Design
Above: from the Gunboat design office this shows that most of the Gunboat 80’s sailing and hotel systems are centrally positioned to reduce their effect on the boat’s pitching moment to a minimum. The second Gunboat 80 will be fitted with T-foil rudders (right), which are calculated to reduce pitching in typical Caribbean swell by 30 per cent
Xavier Guilbaud, VPLP design
Building on the success of the 68, the Gunboat 80 is the best mix of the two worlds between racing and cruising. The boat has been designed and engineered with a constant eye on weight optimisation as weight is key to performance. The construction uses all our racing
boat experience with prepreg carbon. The corematerial is Corecell foamfor hulls and wetdeck and honeycomb core for deck, cabin top and all interior structure. Together with long asymmetric boards
and a high aspect ratio rig, she is a weapon on all points of sail. The boat was engineered to full righting
moment as the aim is to fly the windward hull when racing. The powerful hulls have been optimised for high speeds with a tense keel line and boxy sections. The deck layout is organised around
six big hydraulically controlled winches. Like the 68, the Gunboat 80 has a forward cockpit where all the halyards, reefing lines, daggerboard manœuvres, tacklines and furling lines are dispatched on two hydraulic Harken 1125 winches. The flat foresails’ sheets come to
primary winches on the top of the coachroof just next to the side helm stations where the driver, the trimmers and the navigator are next to each other during races (80.01). They communicate with the forward cockpit using headsets. On top of that, 12 hydraulic cylinders
78 SEAHORSE
are used for different controls around the boat such as mainsail sheet and traveller, flat sails inhaul, outhaul and tweaker, mast rotation, cunningham and daggerboard control lines. These rams are controlled in the forward cockpit or at both helm stations and also have wireless remote controls. Highland Fling XVII, hull one of the
series, is clearly focusing on racing due to her owner’s programme and has therefore been even more optimised for that. The interior is minimalist and the deck layout is optimised for racing around the cans with a crew of 12 professional sailors. Also, the sail wardrobe is optimised for rating certificate reasons. Having been on board during the Maxi
Worlds in Porto Cervo in early September last year, I was quite impressed with the level at which the boat was sailed, after just a few days of training since her launch. The boat performed beautifully with still a lot of potential yet to tap, and has given satisfaction to her owner and is very promising for the future. We’ll be looking to see her on the racecourse in the Caribbean and Med circuits. Hull #2 of the series, currently under construction with a summer 2024 launch date, is family cruising orientated. Having said that, being a race addict himself, the owner was quite keen to have a fast boat to play with.
The rudders are liftable in order to
have access to shallow water moorings. We have also added elevators to the rudders (T-rudders), not so much for added performance, but more for comfort at sea as they allow to absorb the motion. As part of our research and
development programme, we have created our in-house dynamic simulator that we use, not only to better understand our boat’s behaviour in waves, but also to benchmark configurations and geometries of appendages on our Ultimtrimarans and Imocas. Typically on this kind of project, we can
offer our customers to simulate their own boat in their own configuration of weight, appendages and sail plan and compare it with another candidate to help them make well-informed decisions. In this size of boat and budget, this tool,
which was originally developed for our racing division, has been very helpful in offering semi-custom options and the ability to adapt to each client.
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