Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
On the sea
There’s no doubt we’re seeing an increasing difference in design between offshore and inshore monohull racers. Already for quite some time at the high-tech professional end of the game and slowly creeping into semi-pro production boat, private owner and amateur racing as well. There is a world of difference between the new
Imoca 60s and the latest TP52s. But where the recently launched Imoca Arkea Paprec is an impressive step on a ladder, with still many steps to go, it is harder to see the next step for the TP52 and certainly on the TP52 ladder the steps are much closer to each other. This will remain the case til a drastic overhaul of the single fixed
keel-single rudder concept. It is not unthinkable that future inshore boats will grow closer to offshore boats, taking onboard and optimising for inshore use some of the offshore rig, appendage and hull shape ideas. Cross-fertilisation for a new inshore sailing experience, why not? The recently launched Swan36, from the Juan K design office like
Arkea Paprec, is one of the first attempts in that direction. We also saw the Botín-designed canting-keeler Melges 40, but where the 40 still sports a rather standard hull and deck the 36 is clearly and delib- erately different. Possibly to the extent of here and there being imprac- tical, but this is a boat with a message showing us ideas that we will see back in future Swan yachts as well as in many others. Looking around, offshore racing in nearly every department is
gaining popularity over inshore racing. Just spend a few hours on your computer to check out the latest Classe Mini, Class40 and Imoca 60 action and boats in case you wonder why. Mouthwatering variety and ambition in the design and technical department as well as in the course menu, coupled to dreams and ideas sometimes going as far back as the great explorers and navigators of the 15th century as well as more recent heroes. Just Google
Class40.org and dream with the organisers, and I
32 SEAHORSE
am sure hundreds of sailors, about ‘sailing from the North to the South Atlantic, traversing the Indian Ocean, making for Polynesian shores, rounding Cape Horn and spending Christmas in Tierra del Fuego drinking up the exhilaration of north-east Brazil, before concluding a voyage in the balmy winter of the West Indies’. This new Class40 event claims to herald a return to the original
values of offshore racing via a modern-day ‘Grande Route’, as in Bernard Moitessier’s Longue Route. Remember Bernard, ‘the fastest vagabond sailor the world ever knew’? Getting us close in cult status to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, in this version roaming the seas in search of God, trying to find freedom by never staying in the same place long. Maybe not accidently with a French element as well, Kerouac was of French Canadian descent. I wish I was younger and brave enough to live the sailing version
of this dream. Maybe I can travel to Papeete to be on the race committee, or just to cheer? Dream carefully, though, these are real oceans and small boats, as addictive as the alcohol and drugs Kerouac and so many others lost measure with. Not that the Class40 sailors and organisers shy away from a
challenge. For 2023 there is a double-handed around-the-world race on the menu, the Race Around, following the 2022 Route du Rhum, racing from Portugal to stopovers in South Africa, New Zealand and Brazil, rounding the three great capes of ocean navigation and chal- lenging the Southern Ocean, before returning to Portugal. Too busy and too bumpy to do much dreaming during that one, I reckon… To really see where offshore racing monohull design is heading
once money at least for the top half of the fleet is on a par with ambition, do not look further than the Imoca class. With eight new boats under construction or recently launched, the place to be. Twenty of these beasts, best known for their use in the Vendée Globe, assembled on the Cowes startline of the Fastnet Race, plus three more in the main IRC fleet. This is a development that we did not see coming one and certainly not two decades ago.
OFFSHORE TEAM GERMANY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104
