Contents January 2018 FEATURES
4 Oops! And a respectful Seahorse nod to Santa Claus
32 The race that launched 1,000 careers FREDERIC AUGENDRE takes the Figaro 3 prototype out for some testing of his own
Wave! The crew of Mapfre get the first of many doses of green water as they leave Lisbon on the Volvo Race’s long leg 2 to Cape Town. After many recent (unavoidable) restarts featuring light to medium-air inshore triangles followed by a gentle fading over the horizon, Lisbon put on the real deal and the event made a welcome return to some of the front pages. With the explosive pace of technical advancement among the big offshore classes the VO65 had begun to look a little prosaic, slower and visibly less dramatic than the crazy VO70s they succeeded. The crews themselves enjoyed plenty of high-speed action in the last race but there was little to see for the many members of the public who turn up for each leg start. The images from Lisbon should prompt some revival of interest as the race travels around the world for the next six months. But while the current fleet enjoy their one-design tussle –Dongfeng already looks to be the fastest boat if she can stay out of trouble – the most important race news is the appointment of Richard Brisius and Johan Salén to take charge of the event going forwards. With a lower public profile than their predecessor, Mark Turner, this Swedish partnership have nevertheless been responsible for more successful Whitbread/Volvo campaigns than all of their management rivals put together. Not only in terms of wins, either, but with a history of satisfied sponsors who leave the event – or in the case of Ericsson return to the event –with all of their commercial ambitions fulfilled. Sensibly, the pair have put everything back on the table in terms of boat and format for the next race while they start over again. Make no mistake – and for sailing this remains a very important event – this is excellent news
COVER: Thierry Martínez
36 Planes, trains and automobiles Décision Composites outside Lausanne have been responsible for some of the fastest and most ‘edgy’ raceboats of the modern era. And plenty else besides. Founder BERTRAND CARDIS reflects on an interesting 30 years…
42 Do good CHRIS BEDFORD, SIMON FISHER and MARK TOWILL balance challenging for a round-the-world race win with achieving some other more publicly spirited objectives
44 Cup heritage – Part III From a disappointing Big Boat to an elegant if rather large ‘C-Class’ to a technical run through of the IACC America’s Cup era. ERIC HALL
50 Good, good An Olympic offshore demonstration event is gathering pace plus a catch-up with ‘oversized’ 470 gold medallist SIME FANTELA. ANDY RICE
REGULARS
6 Commodore’s letter MICHAEL BOYD
11 Editorial ANDREW HURST
12 Update Well, this time it was always going to be about the Cup boat. Plus the growing case for a compulsory re-education programme for navigators – aimed at reminding them that the paper chart came before the transistor. The list of offenders is growing expensively… JACK GRIFFIN, RAY DAVIES,
GRANT SIMMER and DON STREET JNR
18World news The TJV-TGV Express, YVES LE BLEVEC and Actual appear to be heading the wrong way, the Chinese-Kiwi connection gets stronger, TOM SLINGSBY finds a way to ease his Cup pain and more about that offshore Olympic gold. IVOR WILKINS, PATRICE CARPENTIER, THOMAS COVILLE, SAM DAVIES and DOBBS DAVIS
28 Paul Cayard
– Turning the ship around Go USA! The all-important ‘first’ Olympic medal. Plus Project Pipeline is paying dividends…
30 IRC
– One size does not fit all A mainstream view from a grand prix
expert. JAMES DADD
52 Design – Opening some very big doors From the outside the boat just looks beautiful, but Gurit senior engineer SIMON EVEREST looks at the challenges that were hidden away out of view
56 TechStreet Two – or four – very cool new fast boats from Italy, two more Argentinean design disrupters, some significant (safety) trickledown and why the biggest US regatta still holds a few surprises. Plus that trip to the Gulf just went three-hull mental…
64Seahorse regatta calendar
66 RORC – A (very) tough act to follow EDDIE WARDEN-OWEN
67Seahorsebuild table – And it’s now on to Mark V! SHAUN CARKEEK
93 Sailor of the Month Two of the biggest guys in the sport… mes amis!
Two-time gold medallist and Artemis CEO Iain Percy sailing Bart’s Bash with Ben Thomas and Billy Hope; the boys are volunteers at the Andrew Simpson Sailing Centre and between them have given 2,000 hours of their time helping other youngsters learn to sail. They are racing the Star in which Percy and Simpson won their final medal together at London 2012
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