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rule was written and how it could be optimised further. I looked at how the other boats were made, what I liked and what I didn’t like. ‘I particularly noted that there were still boats having structural
failures and that with 200 boats racing this should no longer be possible. So we had to aim higher in terms of structure and safety margins. This is paid for by adding weight in the build which is then made up for by simplifying the equipment onboard.’ The Musa 40 designed by Gianluca Guelfi greatly impressed the
Class40 community with its speed and flexibility. Did it influence Michel and Olivier? ‘I think the Musa is not bad, but I think above all that Ambrogio Beccaria, winner of many races on Alle Grande Pirelli, is very very good!’ replied Michel. ‘For the shape of the hull we did a little bit of CFD but not much.
We didn’t have much time and we soon realised we could make gains by modifying some of the best features of the better existing boats. Our hull is rounder, especially since the Scows are often sailing very heeled. As a result we have high bulwarks on the topsides
NEW ZEALAND Since the Covid-affected 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland, which likes to call itself The City of Sails, there has endured something of a dearth of grand prix yachting events through to January this year when SailGP broke the drought. In between, the 37th America’s Cup, which could have been
Auckland’s, decamped last year to Barcelona, which allegedly enjoyed a one billion euro boost to its economy according to one recent economic impact study. Auckland did have some international sailing events during that
period. The Moth Worlds this summer, for example, caused a buzz at Manly Beach north of the city, but really only attracted attention from the true believers. Joe Public could not care less. Similarly with Don McIntyre’s Global Ocean Race, which stopped
over in Auckland in the 2023 Christmas period. Far from a grand prix event, it is more an adventure-type race, which is part of its unique attraction. As far as even a pretty educated Auckland audience was concerned, it registered, if at all, as a nostalgia trip. It may have given passing strollers incidental pause to peer at the boats and remember their own dreams of owning a Swan 57, but if organisers were hoping for a reception along the lines of Auckland’s massive public support for previous Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Races, they would have been sorely disappointed. However, if there was any sense that maybe Auckland had lost its
appetite for high-level yacht racing, SailGP – with its unique blend of razzmatazz – changed that. Sell-out crowds of 25,000 ticket-payers ($NZ179 for a basic seat, $NZ219 for a premium spot) filled the grandstands and broke new records, while The New Zealand Herald blazed headlines like ‘SailGP wows Auckland with thrilling races and fan experience’. A couple of months later SailGP impresario Sir Russell Coutts told the same newspaper that discussions were underway to sign Auckland up for ‘something like a six-year term’. Meanwhile, bubbling away in the background were ongoing efforts
Talk about an early Christmas… Vendée Globe winner Charlie Dalin had not even crossed the finish line when French Figaro racer Élodie Bonafous launched her challenger for VG 2028. Bonafous’s Imoca was built by CDK in partnership with 2012 VG-winner François Gabart’s MerConcept and is a sistership to Dalin’s Verdier winner Macif. An obvious choice, n’est-ce pas?
to artificially raise the hull so the sides remain as smooth as possible. Also, I appreciated the way that the two Finot/Conq/Koch Imocas raise their nose sailing at high speed in bumpy seas. We were inspired by that. ‘We also proceeded slowly and in multiple separate stages
through the infusion process. If you can undertake each of the cycles carefully you can squeeze considerable weight out of the build process, compared to making multiple infusions at the same time. You can easily save weight that does you no good. These are not kilos of fibre; they are kilos of resin. Once the fibre is impregnated there’s no need to keep adding extra resin!! ‘It’s mostly things like that where we try to make performance-
driven refinements with no loss of reliability. We also integrate as many reinforcement elements as possible into the primary hull and deck tooling to minimise heavy secondary bonding. For deck equipment we just kept it as simple as possible, as on my Imocas. But we are trying a movable bowsprit at the front.’ An obvious standout of the Agité 40 is the two-part coachroof.
The front part is rigid and fixed, including the cockpit access doors. The rear part is flexible, created using inflatable and stowable panels to cover the entire cockpit in the manner of many recent Imocas. In French we could say that the Agité 40 is a ‘cabriolet’. Alex Le Gallais, who is in charge of the design and production
of this hood in association with manufacturers Outils Océans, tells us that it can be retro-fitted to any Class40 and should be considered by any team sailing in the Globe 40. It is important to know that these modern 40-footers go as fast as the Imocas of only a few generations ago and so they are very ‘humid’. Patrice Carpentier
24 SEAHORSE
to bring the America’s Cup back ‘home’ to Auckland for the 38th defence. Late last year Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton took Cup watchers by surprise when he announced he was genuinely supportive of an Auckland defence. He proposed a similar formula to what succeeded in Barcelona with a mix of private sector and public funding. In a pre-Christmas message to members of the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron, he vowed: ‘We want to find a way to bring it home. If it’s possible, we will.’ Figures of $NZ150m were mentioned as the target for an Auckland
defence, which would take advantage of the fact that much of the required infrastructure already exists. With this process underway the public response to SailGP’s Auckland visit no doubt strengthened arguments in favour of backing a home defence of the Cup. So it came as a massive disappointment, but not a huge surprise,
when Team New Zealand announced that the Auckland option was off the table, with the government declining to contribute any funding for the event. Finance Minister Nicola Willis said at a cost of ‘$75m and potentially more, we just judged that at this time those resources were better spent on our hospitals, schools and other pressing needs for New Zealanders’. She was also unconvinced of the potential $NZ2 billion economic benefit. The lack of surprise at this decision relates to a longstanding
antipathy towards the Cup by the powerful Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). Just as the agency heaped every imaginable cost at the door of the event in 2021 in order to arrive at a negative economic impact report, so with the 2027 bid. The actual ask was closer to $NZ50m than the touted ‘$75m
or more’, according to some sources, which suggests ETNZ had found, or was well on track with raising, the remaining $100m from the private sector and Auckland City, and had arrived at a level of ‘comfort’ at the private support and from Auckland City’s promotional
arm, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, which had been proactively spear- heading the bid. One analyst pointed out that even if Auckland accrued half of the
economic benefit reported by Barcelona, that would amount to an economic impact of $NZ1bn, not to mention the revenue from sales
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