relationship that was to last right up to the present day.

Stormvogel featured in the movie Dead Calm by mistake. The producers were meant to use Bruynzeel’s other boat, Stormy, but had to cross Stormvogel to reach her and decided to use the bigger yacht instead

Stormvogel’s new owner soon put the boat through her paces, sailing across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, then across the Pacific to Australia (where she featured in the classic thriller movie Dead Calm) and Indonesia, arriving in Thailand in 1987.

For the next 20 years, Stormvogel barely left south-east Asia, cruising and doing charters between Thailand, Malaysia, Bali and Singapore and competing in local races, such as the King’s Cup, the China Sea Race and the Raja Muda Regatta.

New Zealand boatbuilder Graeme Henry skippered the boat throughout the 1990s. He started the process of restoration in 1991, replacing the mast step with a solid I-beam and getting rid of the non-original bowsprit. There were ongoing repairs to the hull, particularly on the starboard bow where she was hit by a whale in the 1970s, before Stormvogel finally returned to the Med in 2007.

She joined the Panerai classic yacht circuit for two seasons – winning class in 2008 – before heading across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. For a few years she alternated between Europe and the Caribbean, under the watchful eye of skipper Ian Hulleman, including winning class at the Antigua Classics in 2013.

Opening decklights let plenty of natural light flood down below – brightwork was finished to a high standard during restoration. Photo: Nic Compton

Showing her age

It was very nearly Stormvogel’s swansong. When taken out of the water at Finike on the southeast coast of Turkey in autumn 2014, the full extent of the yacht’s deterioration became apparent. Water had worked its way between the layers of planking, rotting wood and corroding fastenings, while electro-galvanic reaction between different metals had created its own toxic miasma.

Hulleman did most of the repairs single-handedly over a period of nearly three years, before the boat was moved to Metur Yachts in Bodrum for the final fitting out and refitting of systems. The emphasis was to keep the boat as original as possible, even to the extent of designing and 3D printing stainless steel replicas of the original cupboard latches.

Stormvogel’s grand saloon table, surrounded by traditional pipecots, swinging lamp, and more modern flatscreen TV. Photo: Nic Compton

By spring 2020 the work was complete and the boat was duly relaunched – straight into the middle of a pandemic. It would be another year before she could be sailed to Valencia, in Spain, and prepared for her return to ocean racing, with Graeme Henry as Fastnet Race skipper.

Back at the Fastnet start line last August, there was no way Stormvogel would be able to repeat her original winning performance against so many much younger boats – though she did manage to shave nearly two hours off her 1961 course time, finishing in 3 days, 19 hours and 2 minutes, despite sailing a longer course.

At 60 years young, she isn’t going to retire any time soon.

Sixty years old and still going strong. Photo: Nic Compton

Stormvogel specifications

LOA: 22.70m / 74ft 6in
LOD: 22.25m / 73ft 0in
LWL: 18.08m / 59ft 4in
Beam: 4.88m / 16ft 4in
Draft: 2.82m / 9ft 3in
Sail area: 245.5m2 / 2,589ft2
Designed displacement: 31.2 tonnes

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Thirty-foot keelboats come and go all the time. Most arrive with a short-lived fanfare, only to fade gradually out of sight and memory. Not so the Cape 31, which looks set to be the ‘must sail’ boat for the foreseeable future. With 25 boats sold into England and Ireland in little more than a year, this Mark Mills one-design seems to have hit the sweet spot.

Dave Swete is part of the small team promoting the Cape 31 out of a small office in Port Hamble in the UK. Swete is a Volvo Ocean Race veteran and the sole professional sailor on Sunrise, Tom Kneen’s Fastnet-winning JPK 11.80. Asked why the sailing world needed another 30-something keelboat, Swete replies: “I think it’s because it just ticks a lot of boxes. We believe that it’s the only class boat that’s winning on IRC and other rating systems at the moment.

“You can get this boat straight out of the box and go and win races. The Cape 31 won overall in Les Voiles de St Tropez last year, as well as a whole host of local events in the Solent.”

Whereas some 30ft keelboats might like to describe themselves as a ‘big dinghy’, Swete insists the Cape 31 is “a small keelboat”. He explains: “We can take this boat out in 25 knots wind against tide in the Solent and have a really nice day, then come back in and the boat’s in one piece, it’s not full of water. We haven’t been broaching out and nosediving all day, we’ve just been bow-up, doing 20 knots downwind and 7.5 knots upwind. It’s fair to say it’s a proper yacht.”

Working with his R&D partners KND/Sailing Performance, Mark Mills produced a hull with low freeboard and aggressive chines designed to maximise form stability in a breeze while maintaining a low wetted surface area when upright in the lighter stuff. The chine running forward to the bow helps produce the Cape 31’s distinctive bow-up attitude at speed downwind.

Bow-up, crew weight aft and the potential for 20+ knot downwind speeds. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Cape 31 Class

For some, the Cape 31’s upwind speed – even more than its electric downwind pace – is the most impressive statistic.

“The real head-turner is that this is a 30ft boat that goes upwind at a similar speed to a Performance 40. Then you turn it downwind and really put the hammer down,” says Swete.

Having previously owned a Corby-designed cruiser/racer, Lance Adams was looking for something sportier when he got into the Cape 31 class. He’d considered the J/70 but didn’t gel with it; and had watched the Fast 40s battling around the Solent but didn’t fancy getting into what looked like an arms race. After a conversation with Swete, Adams bought a Cape 31 without ever having sailed one. “It sounded like the boat that the Solent has been needing for a while,” says Adams.

His Katabatic was the second boat into the country and Adams raced it regularly throughout 2021. One of the big attractions for Adams was the strict one-design rule. He was looking for close competition and hasn’t been disappointed. “At Cowes Week last year I think we had five different race winners after five days. It’s sensational racing.”

Tokoloshe III was the first Cape 31 in the UK and immediately racked up winning race results under IRC. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Cape 31 Class

He also likes the fact that the boat goes, in his words, ‘hell for leather’ downwind. “We peaked at 21 knots last season but 2021 was quite a light year for wind. I think the boat has the potential to go quite a bit faster.”

Created for the Cape

The origins of the Cape 31 stem from Cape Town, a sailing venue where prolific Maxi yacht owner Sir Irvine Laidlaw likes to spend time. Laidlaw wanted a new design that could be sailed in the famous ‘Cape doctor’ winds and swell off Cape Town. “His concept was for a ‘no holds barred’ 30-footer for delivering maximum fun,” explains Swete. “It certainly wasn’t designed to be an IRC weapon. It was designed simply to be the best boat it could be in Cape Town, which actually transferred nicely over to the Solent with the wind against tide and the rough conditions we can get here.”

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The Cape 31 is primarily aimed at round the cans racing, or the occasional long distance day race, such as the Round the Island Race. “We’ve got a 90-mile Cannonball Run planned from Antigua to St Maarten,” Swete adds.

Mark Mills was commissioned to design the boat back in 2017, and although initially successful in South Africa, it took a couple of years for it to gain a wider reputation. “Some international teams had been invited down to Cape Town to race the boat which had gone fairly well,” recalls Swete. “It wasn’t until we brought the boat over [to the UK] and started winning races on IRC that it got noticed properly, and that’s when things really kicked off.”

The Cape 31s have a crew weight limit of 595kg, which usually translates to seven on board, with an owner-driver rule and no more than three professionals. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Cape 31 Class

The centre of gravity of the Cape 31 class has now shifted firmly to the UK, although its handicap performance has given other owners the courage to order boats in different parts of the world.

“The class is very much established in the Solent now, to the point where we’re attracting international teams over here. We’ve got an American team flying in for our local regattas, and a Dutch team too. But we’ll start travelling as a class soon. Next year we’ll travel to the Caribbean, and we’re looking to get some racing going in the Bay of Palma. There’s a fleet starting up in Australia, and the beauty of these boats is they go in a container.”

The aggressively-chined hull shape maximises form stability in a breeze. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/Cape 31 Class

Cape 31 – owner-friendly

Aside from the high-performance and handicap appeal of the boat, Swete and his partner, Dave Bartholomew, have pushed hard to establish a strong class ethos that focuses on having fun first and foremost. It’s an owner-driver class with a maximum of three pro sailors permitted on the crew, although Swete encourages teams to sail with fewer.

“We’re all about matching the fun on the water with fun off the water, and we’ve taken it back to the yacht clubs.”

The clean ramp deck offers ease of movement of sails and sailors. Photo: Tor Tomlinson/Cape 31

Keeping it fun includes avoiding an arms race where teams might be tempted to tweak their boats up to – or beyond – the limits of the class rule. Swete says there is a strong policy in place to keep that in check, and he’s not afraid of chasing the wrong sort of owner out of the fleet if it threatens the overall ecosystem of good, clean Corinthian fun and sportsmanship.

“We are investing in keeping people in line. We have a rules guy, Mike Richards, who’s an IRC measurer. He’s been involved in everything from Swan 45s to Fast 40s, Farr 40s and Mumm 30s. We got him involved very early on, because it can sneak in, where people want to take advantage of a new class and loopholes.”

A 15hp Yanmar diesel engine confirms the Cape 31’s ‘yacht’ (not a dayboat or dinghy) credentials. Photo: Tor Tomlinson/Cape 31

Swete acknowledges that launching a new class is in some ways the easy part. The greater challenge could come in maintaining longevity well beyond the honeymoon period that the Cape 31 is currently enjoying. “It’s about looking after the bottom third of the fleet and keeping them happy. We don’t really want teams to all sail with three pros. When you see team coach boats out on the water, I think that’s a very bad sign. It’s not something we’ve banned, but it’s highly discouraged.”

Cape 31 specifications

LOA: 9.56m / 31ft 3in
Beam: 3.10m / 10ft 2in
Draught: 2.45m / 8ft 0in
Displacement: 1,770kg / 3,902lb
Sail Area Mainsail: 39m² / 420ft²
Headsail: 25m² / 269ft²
Gennaker: 116m² / 1,248ft²
IRC Rating: 1.15

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The Frers dynasty is responsible for more than 1,300 yacht designs. Germán Frers, having last year celebrated his 80th birthday, remains one of the most prolific and sought after designers in the world. Yet when it came to building a ‘new’ yacht for himself, Recluta, he turned to plans his father had drawn in 1942.

The decision to build was made almost on a whim. Germán was talking with old colleagues and friends, including Tito Szyka, a master boatbuilder – also now in his eighties – who has worked on Frers’ previous classic yacht restorations, as well as Heroina, a 75ft wooden sloop built in the 1990s to a Frers design.

“Actually the whole thing started with a political discussion,” Frers recalls. “We were talking about the elections in 2015. They were very concerned about the situation, and the lack of work. Out of the blue I said, well, if such and such wins the election, there is a window of hope for Argentina, then I would do a project.”He admits, “I didn’t think too much about it.”

However, the decision to build his new yacht developed into something larger than he could have anticipated. His daughter Zelmira, an architect and photographer, began documenting the build process through a series of photographs, which have in turn been published in a spectacular book, The Story Behind Recluta. The build, and the decision to capture it for posterity, prompted a delve into the family’s family history – Zelmira discovering the story of her grandfather, as well as the remarkable story of Recluta, the yacht that nearly never was.

The original Recluta was wrecked off
Cabo San Antonio in 1942. Photo: Archivo Familia Frers

Recluta was originally a Camper & Nicholson-built gaff ketch, launched from Gosport in 1901. In 1940 she sailed to Argentina for new owner Charlie Badaracco. Germán Frers’s father – Germán Frers Snr, and the first generation of Frers designers – designed a new Bermudan rig for the yacht. Badaracco entered Recluta in an offshore race from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata, but they ran aground during heavy weather in shallow waters off Cabo San Antonio.

The crew was initially able to sail Recluta off, but while doing so a crewmember fell overboard. Tacking back to recover him, Recluta ran hard aground again, and this time could not be refloated. The ketch was driven up the beach in the waves. Once it was evident she could not be recovered, the crew camped on the sands, stripping the newly re-rigged yacht of many of its valuable components over the following days.

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Full of enthusiasm to build a new Recluta, Badaracco commissioned Frers to design a replacement in 1943, using the salvaged fittings from the shipwrecked ketch. But a shortage of materials during World War II hampered the build.

“During the war in Europe, there was a lack of lead, and of copper,” explains Frers. “The boat was supposed to be riveted in copper, and it was an impossibility to get the materials. So I guess the owner got frustrated and decided not to continue.”

Frers and boatbuilder Tito Szyka. Photo: Zelmira Frers

Construction ground to a halt, and the plans for Recluta were left hanging on the office wall.

There would be other Reclutas. Germán Frers Jnr, who was born in 1941, was working on yacht design with his father by his late teens. From the Frers board came more modern iterations named Recluta III, IV and V, which raced at the Admiral’s Cup and offshore for the Badaracco family. But the original Recluta fell into family folklore as the project that never came to fruition.

Argentinian hope

Decades later, and the 2015 Argentinian elections had sparked a new sense of optimism in the South American country. Germán was as good as his word, and began his new build. The decision to make it Recluta, he says, was natural. “I needed a boat!” he recalls, “And there weren’t any boats left to restore.

Tito at work on the laminated frames. Largely traditional boatbuilding techniques were worked from digitised versions of original 1940s drawings. Photo:

“This is a boat that we talked about when we were young. In the office with my father, he always said what a pity this boat hasn’t been built. It just fit the picture well. There were other designs I could have made replicas of. But this was the right size for me. As I said, I didn’t give it much thought. Never plan anything very deeply!”

The first stage was to convert his father’s 75-year-old drawings to a format his design office could work with. “We digitalised all the drawings, and then we did a 3D model of the boat so we could build prefabricated sub pieces and make models for the frames and every part of the boat,” he explains.

The original designs were followed, but construction processes evolved slightly.

Recluta racing at Les Voiles de St Tropez

“This boat was all built on laminated frames instead of steam bent. Also the big pieces were laminated because there just aren’t big enough pieces of wood these days available.”
“We used the same woods that were specified originally which are all South American timbers.

“These include viraró, which is a medium hard timber similar to acacia. It was used for the stem, keel, backbone, deck shelf, frames and hatches. And cedro, which is lighter and softer than viraró, and very similar to Honduras mahogany. It was used for planking and deck, cabin side coamings, bulwarks etc.”

The build began with lamination of the keel stem and backbone, and the lead keel in 2015. Progress was sedate, the build managed by a small, traditionally skilled team working out of a boatshed in San Fernando. “There weren’t many people working on it, more like six or seven, so that’s why it took so long. Also I spent a lot of time making plans and they would come with questions to me, and I would say ‘Look at the drawing!’ They’re not used to working like that. They’re like artisans, a little bit bohemian. They love their work, they really enjoy what they do. So all in all, it was a very good experience.”

Recluta was first launched at the end of 2019. “Then we had the pandemic. We had a very long lockdown in Argentina, and were not able to get to the boat for nearly a year.” Finally she was completed, sailed across the Atlantic – direct from Buenos Aires to the Caribbean – and then across to Europe.

The Sitka spruce mast under construction. A flat winch base for the jib halyard is defined and left proud, before planing in to the final mast shape. Photo: Zelmira Frers

Recluta – a faithful replica

Recluta is largely faithful to the original drawings, although there have been a few modifications to modernise her. “We have changed the interior layout because it was designed for another time – it was designed for 1940s sailing with the crew forward, guests in the middle of the boat and so forth. But in general, I try to maintain as close as possible to the original design,” Frers said.

The galley has been brought aft, off the saloon, rather than forward in the ‘crew’ quarters. Photo: Zelmira Frers

“Originally the interior had the galley forward, which I’ve moved closer to the saloon, and there was a navigation room in the back which I deleted. I just have a chart table because today there’s no need to have much space dedicated to instruments, everything is pretty small and can be held in your hands.

“There was also a sort of owners’ cabin aft, which was in a passageway, so I made it a bit more of a private cabin with it’s own toilet and shower. Just little improvements here and there, adaptations to modern life.” The coachroof was also extended and raised a little to increase headroom, but the exterior lines and deck layout are largely unchanged.

Fitting custom made brass fairleads. Photo: Zelmira Frers

Among the many components that were stripped from the original Recluta as she lay on the sands in 1942 were the masts, but Frers modified the sail plan slightly. “The original spars were saved. The mizzen is still on a boat that used to belong to my father, as the main mast, but it’s not my boat so I couldn’t make use of it. The main mast was fitted to another boat, and I lost track of it over the years. But since [it] is a replica, it didn’t matter too much.

“The new masts are a little taller. She didn’t have much sail area so I increased the height of the main mast and the mizzen in proportion. But it’s very much the same sort of rig and sail plan. A fractional rig on the main mast, and then a ketch, which I feel is very efficient.”

“I thought I was going to keep the boat here in Argentina and so I maintained the original shallow draught centreboard arrangement. But the situation in the country has changed, quite dramatically and not for the best. So I decided to take the boat to Europe and sail it there.” In the end, Recluta competed in a full season of classic regattas last year, including Mahon, Antibes, Cannes, and Les Voiles de St Tropez.

Germán Frers sailing Recluta with his
daughter, Zelmira. Photo: Juan C Berdugo

Family crew

Sailing Recluta remains a family affair. Germán’s grandson (also Germán) crews during racing and was on board for the transatlantic. When competing in classic events the crew includes Germán’s daughter, Zelmira, and son, Mani.

“It’s good to sail with them. I don’t want to take the racing too seriously,” he notes. They also cruise as a family, although, Germán notes, “Recluta is not the ideal cruising boat, she’s a little old fashioned, with none of the facilities that boats have today for ease of short-handed sailing.”

However, one of the great delights of the project for Germán is clearly that it has given him and his daughter Zelmira a newly shared passion.

“She has been cruising with me for years, since she was seven or eight, I think. But she has never been interested in the sailing itself. And now with this boat, she became involved with the construction, and the people. She was interested in the story of my father, who she had never met. It was very emotional.”

Now, Zelmira is a key part of the crew. “She races. She was handling the mainsail last season – and she was pretty good! She really loves the boat, she’s really attached to it and its story. And she became a sailor,” he says proudly.

Recluta specifications

LOA: 20.4m / 69ft 11in
LWL: 14.7m / 48ft 3in
Beam: 4.60m / 15ft 1in
Draught: 2.4m-4.5m / 7ft 10in- 14ft 8in
Displacement: 33 tonnes
Sail Area: 177m2 / 1,905ft2

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Based on an engineering school graduation project, three young Frenchmen have created the BirdyFish, a dinghy that aims to make foiling accessible to everyone.

BirdyFish is the story of a sailing start-up, something western France does well. Near Nantes, Jean-Baptiste Morin, Pierre Rhimbault and Alban Satgé were not yet 25 years old when they started out to create a new class of boat. Foiling designs fascinated them, from the Mini Transat small yachts to IMOCA 60s, but they wanted to make flying on the water easier.

Ambitious but realistic, the trio focused on the business and management of the project, and turned to specialists for key areas. Naval architect Etienne Bertrand, well known for his work on the Mini, was commissioned to design the BirdyFish, whose beamy bow is reminiscent of the 6.5m Mini ocean crossing scows.

With their personal savings and a €10,000 grant from a foundation for young entrepreneurs, they built a prototype. Three years later they’re on the verge of finalising a €250,000 fundraising operation and moving to 600m² premises to scale up to mass production.

While the hulls are subcontracted a few kilometres south, the foils are built in Nantes, in-house, a key factor in controlling the quality of these essential parts.

Under gennaker the flying experience starts with less than 10 knots of wind. Crew position determines trim. Photo: BirdyFish

Foil design was entrusted to a master of the art, Jean Baptiste Behm. With their J-shape, the foils create maximum lift when fully deployed but remain quite simple to retract. The carbon foils weigh 10kg each and are symmetrical, so can be used on either side of the boat. This simplifies production and after sales service.

Also with simplicity in mind, the position of the foils is fixed, without any adjustment. Rudder rake can be adjusted but to enable good control of the helm the rudder profile is not extreme.

A longer rudder chord means a little more drag but also more tolerance, and less risk of losing control. Sailing at low speeds with a smaller rudder surface area would give no feel to the tiller, making it much more difficult for beginners. The development of the Birdyfish, and refining that balance, took more than two years.

Unsinkable

The hull is made of a glass-polyester sandwich, weighs 93kg and has four watertight zones making it unsinkable. The mast is aluminium and, once the foot is unpinned, can be dropped backwards with a crewmember controlling the descent with a halyard in hand.

The maximum speed recorded by a BirdyFish is 22 knots (like a Class 40 but 40 times cheaper!). Photo: MULTImedia/François Tregouet

The BirdyFish is limited to three sails to keep it simple. There’s no trapeze either, the righting moment being entrusted to the foils. This is also a safety choice because, at high speed, any fall could be dangerous. Two crewmembers sit on the gunwale, or move slightly outboard upwind with their feet in the straps.

A major evolution in the development of the BirdyFish means there is also no longer a daggerboard. The first boats sold played their part as pioneers, but it turns out that the foils, although symmetrical, generate more anti-leeway effect than expected. Removal of the daggerboard and its box made the Birdyfish’s cockpit even simpler.

Each foil weighs just 10kg (22lb) and they are symmetrical on port and starboard. Photo: MULTImedia – François Tregouet

Officially, the BirdyFish will fly in upwards of 12 knots of wind. But with a trained crew, the boat can take off from 8 knots. Finding the right angle, producing just the right amount of power at the right time to get the hull out of the water will show the difference between a novice crew and one that already has a few hours of flying experience.

Rusty from decades of cruising on non-foiling boats (and having long forgotten my 420 and Mini years), for me trying the BirdyFish felt like a good test of its genuine accessibility to all. I returned to the shore reassured about my abilities – but more importantly blown away by the extraordinary sensations of flight.

Off the beach at La Rochelle the BirdyFish flew very fast at about 15 knots in a wind oscillating between 10-15 knots. High speed means constant vigilance is essential: the transparent Mylar window in the jib helps with visibility.

There are no more lines at the mast foot than on a classic dinghy: simple. Fittings are attached so as not to compromise watertight zones. Photo: MULTImedia – François Tregouet

As there are no flaps to adjust the boat’s trim it’s the crew’s position that needs to be tweaked. Sitting on the windward side of the boat, well wedged against the shroud, I was quietly enjoying the stability of the boat – its tolerant foils and T-shaped rudder do a remarkable job – when Jean-Baptiste Morin handed over the helm.

I was instructed to use as little helm angle as possible, instead using the mainsheet as an accelerator first, then as a damper. Very quickly, the miracle happened, and we took off! Soon we were flying, perfectly dry just above the chop.

G-force

I quickly learned that to remain foiling requires being very sensitive to movement. Rudder correction angles must be as small as possible. There’s no question of moving the whole tiller, instead Jean-Baptiste advised I keep my tiller hand close to my body and only make small movements using just the span of my fingers.

When transporting or storing, the self-regulating J-foils fit inside the cockpit. Photo: MULTImedia – François Tregouet

Course deviations must also be very limited. I estimate that the maximum allowed is more or less 2° around the true wind direction without trimming the sails. The penalty for overdoing it is immediate: the BirdyFish touches down, either softly or more brutally.

Tacking and gybing are not difficult, but it takes a little more experience to complete them in ‘flight’ mode. To demonstrate, Jean-Baptiste retook control of the boat for a series of foiling gybes. Crouching at the front of the cockpit, my role was limited to managing the Solent sheet and above all to hold on, as the rate of turn is brutal, a reminder of the extraordinary performance achieved.

The foil housing is slightly smaller than its well. Foil rake setting is fixed by four bolts: no brain work required. Photo: MULTImedia – François Tregouet

Only twice have I reached 18 knots at the helm of a sailing boat on my first try, and those were on a Gunboat 68 and an 80ft Ultim trimaran – very different budgets to the €18,840 standard BirdyFish.

Three essential options do raise the bill to €21,200 – it’s difficult to do without the jib furler for manoeuvres, a Code 0 with furler offers light airs performance, and a launching trailer is essential for the 135kg (297lb) whole package – but if you want to go foiling for a reasonable budget and with little experience, the BirdyFish rocket hits the target.

BirdyFish specifications

LOA: 4.70m / 15ft 5in
Beam: 1.90m / 6ft 3in
Draught: 0.90m / 2ft 11in
Displacement: 135kg / 297lb
Upwind sail area: 13.5m² / 140ft²
Downwind sail area: 24.5m² / 258ft²

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Sailing the new foiling Birdyfish dinghy appeared first on Yachting World.

At just 36ft 9in, the Sparkman & Stephens sloop Clarionet is an unassuming yacht, often dwarfed by larger competitors on the UK classic racing circuit. Yet Clarionet helped change the course of yacht design and influenced the shape of most boats since the 1960s.

It is no wonder, then, that her current owner has taken the trouble (and expense) to return her to original configuration – even though the work has almost certainly ‘de-optimised’ her for racing. Her race winning days may well be over, but something more important has been achieved in the process.

Clarionet was built during a major turning point for yacht design. Designers had been experimenting with fin keels since the 1890s, but the concept only really took off after the resounding success of Bill Lapworth’s Cal40 design in 1963.

Sparkman & Stephens soon came in on the act, designing their first ‘centreboard and skeg’ design, the 40ft Deb (now Sunstone), in 1964. But it was the success of a pair of boats designed for the RORC’s One Ton rule that convinced Olin Stephens to fully embrace the concept.

Clarionet (S&S design No 1856) and Roundabout (No 1857) were designed for former Admiral’s Cup buddies Derek Boyer and Sir Max Aitken. Both yachts had fin keels, skeg rudders, and counter sterns with small reverse transoms.

Both were traditionally built at the Clare Lallow boatyard in Cowes, of mahogany planking over larch frames. They were lightly fitted out, mostly in 6mm ply to keep weight down. Or, as Olin Stephens delicately put it: “Layouts below are similar, being simple and clearly directed towards offshore racing.”

After years of development to keep her competitive on the racing circuit, Clarionet has now been restored to her original specification. Note the ‘plank boom’. Photo: Nic Compton

Hard to handle

The two boats took the British yacht racing scene by storm in their first year, with Clarionet winning Cowes Week and the RORC St Malo Race in 1966, and Roundabout winning the Round the Island Race two years running in 1966/67. Despite their success, however, they were not without their faults and proved at times hard to control, as Stephens later admitted:

“Despite sharing a conspicuous fault, Clarionet and her near sister Roundabout soon showed their ability as two of our more successful yachts. They became known as the ‘terrible twins’ both for the speed they showed and their frequent broaches on hard runs. Thus in a single shot they demonstrated the value – and the danger – of something new: the pioneering use of the separated rudder and keel.”

Despite these reservations, the performance of the two boats encouraged Olin to use a similar keel on one of Sparkman & Stephens’s most successful designs ever, the 12-Metre Intrepid. It was the end of the long keel configuration in the America’s Cup and, by extension, yacht racing in general. Sailing yacht design would never be the same again – thanks in part to the outstanding performance of those ‘terrible twins’.

Clarionet’s career wasn’t all plain sailing. After her triumphant first year race results were decidedly mixed, including finishing 13th out of 21 boats in the 1967 One Ton Cup at Le Havre. Perhaps that’s why, just 18 months after she was built, Boyer took the drastic decision of asking Lallows to raise the deck.

At that time, the RORC racing rule included a mast height factor which was measured from the deck to the top of the mast, and Boyer hoped to gain an advantage by reducing that measurement.

An early photo of Clarionet as she looked when first launched

Lallows duly increased the camber of the deck beams, so the foredeck was raised by about 4in in the middle, creating a turtle-back effect. As a result the cabin sides were reduced to an ugly wedge just 2in high at the forward end, and both forward portholes had to be removed and blocked in. It was a brutal alteration which proved pointless as within 12 months the rule was changed anyway.

Boyer sold the boat in 1971, and she then went through a succession of owners. One of these was JJ Rainworth, who entered her in the first AZAB (Azores and Back) race in 1975, finishing a respectable 9th place out of 52 boats – two places ahead of Robertson’s Golly skippered by Claire Francis.

Two years later she was bought by George Playfair, whose son, Nick, entered her in the notorious 1979 Fastnet Race. Clarionet had by then been fitted with wheel steering, which jammed shortly after the beginning of the race. Undaunted, her crew fitted the emergency tiller and battled on to within 55 miles of the Fastnet Rock before retiring – along with most of the other boats in their class.

The modern clutch system was replaced with original spec dedicated halyard winches with their own ‘snubber’ cleats. Photo: Nic Compton

In the mid-1980s, the yacht was bought by John Breakell who based her on the River Orwell in Suffolk. He undertook an extensive refit, including replacing the raised deck and upgrading the boat’s sail wardrobe, adding a new Mylar genoa, a Dacron mainsail and a couple of tri-radial sails.

Under Breakell’s tenure, Clarionet returned to winning form, becoming overall champion of the EAORA (East Anglian Offshore Racing Association) for three years, as well as class winner of the 1987 Fastnet Race.

Her winning ways continued under her next owner, Paul March, who based the boat in Brighton, competing in several Fastnets and at least one Round Britain and Ireland Race. Clarionet was RORC points champion five times, even winning her class in the 2001 Fastnet, by which time she was 35 years old.

Spinnaker brings a splash of colour – otherwise the new sails are in Classic
Cream. Photo: Nic Compton

By 2013, Clarionet had acquired the status of a classic and, under new owners, joined the circuit on the Solent, winning 1st at the 2013 Panerai British Classic Week and 2nd in 2014 and 2015.

The hard choice

By the time Andrew Harvey spotted Clarionet, she had all the trappings of a modern racing yacht, including aluminium mast, self-tailing winches, laminated sails, ball bearing blocks, rigid boom vang and a retractable bowsprit for an asymmetric spinnaker. It was the natural development of a yacht that had been raced hard for decades under multiple rating rules and was intended to win rather than look pretty. But Harvey had other ideas.

“I originally thought we’d just replace the aluminium mast with a wooden one,” he says. “But then I looked at the original plans and saw how stunning she was originally. So we had this discussion about how, if we just want her to be competitive, there’s a lot of stuff we don’t need to do. But my view was to make her as original as possible. She would be less competitive and she would be more difficult to handle, because of the winches, the blocks, the sails – everything would be more difficult. But who cares?”

Clarionet was entrusted to the capable hands of Paul Spooner and Mike Barnes, who have vast experience of restoring yachts designed by William Fife, GL Watson and suchlike but hadn’t tackled a project built as recently as the 1960s.

The pair researched the boat’s history and, using archive photos and the original drawings – miraculously still filed in a cabinet at the Lallow boatyard – pieced together what she would have looked like when she was launched in 1966.

Turning their research into physical reality was the job of Paul Kendall and Tim Frearson at Traditional Shipwright Services in Poole. The biggest job was lowering the deck, which involved fitting new deck beams with less camber for the front three quarters of the boat, as well as replacing the cabin sides.

But it’s the level of detail achieved by the restoration team that is truly impressive. For example, the plastic tops on the stainless steel stanchions were no longer available, so they were carefully recreated in CAD and made on a 3D printer. The self-tailing tops were removed from the winches and replaced with plain tops machined from solid bronze.

There were a few surprises along the way, not least the four halyard winches located on the coachroof with their unusual, one-armed wooden cleats. Even though they appear less efficient than the multi-clutch system that had replaced them, they were lovingly replicated according to the original drawings. Likewise the experimental ‘plank’ boom, which was accurately recreated by Collars, along with the new wooden mast.

The digital read-out were all ditched in favour of analogue gauges supplied by Brookes & Gatehouse. Photo: Nic Compton

As for sails, all the fancy modern sails accrued over the years were replaced by a narrow-panelled mainsail and mitre-cut foresails in ‘Classic Cream’ from Bainbridge Sails.

Retro look

Below decks, the original plywood interior had survived remarkably well and just need a lick of paint, although the search of authenticity saw the modern heads chucked out and replaced with a refurbished Blake. The hull also needed little work, despite all the years of racing, but the veneer applied to her transom a few years before was removed and painted over, as per original.

The unfussy and utilitarian interior was mostly built from 6mm ply to help keep the boat’s weight down. Photo: Nic Compton

It’s an extraordinary amount of work to make a boat less efficient than she was, but having acquired the status of a classic yacht, authenticity was always going to be the holy grail. It’s a process that might give her an advantage under the CIM handicap rule used on Mediterranean classic yacht races but doesn’t find much favour under the IRC system used by the British Classic Yacht Club. Indeed, Clarionet finished 6th in class at British Classic Week last year. She did however win another accolade: the trophy for Best Presented New Entrant – the closest thing the regatta has to rewarding authenticity. Sometimes history is more important than victory.

Clarionet specifications:

LOA: 11.20m / 36ft 9in
LWL: 8.10m / 26ft 7in
Beam: 2.99m / 9ft 10in
Draught: 1.90m / 6ft 3in
Displacement: 6,400kg / 14,110lb
Sail area: 51.4m² / 553ft2

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For decades the whole point of designing an IMOCA 60 has been to win the Vendée Globe solo round the world race. However, the adoption of the class by The Ocean Race has added an entirely new dimension. Malãma, the new 11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60 is the first IMOCA designed from the outset to be raced by a full crew.

Yet extra internal accommodation is not what fundamentally sets this boat apart from other IMOCAs. A more important factor is that the boat is not primarily optimised for downwind speed in strong winds. Granted, the optimisation leans towards downwind VMG, but above all this boat is definitely intended as a more all-round performer.

In addition, Malãma is set up to be pushed much harder than is possible when racing solo or two-handed and the boat’s structure has been beefed up compared to typical IMOCAs to reflect this.

harlie Enright and Pascal Bidégorry aboard Malãma en route to the start of the TJV at Le Havre. Photo: Thierry Martinez/11th Hour Racing

Naval architect Guillaume Verdier worked with François Gabart’s MerConcept, which was responsible for performance analysis. The result is a radical hull shape, with the bow showing an interesting combination of chine, knuckle and the broad ‘spatula’ profile, although it’s not a scow bow. The way in which these elements interact and help keep the bow out of the water is important, yet this is by no means the most radical element of the design.

While the new boat from 11th Hour Racing has the potential to be extremely fast in heavy winds, performance in light airs is also critical, when the drag of the foils also has to be overcome. This means minimising wetted surface area is vital – as a result the static waterline beam is surprisingly narrow. The hull is dramatically flared above the waterline, with a complex convex shape between the waterline and the chine.

The result is an extremely different hull to that of the Sam Manuard-designed scow bow boats, including Armel Tripon’s L’Occitane en Provence in the 2020 Vendée Globe (now Louis Burton’s Bureau Vallée 3) and Sam Davies’ new Initiatives Coeur that’s currently being built from the same mould.

It’s a daring, but ingenious, way to manage the imperatives of minimising drag in light airs, while ensuring form stability builds as fast as possible to extract maximum power in stronger winds.

‘Skim mode’ on the 11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60

When the boat heels the chine quickly digs in, shifting the centre of buoyancy rapidly outboard, but the boat is designed to be sailed as flat as possible. As boat speeds increase the foils start to generate additional stability, which helps in minimising heel.

The foils are not intended to lift the boat high out of the water. Verdier’s intention is that the hull should skim just above the surface. While they might look impressive, photos of Malãma flying high are therefore not actually showing the boat in an optimal mode.

Limiting flight height is key to achieving fast average speeds, without excessive peaks and troughs. This is what leads to impressive daily runs, whereas high peak speeds are invariably followed by a significant drop in pace. When that’s associated with falling off the foils there’s also a risk of damage to the boat or to her crew.

The foils of new IMOCAs have to be smaller than those of older boats that have been grandfathered. As a result, Verdier devoted a lot of time to developing the most efficient shape.
Those fitted for this year’s Transat Jacques Vabre are optimised for downwind VMG – the profile has a lot of camber, which generates as much lift as a larger foil, but at the expense of a little more drag at high speeds.

Reducing drag across the deck was a key focus, with jib tacks set below deck. This view also shows the cockpit pod ‘lookout bubbles’ set far outboard. Photo: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing

The foils have a very smooth curve, with none of the sharp corners of some IMOCA designs. As the foils are moved out from the hull they also project further downwards, which increases the scope for different settings to suit different conditions.

Before the start of the TJV the team’s Amory Ross told me they were still in the earlier stages of gathering data on optimal foil settings for different conditions. Full extension gives a very flat angle relative to the hull, but is rarely the best, while half extended gives “a very forgiving V-shape”. The foils could be changed to optimise the boat for different conditions, although that would be an expensive process.

Instead of an ordinary clew outhaul, a hydraulic ram moves the whole boom back and forth. A ‘skirt’ at the mast base improves aerodynamics. Photo: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing

Aero package

Above the waterline a lot of effort has gone into improving aerodynamics on the 11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60 – given the high apparent wind speeds of these boats this area is now recognised as one in which important gains can be made. All furler drums and furling lines are under the deck. Even the tack of the J2 jib is just below deck level, which maximises the endplate effect and eliminates as much air as possible escaping under the foot of the sail.

In the same vein, the base of the rig has a textile fairing that cleans up the area around the lines and blocks, while still allowing the mast to rotate. “That took a lot of work to optimise,” says Ross.

The mast is the standard one-design spar for the class, however, the boom is by Southern Spars. To further minimise drag from all the paraphernalia that’s normally at the end of the boom, the clew is in a fixed position. This necessitated a different approach to adjusting foot tension: instead of a conventional clew outhaul, a hydraulic ram at the gooseneck moves the whole boom back and forth.

Foils have a smooth curve, but the cross section is partially convex, which helps to generate as much lift as the larger foils of older IMOCAs. Photo: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing

Equally, different solutions were needed for the reefing lines at the leech of the mainsail. These are on halyard locks built into the boom: the reefing pennants are an exact length and Ross says the lock engages easily, with a clunk that’s loud enough to be sure it has engaged properly.

When the boat was launched the rig was originally set up with 6° of rake. However that figure has been reduced to the class average for the boat’s first big race, the 2021 Transat Jacques Vabre, as the team didn’t yet have sufficient data to be confident in extracting maximum performance in that configuration. But this is not a trivial operation, as the ultra-low foot of both main and headsails means the clew location has to change when the mast rake changes, so sails have to be recut.

Malãma’s sail shapes are also different to other IMOCAs. Sails for solo and short-handed sailing tend to be cut to give a wide groove when sailing upwind. This makes it easier for pilots, or a tired sailor, to steer an efficient course. However, this boat has flatter sails that are designed to be trimmed with less twist. Skipper Charlie Enright says sail trim will hence be “more critical than some of the other IMOCAs – our set-up is not as forgiving and you have to work harder to get the top performance out of the boat.”

Hard choices

Similar thinking can also be seen in the rudders. These have a higher aspect than is usually seen on these boats and are therefore more sensitive, but generate less drag.

Inside the cockpit pod, looking athwartships towards the port side. There’s provision to add a second grinder pedestal when fully crewed. Photo: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing

At the other end of the boat, the bowsprit is a more robust affair with a flat top surface, having more in common with Volvo 70 and Volvo 65 sprits than a typical IMOCA bowsprit – it’s stronger and allows for easier crew work.

In a world in which increasing numbers of cruising boats have floating headsail sheet leads, the curved transverse tracks for jib sheets look initially like a step backwards, but the idea is they allow more precise control of sail shape upwind.

Visibility can be a challenge at the best of times for foiling IMOCAs. As they’re not allowed T-foils on the rudders, it’s often not easy to avoid a bows-up attitude that makes it next to impossible to see forward, while deck-sweeping headsails, low-clewed spinnakers and the very low boom combine to restrict visibility to leeward.

As with other IMOCAs, this boat is therefore set up with a number of cameras. The pair mounted on the top of the aft stanchions have full pan, tilt and zoom capability, allowing them to be used for both look out purposes and for sail trimming. There’s also a fixed camera (with digital zoom) under the mast-mounted radar. This shows the water ahead, even when the bows are angled upwards. There’s also a masthead OSCAR unit (for collision avoidance), which includes both visible spectrum and thermal cameras.

The front bulkhead of the enclosed cockpit pod has three large screens showing camera, OSCAR and AIS data. Ross says this combination works really well, “helping you see more [potential problems] every time you scan the displays.”

Powerful cameras with panning, tilt and zoom capacity are built into the top of each of the aft stanchions for views of boat and sails. Photo: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing

The lookout bubbles at the side of the cockpit pod are much further outboard than for other IMOCAs. This helps to provide a better view, especially to leeward, where it’s possible to see past the usual blind spots around headsails and under spinnakers. However, the view from the windward side can be compromised by the stack of sails on deck.

Placing the lookout bubbles further outboard also creates more space inside the cockpit pod – an important factor when sailing fully crewed. For the TJV only a single grinder pedestal was fitted, but there’s provision for a second to facilitate quick manoeuvres in crewed mode.

Solar panels on the cockpit pod roof can generate enough power to run all daytime electrical loads. Photo: Amory Ross/The Ocean Race Europe

Material gains

Sustainability is another key theme throughout the build of the boat. Although at the moment there appears to be no viable alternative to carbon for the structural elements at this level of racing, the team has worked with German company Greenboats to use flax fibres and bio-resins for components such as hatches and non-structural interior and deck panels.

The 11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60 project started with a full lifecycle sustainability assessment and the lessons learned from this boat will help inform the IMOCA class sustainability rules.

11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60 specifications:

Hull length: 18.28m – 60ft 0in
LWL: 17.50m – 57ft 5in
Beam: 5.50m – 18ft 0in
Draught: 4.50m – 14ft 9in
Displacement (sailing trim): 10,000kg – 22,000lb
Upwind sail area: 280m2 – 3,010ft2
Downwind sail area: 600m2 – 6,450m2
Air draught: 29.00m – 95ft 0in
Mast length: 27.30m – 89ft 6in
Approx weight of each foil: 300kg – 660lb

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Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Extraordinary Boats: the new 11th Hour Racing IMOCA 60 appeared first on Yachting World.