How low can you go…Hugo Boss slips into the water at the team’s base in Gosport. At the stem the foredeck is cut away down to the bobstay attachment, but beneath that the scow-like hull is extremely full so plenty enough buoyancy to get that bow back up – plus the ocean should flow right off that deck like Niagara Falls. The HB team led the way with a minimalist approach to the front end on their last Imoca and everyone followed (including Carkeek’s Fast40 Rán). Weight saving, a little. Aero gains, a lot. Style points, huge
The panel imposed no penalty on the Dutch, Maltese or second
US challengers. The Dutch and Maltese challenges have since been withdrawn but, with no penalty for keeping their challenge active, Stars & Stripes have not yet thrown in the towel. Some time before April 2020 we will get news from Stars & Stripes. For now no news is probably bad news.
ALL LEAVE IS CANCELLED – Terry Hutchinson The past month saw the Maxi72 Bella Mente in her first real IRC outing against the much refined Cannonball and Proteus in Palma Bay at the Copa del Rey. As we have come to learn, Palma Bay is a challenging racetrack and this is rightly known as the premier event in the mid-European summer. Great racing, hot and fun! The three Maxi72s are working towards the Maxi72 Worlds in
September and an event like Copa del Rey is always revealing. Right now the Botín-designed Cannonball is the class standard. A new inshore mast, Carbo-Link rigging, a bigger chord keel fin and changes in the sail programme have led to a dramatically different Cannon- ball. Interestingly, she is in her third season and her success seems to be fairly consistent with other Maxi72 development curves. Under- standing the strengths and weaknesses of each boat and developing performance within the IRC rule take time. The Judel-Vrolijk designed Proteus is next in the development
line. Proteus was new in 2013 and has followed the 2018 Momo development pattern. Incorporating the speed team of Momo and tactician Marcus Weiser along with Mark Mendleblatt, she too is slippery. Much like Cannonball, Proteus when compared to Bella Mente now has a very good ‘height mode’. Perhaps not as slippery offwind, both boats have also benefited from new inshore rigs and the associated reductions in windage and in overall weight. For Bella Mente Copa del Rey was a really good event. We won
when in the lead but are not yet Cannonball-fast. The refinement process is about balancing our strengths while working closer to Cannonball and Proteus. Of course, all this must be done without giving away too much. Bella Mente goes quite well uprange in 18kt+ of true wind.
However, we are not as fast as we need to be when you consider how well both Proteus and Cannonball go down range. The results of the week were accurate in terms of overall performance, with Cannonball, Proteus and Bella Mente each separated by 1pt. We went into the last race with the opportunity to win. As competitors
that scenario is what we always work for. Nevertheless, on that day Cannonball and Proteus were better. We will lick our wounds and get back to work. As Seahorse readers know, many Bella Mente team members
are involved in our New York YC American Magic America’s Cup campaign, and we have some busy times just ahead. Now the first AC75s have been unveiled it is an exciting time, to say the least, as we all finally get to see what our competitors have been working on. With the severe delay in foil arms adding to the challenges, every team has been forced into a very compressed schedule. The calendar dictates that all of us will be forced to make decisions on our second AC75 without a lot of time to sail our first. That is worrisome only because of what we have invested and what is at stake. But one positive is that all teams are in the same spot. At the American Magic sailing base, production facility and design
offices we continue to chip along. Elsewhere, as the team continues to tour the US developing genuine enthusiasm for the America’s Cup you can see a lot of excitement in what we are doing. On that point too we were impressed to see Ineos Team UK’s promotion of junior sailing. It is genuine efforts like this that will help to grow and strengthen our sport. To quote Barry McKay, we need ‘deeds not words’. As I write I
chuckle as Baz was always great at pointing out things with his philosophical phrases. American Magic is head down and focused on the America’s Cup job at hand. We are not alone! Standing by in Newport, RI, August 2019
LONG STORY LOUSY ENDING – Don Street On 1 January 1919 because of bad seamanship the 46ft steam yacht Iolaire, with over 200 returning service men, hit rocks at the entrance to Stornaway Harbour and sank with massive loss of life. One hundred years and seven months later, on 26 July, on my 89th birthday, having owned her for 52 years, Iolaire was lost on the NE coast of Ibiza, due to bad seamanship and an unexpected gybe in heavy weather, ending the yacht’s brilliant 114-year career. When I purchased Iolaire in St Thomas in March 1957 I realised
that the big, heavy main boom, left over from her gaff rigged days, could be a real widow maker in an inadvertent gybe. From the earliest days whenever sailing broad off, a main boom foreguy preventer was always rigged. This was often a difficult job. Through the years I worked out better methods of rigging the
SEAHORSE 13
MARK LLOYD
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