Strain maps from North Membrain showing the surface deformations on a state-of-the-art 3DL string sail (left) compared to 3Di sails of the same weight. Clearly visible are the lower deformations on the 3Di sails. This model was developed for Tony Buckingham’s Dubois 58m sloop Ngoni – The Beast – that has now emerged from Royal Huisman. An unmissable tribute to a great yacht designer


Reichel/Pugh was the largest carbon yacht of its kind, combining style and performance in ways never before imagined. Features like a lifting keel, lifting rudder and ketch rig meant there were many modes this boat could sail in while flying multiple sail combi- nations, making sail design particularly chal- lenging given the extensive complications. ‘This was a really interesting project,


and continues to be so. They continue to tweak and innovate – for example, we are now working on a new square-top main- sail for them with a 5m span headboard gaff,’ said Burns. ‘Cameron Appleton has done a good job of managing Hetairos, with its multiple sail configurations, dozens of crew and the complexity of making it all work smoothly. This is a remarkable boat, among so many remark- able boats in today’s superyacht scene.’ To create modern sails for vessels like


Hetairos and achieve the performance goals expected by the owners and project managers requires sophisticated engineer- ing, where the materials must match the load requirements and yet still be light and easy to handle given these huge yachts are now being employed in a racing context and not just for occasional cruising. Although, as Burns says, in this class of yachts racing and cruising sails are still often one and the same. ‘The scale of the sails and their handling


systems are such that they are now relying on increasingly complex furling and sail storage solutions, so in practice you rarely change them,’ he said. ‘This means the same sails can often be used in racing and cruising, with added hours, sunlight and weather to wear them down.’ Regarding longevity, Burns gives an example from the J-Class: ‘Our first-


48 SEAHORSE


generation string sails for the 500m2 J-Class mainsails were lasting maybe two seasons before they started to lose their shape. Now with the 3Di system being better able to tailor the sails to their loads, we’re seeing these sails last out to double that – three to four years in some instances. ‘That’s four times the life of a competi-


tive race sail for other smaller-sized boats; of course this is not giving us the same volume of orders, but it sure goes a long way to keeping our customers happy and in the game… which is what this is all about.’ Burns explains that, like the box-rule


classes, the J-Class has been reaching competitive levels that are prompting more aggressive engineering to minimise weight at the expense of durability; the materials in the J-Class pre-preg sail tapes now feature an increasingly high percentage of carbon and aramid, whereas the sails for boats in the other classes still incorporate more Dyneema, so they are slightly heavier but also more forgiving and less prone to breakdown and fatigue. So what does the future hold for


superyachts in particular and the racing world in general? Where are the limits… if indeed there are any? After trying to beg off the question, claiming he’s ‘an engineer, not a visionary’, Burns did give up some speculative thoughts. ‘Last year at the Yacht Racing Forum [in


Malta] everyone was talking about foiling, but also about superyachts, so I rather like Mitch Booth’s Black Cat idea [issue 447] that breaks the mould and tries to combine the two. Given the performance that is expected of these groundbreaking new yachts, the sail forces involved are going to be enormous; we already have two or three guys at North working full time on the


Black Cat project. And after that there are the foiling superyachts to think about…’ Related areas of particular interest to


Fallow are further advances in both the software and hardware for some of today’s impressive semi-automated sail-control sys- tems. There are growing numbers of casual but very capable cruising sailors who want higher performance in their large yachts, but don’t want the intrusiveness and expense of having a paid crew to do the work for them. These improving systems allow more freedom to handle a larger yacht over a greater range for comfortable cruising. A lot of these developments are of


course a direct spin-off from the super - yacht race fleets where the latest systems are always at a premium. ‘After the inven- tion of the smartphone there were few real breakthroughs in camera phone hardware, and the interest then came into app devel- opment and bandwidth,’ Burns says. ‘We have most of the mechanics in place to manage these very large yachts relatively easily,’ he explains. ‘Now we really need the reliable software to get the best out of that hardware… and in safety.’ This is just one of the reasons why


Burns sees no immediate halt to the size increases in superyachts: ‘No one seems to pay attention to Panamax any more, and we’ve seen plans being made for boats up to 100m with 130m mast heights.’ Maybe the sky is truly the limit. With the next America’s Cup nigh, one


has to ask, what about wings? ‘Never say never, but I think it is extremely unlikely,’ says Burns. ‘Wings are truly expensive, and truly impractical.’ So maybe there are limits after all. Dobbs Davis


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