News Around the World
Beautiful and serene (inset) on this pretty Polli-designed Italia 9.98 ghosting along at another light 2017 ORC Worlds – this time in Trieste – or going nuts (above) hanging off the back of the Ker 46 Lady Mariposa in 35kt at another windy Cowes Week. Chartered to 20 years-young Russian med student Igor Yakunin for Cowes, the Ker design won the new Sevenstar Triple Crown trophy (much silver, more gold) and ended up 2nd overall in IRC 0… Mariposa then finished 2nd in IRC 0 in the Fastnet a few days later. Good times
what his thoughts were on running with a light team of only seven crew (all men) this time. ‘At the moment it’s been hard to tell about just the seven guys. It’s been tough just to get some rest up to now… plus we hadn’t sailed this boat at all prior to Leg Zero so we weren’t sailing it nearly as well as other teams. ‘We have done a lot of coastal racing over the last few weeks
in Leg Zero, plus there has been a fair bit of light weather; so far it hasn’t really shown any advantage in being a couple of hundred kilos lighter without the extra people onboard. We are more open minded about change after the Leg Zero debriefs…’ Approaching the northwest coast of Spain, the breeze shifts and
we choose to head back inshore, meaning a gybe peel from the masthead Code Zero to the A3. Parko is quickly on the bow, getting a feel for the breeze, swell pattern, sail combination and boat – no longer on a foiling machine, but on the one-design in which he was successful in winning the Volvo Ocean Race at his first attempt. And from down below I can hear him communicating with the
crew… a key part of Luke’s management of the deck is the voice. Level, brief, concise and ever observant, calculating angles and interceptions at less than foiling speed is easy for Parko. And if you listen to exactly what he says, then wait 60 seconds, his educated guess generally turns into fact. Blue Robinson
USA Look to your elders With so many in America obsessed with speed, it’s ironic that in US sailing there is still such a lack of interest in high- performance multihulls. Things looked promising a few years ago when several Newport-based owners purchased Marstrøm 32s with a small circuit of races proposed to make this into a proper modern sailing road- show, but interest soon fizzled. New York YC member Malcolm Gefter was one of those M32
owners. A biomedical engineer, he says he is baffled why perfor- mance multi hulls can’t seem to flourish in the US: ‘I don’t really know why there is a lack of embrace other than that people here still believe the boats are unsafe, unmanoeuvrable or just uncomfortable!’ Or the same people feel the boats are too athletic, given it’s the younger sailors seen zipping around on foiling Moths, Waszps,
20 SEAHORSE
Nacras and the like. Where’s the relevance for the ‘mature’ sailor? Gefter, NYYC Commodore Phil Lotz and a handful of other ‘mature’
sailors are bucking this stereotype with a bold commitment to a new multihull platform. The DNA-built FT10 trimaran is the result of serious work by Gefter, Pete Melvin and DNA examining what might get competitive mature sailors out in a foiling boat that was fun, safe and with enough other features relevant to their interests. ‘Sailboat trends have been responding to the demand for boats
to get faster by fulfilling basic physical elements of design,’ said Gefter. ‘By increasing power and righting moment and decreasing drag, boats go faster, whether monohull or multihull. Features like DSS and foils are just more steps on the evolutionary path forward. ‘What fascinates me is all the incremental efforts that are made
toward making boats marginally faster using these principles without taking the big leap forward to achieving these goals completely and within the accessible reach of current technology.’ Gefter accepts that there is a wide gap in current comfort zones
and in acceptance of the latest technology, which may be for a variety of reasons such as safety, complication, practicality and logistics… but also culture and politics, something he rails against when faced with rational reasons to embrace new technology. Gefter uses an aeroplane analogy: ‘The DC3 is a slow but ruggedly
reliable plane that with its huge wings and forgiving design can survive nearly anything. In contrast a modern fighter jet is high- performance, but unstable and unable to fly without tremendous power and complex semi-autonomous control systems. ‘The recent Cup boats and other foiling craft are like fighter jets:
a small mistake with a control surface can be a big thing!’ Having sailed Marstrøm 32s and GC32s Gefter recognised the
acceptance gap could not be bridged with these boats: they were too hard to sail for the ‘non-expert’. So he set out to find a design that could achieve foiling performance but with easier, non-complex controls. These streamlined quasi-automatic systems are currently being sea-trialled in an FT10 prototype (see next month), with adjust- ments being made daily as the team rack up hours on the water. Gefter’s vision has attracted the interest of a small but influential
group of other like-minded mature sailors who think this boat may offer a previously missing link between curious monohullers and those ‘fringe’ multihullers who saw the light years ago… Dobbs Davis
q
RICK TOMLINSON
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