As mainsail aspect ratios are pushed as far as possible within tight measurement limits the 14s are angling their top battens harder and harder above the masthead like their 18-footer cousins. Glenn Truswell and Sam Pascoe (right) under full control in their world championship-winning Departure design. The Hollom-designed hull is considerably more V-shaped than almost all of its competitors
For all the developments, the fact that Burling was using standard-supply Mach 2 kit suggests that there haven’t been any huge advances. The new world champion had great speed downwind, and has cured any weaknesses that he might have once had in lighter airs.
Across Port Phillip Bay, sailing out of the Royal Geelong Yacht Club, was the International 14 fleet contesting its world championship with 67 entries. Great Britain’s Glen Truswell and Sam Pascoe dominated the event with five bullets, discarding a second place. Truswell hasn’t been afraid to go his own way with gear development, using a one-off, heavily modified Dave Hollom Departure design, as opposed to the majority of the fleet who rely on Paul Bieker’s proven hull shapes, the Bieker 5 and 6.
The 2005 world champion and Mel- bourne sailmaker Lindsay Irwin pointed out that Truswell’s success wasn’t just about the boat. ‘Everyone asks what is it? Is it his mast, his boat, his sails? It’s always a combination of all of those things. He has done a lot of work. He probably has also got a bit lucky along the way with some of his stuff. ‘It appeared the leading boats carried their rigs firmer than we did, using more tension in the stays. Most of those boats are Nomex honeycomb. I am not sure the average Australian boat, as a foam boat without a foredeck, can actually maintain those rig tensions without tearing the boats apart. It’s the obvious thing that will improve it, but I am not sure we can actually do it without getting new boats. ‘The sails were a little bit different as well. There will be some development after this event, which is what always happens. The British sails are traditionally more circular in their shape, compared to the Australians. The Australian sailors have a bit more draft forward, a little straighter in the exit. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the local sailmakers, including myself, try something like that.’
42 SEAHORSE
Rigs have become increasingly stiff in recent years, with Selden currently the leading manufacturer. For his sail package Truswell went to Mike Lennon. ‘Glen was hoping to be able to exploit my experience from my years in the class, and really move the design forwards, because most of the 14 sails of recent years have been from the same fabrics,’ says Lennon. ‘We really wanted to push the shape development forwards.
‘We also discussed quite a major shift towards membrane-type construction where we could lay the fibres in a way that would improve the sail’s performance. I felt that the ability to design the fabric myself was an advantage… though it was a bit of a punt. ‘The development that had gone into the panelled sails was already quite advanced. They were good light sails made from Tech- nora, so there wasn’t a big weight saving, but I saw it more as a way of delivering a certain flying shape.’
The aim was to produce a mainsail that held its shape more consistently through the wind range. ‘There’s a tendency for the back of the sail to round up as it comes under increasing load, and we really wanted to keep it straight, which gives you a lower exit angle and less drag. You want the exit to be straight and closed. You want the twist to be controllable, but you want the exit to be straight. If you can keep the drag down, you can either point higher or go faster.’
Lennon says he ended up with a much higher DPI, a higher amount of fibre in the leech, compared to a conventional panelled sail. ‘With the membrane we could vary the DPI around the sail, so we could have a lot more at the back of the sail, and have it bleeding out from the corners in the high- load areas. It enabled us to keep the exit straighter. Almost from the outset we found a noticeable advantage in upwind speed.’ Lennon and Truswell pushed equally hard on downwind sail design. Spinnaker size is unlimited in the International 14
but, with a triangle-sausage course configuration for class championships, going bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. However, Lennon did find a way of pushing up the area without a detrimental effect on reaching performance. ‘Yes we have gone bigger, but the way you get the size is important.
‘The easiest way to add size is to add foot length, but that is slow. There’s a cut- off in the 14s. If you go beyond that number, if you make the foot too long, the 14 doesn’t go faster, if anything it goes slower. So then you’re into making the mid-girths wider, but you’re in danger of falling into the trap that “area equals speed”. But it doesn’t, area equals area. Even on a run you can find that you’ve added a load of area but you’re not any faster, or even slower. So it’s all about the cross-sectional shape of the sail. ‘It’s not dissimilar to what you look at with upwind sail shapes. How full is it, how straight is the exit, how round is the front? So the key is getting that cross- sectional shape to work as efficiently as possible from the top to the bottom.’ For the time being developments in the Moth and the 14 are mostly small, incre- mental changes. However, the difference is that the Moth has no real competition in the sailing world. It’s not a cheap boat and requires a lot of time on boat work, main- tenance and repair, but it is attracting a huge global following. It’s something that the International 14 used to have 20 years ago when, if you wanted to go twin- trapeze racing with an asymmetric gen- naker, it was the only show in town. These days the 14 is lacking a unique selling point. Should it go beyond the T-foil rud- der and adopt full-foiling, for example? It would be a bold move and would perhaps limit the venues that the 14 could safely sail at. But maybe that would be a price worth paying for the added fun factor. And it would bring that USP back to the 14, which is currently in short supply. q
RHENNY CUNNINGHAM
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