News Around the World
Bit biased – the Humphreys office is just down the road – but it was good to see the Tom Humphreys-designed Class40 Serenis win the 2018 Grand Prix Guyader with a consistent 2,2,4,1 scoreline. Built by OceanTec in Slovenia in 2013, Serenis is only the second Class40 from the UK-based designers – though she has often looked fast, like Botín Partners following the huge success of Tales II and similarly the Farr office after Foncia 2008 crushed that year’s Vendée Globe, breaking into a French-dominated market in this class ain’t easy. With sponsorship so dependent on results, it is little surprise that the mainly French skippers remain risk-averse
challenges of the new America’s Cup class, one wonders whether Ashby’s time in the desert wilderness inspired any eureka moments? ‘For sure, there were times sitting on my camp chair around the fire at night, with the stars bright in the sky, when the imagination started to run pretty wild. I have always loved that kind of dreaming about what the future of yachting could potentially be.’ Presumably, other dreaming opportunities arose as their odyssey
progressed, often going for days without seeing another human. ‘There were times of such isolation that you wondered if you were the first people to set foot there.’ Other times, though, adrenalin probably banished dreams for a
while, like when Ashby competed in a four-hour dirt bike enduro race, careering through desert scrub at 160km/h; or when con- fronted by a deadly king brown snake; or when the family waded through an 800m natural tunnel in waist-deep water, with the beams of their head-torches picking out the blaze of crocodile eyes in the dark. ‘But you don’t have to worry too much about the freshwater crocs, it’s the salties that you really need to avoid…’ Whatever inspirations Ashby conjured from his sojourn that might
be specific to the design of the next America’s Cup yachts, he is not about to broadcast them. However, he confirms his introspection did nothing to curb his enthusiasm for the new class. Looking back at Bermuda, where Ashby was king of the wing,
magically shaping and twisting the aerofoil with his Xbox controller and rope-free system, one imagines that his world has taken a step backwards. The new rule with soft sails and old-style winches is surely going to cramp his style? ‘The wings were very good, no doubt about it,’ he nods. ‘You could force the structure to do what you wanted it to do. It was a very clean aerodynamic package. With any soft membrane you do not have quite the same degree of control, but that makes for a fantastic challenge for sailmakers.’ His fireside imaginings have clearly spurred him to take on the
challenge of making a soft membrane as controllable and shape- able as it can possibly be. ‘Remember, I am a sailmaker by trade,’ he says. ‘The development time and effort that is going into this area is tremendous. This is the major power source, so it will be an interesting period of learning about new things. There are a lot
18 SEAHORSE
of unknowns at this stage, but big problems get solved efficiently by having the right people in the right positions.’ Ashby says twist control is still possible with a 4m top section
and 1m bottom section of the twin-skin mainsail able to have independent controls. ‘Those are open design areas and it is up to the teams what they do with that. What you do in those areas is a whole can of worms of weight vs control, and the great issues that come up with design, engineering, aerodynamics and overall usability from a trim point of view.’ Like every foiler these boats will be very weight sensitive, but
any weight up high will be more than usually expensive because of the single-hull platform and will require rigorous consideration. ‘There are so many interesting questions and challenges. We are going through all the pros and cons of that at the moment. There are lots of open areas too around the mainsail development, so it will be interesting to see how the different teams work it all out.’ As to the overall concept, Ashby says nothing has come up since
the publication of the new rule to raise alarms, or second thoughts. ‘For the last Cup the approach we took was to throw the design ball really far ahead, then try to make it work. Being able to pull off what we did I think gained the respect of the sailing community, that we could take seemingly crazy ideas and put them into practice. That is basically what is happening now with a new direction and class. ‘This is a fantastically exciting project. All the simulations tell us
the loads will be awesome. They will be very cool boats to sail, very physical, very manoeuvrable for the match racing side with great pre-starts and with all the foiling aspects for very high performance. And they will be big boats, so plenty of spectacle when they are being thrown around like dinghies. It’s going to be great.’ Ivor Wilkins
AUSTRALIA Massive Chris Nicholson from Team AkzoNobel spoke to Blue Robinson about leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race, plus replacing the Volvo 65 Seahorse: Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajaí was a tough one. Breeze straight out of Auckland then a seriously windy leg…
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JEAN-MARIE LIOT
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