In 2000 for their first Cup defence the Kiwi designers, led by the gifted Laurie Davidson, took IACC boats another step forward with a fuller bow treatment (this would be executed better still three years later when Alinghi relieved them of the Cup), plus other advances including the clever Millennium Rig, with the diagonals passing through the spar mid-span to meet the opposing spreader – opening up the angles to allow lighter rods and a more stable rig. Kiwi spars were another step forward in stiffness compared with their rivals’
head Jeff Kent were among those chosen for the team. As may well be expected, keeping all the egos aligned could best be described by the worn-out – but in this case still very apt – expression ‘herding cats’. But along with all the technical talent,
Koch also had the management talent he needed. Leading the group and very effec- tively keeping everyone moving in the same direction was Vincent Moeyersoms. Another key lieutenant was Peter Wilson, whose consummate project-management skills still produce outstanding yachts. The team also needed a ‘bad cop’ with no technical axe to grind, but with an outspoken honesty to tell the technical egos when their ideas were off-base. The job fell into Jim Pugh’s hands. Jim may not be a trained engineer, but he is a sailor with massive experience and incredible technical street smarts. Though normally affable and easy-going, Pugh, when required, had no problem applying effective, out - spoken honesty within the team… An exponential effort was also expended
designing the masts. Consistent with his quest to make the technically best entries for the Defence, Koch enlisted Utah-based aerospace company Hercules to build his boats and masts. Working with the team, they devised a system where the masts and boats were to be built in Utah at elevated temperatures and pressures in their large aerospace autoclaves; but the claves were still shorter than both the masts and the hulls, so each was built in multiple stages. The masts were moulded over machined aluminium mandrels. It turned out that working with Hercules
was difficult for both sides. The can-do America3
team clashed with Hercules’
plodding, careful aerospace bureaucracy and after the first hull and mast the relationship
46 SEAHORSE
was ended. Eric Goetz was given the job of building the boats and, after each had recently acquired the first aerospace auto- claves in the spar-building industry, the spar construction went to Offshore Spars (masts) and Hall Spars (booms, spinnaker poles and rudder stocks). Both also delivered scores of hull components. Freed of the bureaucratic constraints of
the aerospace industry, Goetz, Offshore and Hall now kept right up with the Koch team’s demanding schedules. (Outside the America3
campaign, all other carbon IACC
masts that year were made in female moulds under vacuum pressure.) America3
lost a mast early on, a result of
their relentless experimenting during early testing. Dirk Kramers recalled, ‘Every day we were changing everything on the deck, including chainplates. One chainplate pulled out after the epoxy didn’t properly cure in the latest change and the mast went over the side.’ Very early on, for similar reasons, Stars & Stripes also suffered a mast failure. America3
worked hard at making mini-
mum-dimensioned masts and their auto- clave-cured spars were the lightest and stiffest in 1992. Both Scott Ferguson, working for the Pedrick/Conner group, and Steve Wilson, in charge of making the rigs for the Farr-led NZ Challenge team, agreed with Kramers that rival minimum-dimensioned ‘regular’ masts had proved more difficult to tune. (As a result of this Cup experience, both
Offshore and Hall Spars subsequently chose mandrel moulding for all their carbon masts. When Hall had earlier mentioned to America3
managers that we had our eyes on
an autoclave, they promised us ‘24/7’ parts and spar work until the Cup was over to justify the extra investment. And deliver they did, allowing us to learn a great deal
about advanced composites in record time.) Booms were also made in carbon. As
opposed to the masts, the booms were female moulded with Nomex honeycomb core. Carbon spinnaker poles were now ubiq-
uitous in the marine industry. Most were straight parallel tubes but the America3 team devised a simple and very effective way to make double tapered poles in one piece – fabricating tapered inflatable Kevlar mandrels on the outside of which the carbon laminates were applied. Once cured, the mandrels were deflated and removed. I justifiably got in trouble with the team for divulging the process in a company news - letter. I hope they don’t come after me again! An interesting historical comparison can
be made here with the first composite pole built in 1970 for Cup Defender Intrepid. That year a single-piece double tapered pole was also desired. The solution was the brainchild of Grumman’s Kenneth T Mar- shall. His method was to build a plaster mandrel over a steel pipe that was smaller than the ID of the pole. The plaster was there to withstand full autoclave pressure except where limited by aluminium honey- comb. When curing was complete Grum- man steamed away the plaster and removed the steel pipe that remained. Winning the Cup in 1992, the Koch team
thought, with more than a little justifica- tion, that they had the stiffest, smallest and, therefore, best masts. Perhaps justifiably, the Koch team took an ‘evolutionary’ path and worked hard at refining these mini- mum-dimension rigs for 1995. After the 1992 Cup Dirk Kramers left .
Hall Spars to work full time for America3
Speaking candidly recently, Dirk Kramers recalled, ‘In hindsight we were complacent and failed to consider other paths.’
w
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
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