NEW ZEALAND
Flying sail Furlers - Stayfurlers
Time was when new boats joined the New Zealand racing fleets in a steady trickle, most built by local boatbuilders or even in backyards, each one greeted with interest and conjecture – even knowledge- able analyses in the daily newspapers. Now a strong dollar and changing social scenes have seen a switch to importing European or American production cruiser-racers. For more serious competi- tors TP52s retired from the overseas circuits represent extremely good value and are creating an attractive and competitive big boat fleet. So a new all-out raceboat designed by a New Zealand studio and built by a New Zealand yard for a New Zealand owner is a rare and welcome event. The boat in question is Anarchy, an 11.30m carbon machine built for Andrew Reid. Anarchyis a replacement for the J/111 Django, lost at sea on a delivery trip back from Fiji. Designed by Bakewell-White Yacht Design, Anarchyis a develop- ment of the highly successful General Lee, which regularly cuts a swathe through the racing fleets of west Australia. Principal designer Brett Bakewell-White must wonder why his recent yachts attract such rebellious and provocative names, as these are wholesome all-round performers rather than outlaws at the extremes of design. In fact, following the loss of Django, one option Andrew Reid explored was to buy the similar-sized General Lee. ‘She is still winning races,’ says Bakewell-White, ‘but is now a seven-year-old design. In general terms, this is an updated General Lee without the cabintop. ‘Right from the start Andrew said he did not want to compromise this boat with an interior (although it does comply with Cat One off- shore requirements). He already owns a 50ft cruising yacht, so this one was purely for racing, and with no attention paid to rating rules. His one stipulation was that it should have a watertight bulkhead ahead of the rudder, for obvious reasons,’ says Bakewell-White in refer- ence to the Djangosinking, when the rudder broke and pierced the hull. ‘We always do an aft watertight bulkhead in our boats anyway, unless there is some very good reason not to.’
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The general brief was for an owner who enjoys two-handed racing and offshore events up to the Pacific islands, as well as harbour racing. Early consideration of a canting keel was quickly dismissed for its undue complexity and intrusion – effective as the technology is, not everybody enjoys sailing to the accompaniment of engine noise. ‘In some ways you might say this is like a small TP52,’ says Bakewell- White, a marque he admires as pure sailing machines, very reward- ing to sail. Like General Lee, this design was intended as an all-rounder – definitely not just a downwind flyer. In reviewing the earlier design, the one slight weak spot was in light airs, so the hull shape was modified – narrower on the waterline, but with a wider maximum beam and smaller stern sections for an overall lower prismatic coefficient but a more powerful shape as the boat begins to heel. Although the draft and displacement are essentially the same, Anarchy carries more sail area, with a longer J-measurement, a considerably larger mainsail and a longer bowsprit. Looking at this new design with its flush deck and aggressive sail plan, it is tempting to conclude it is a more extreme package than General Lee. ‘But,’ says Bakewell-White, ‘when you look at the numbers, you might conclude that it is really more conservative.’ One area where the design pulls back from the edge is foils. ‘They are probably bigger than they could be,’ Bakewell-White acknowl- edges. While CFD and VPP programmes would suggest significant per- formance gains from smaller foils with less drag, Bakewell-White says these boats have to perform in the real world… ‘A bad start with skinny foils can see you slipping sideways off the line and very quickly losing ground. By the time you reach the top mark, that start might easily have cost you 10 boatlengths.’ He believes that unless you are designing for a top-gun professional programme, there is a need to tone down the figures. A similar approach was taken to construction. With laminate engineering by Pure Design and Engineering, the decision was to go for a carbon/foam combination, rather than Nomex. Again this errs towards a slightly more conservative approach on the basis that the higher-tech structure would cost more, add complexity to the build, be more difficult to repair… without adding much to performance. The deck layout includes transverse headsail tracks, Harken top- handle winches and hardware and plenty of control. ‘There is plenty of string,’ says Bakewell-White, ‘but less than in the original drawings.’
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