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Technology
Light enough, fast enough... AND strong enough
As foils become more powerful and generate more righting moment, rig loads increase – and so do the benefits of Doyle’s sail technology
With three round the world races and dozens of long ocean races on his CV, Doyle Sails’ chief designer Richard Bouzaid has come to regard prolonged periods at sea on high performance race yachts as an occupational necessity, more duty than delight. In that professional capacity, over the course of a decade-long association with British solo ace Alex Thomson, he has added thousands more sea miles to his sailing log, testing and refining sails for Alex Thomson Racing campaigns. As offshore environments go, it doesn’t get much tougher than that. With the start of the Vendée Globe scheduled for November, Bouzaid says the new generation Imoca 60 foilers are flying faster than ever. The 2016-17 edition saw a big jump in performance with six entries, all designed by VPLP-Verdier, opting to use foils, four of which took the top four places. Hugo Boss broke three speed records and finished a close 2nd behind Banque Populaire VIII (Armel le Cléac´h), which set a new course record.
In the lead-up to that race and long before a commitment to foiling, Bouzaid joined an investigation by the Alex Thomson Racing team into the concept. The 2013 America’s
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Cup had demonstrated the huge potential of foiling catamarans but the application on monohulls, particularly for round the world solo racing, remained uncertain. ‘We went off sailing on various different types of foiling boats in Europe, up in Switzerland and Denmark in particular,’ Bouzaid recalled. ‘That was before we really started thinking about the sails, or even the style of boat for the Vendée programme, or we knew how fast these boats would be.’
The 2016-17 fleet introduced a foiling revolution, with a performance jump of more than 40 per cent at times over the previous generation. Bouzaid says the 10 boats with the new larger foils in the 30-boat fleet for 2020 show a similar performance leap, in certain conditions 40 per cent faster than the 2016 generation. For the sailmakers, a limit of eight sails including a mandatory storm jib means a relatively small inventory has to cover all eventualities. With the mast positioned well aft, the sailplan is configured around a mainsail and a permanent J2-type headsail on a fractional forestay set about two metres back from the stem. Ahead of this primary headsail are three tack positions along the prod,
Above: the DSS foiler Maverick derives the same
competitive advantage from Doyle Stratis sails as the Imoca 60s that are driving the development of next-gener- ation sail technology. As foils get progressively more power- ful, rig loads increase and the inherent benefits of Doyle’s sail technology – including weight
reduction and improved safety
margins – also become more
substantial
offering options for fractional or masthead Code Zero and reaching and running sails, varying in area from 200m2
to 400m2 . Inside of the
primary headsail, provision is made for a staysail. The reduction in sail numbers is mainly cost-related but the speed of these boats also reduces the number of sails required, much like a multihull. The all-Doyle Hugo Boss inventory is heavily invested in the company’s Structured Luff technology on all the flying sails including the staysails. “They are all lensed sails with luffs projecting forward,’ Bouzaid says. ’They are so effective on Imocas, which have high righting moment and low rig tension (about seven tons on the primary headstay). Anything you can do to reduce headstay sag and make the sails work more efficiently under relatively low loads is always going to be a big gain.’ Even with the larger foils on the 2020 generation yachts producing more righting moment (and thus more rig loading) the safety margins are improved with Structured Luff technology over conventional sails. The weight reduction achieved by Doyle Sails technology brings additional advantages. ‘Weight saving remains very important, more
Design
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Ordering a new boat for a full offshore race programme narrows the field when it comes to selecting a builder who will ensure that you receive a boat that is both reliable enough as well as fast enough to do the job
In ocean racing the name Black Pearl is synonymous with excellence. This is a mature team led by owner Stefan Jentzsch whose racing interest is almost exclusively offshore. He and team manager, Marc Lagesse, bring together an impressive veteran crew whose CVs are littered with multiple Volvo Ocean races, even Whitbreads, not to mention dozens of Fastnets, Transatlantics even a few America’s Cups. It's a small and tight group who enjoy their racing at a high level. It’s therefore unsurprising the team’s choice of boatbuilder for the latest Black Pearl was going to be a builder who shares the same dedication, passion and fastidious attention to detail that this team has while on the water. For Black Pearl the obvious choice was King Marine.
Over the last few years the team has ticked off class and overall wins in numerous classic races, including last year’s difficult Middle Sea Race and in 2017 the Cape to Rio Race. The latter is an impressive feat for this triennial 3600-mile race across the South Atlantic considering they raced a Carkeek 47, not a Maxi. This team prefers racing offshore with a group that’s small but versatile, trading some creature comforts to maintain this tight footprint. And in no way does small size correlate to
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diminished interest in their results: this is one of the best-prepared teams racing offshore today. ‘We certainly had a lot of fun and success in the five years we sailed the 47,’ Lagesse explains. ‘At the time this boat was available for us it worked into our schedule on a short timeline. However, our interests have evolved into wanting a boat just a little larger that could have just a little more comfort while racing offshore. Our brief to our candidate designers was for a fast offshore boat between 53ft up to Open 60 sizing and it had to be sailable by a crew of less than 10.”
Among several credible options, the team chose Botín Partners, in part because of their success in TP52 designs, but also their more recent successful offshore designs and fertile ideas on matching design concepts with functional realities. The decision to have a design drawn at 56ft represented their ideal optimum size and rating for their intended programme of racing: the classic 600- milers such as the Caribbean 600 along with the occasional ocean race like the Transpac.
‘This team know exactly what they wanted,’ said Adolfo Carrau of Botín. ‘They had five years of collected performance data so they knew the
Above: the next-genera- tion Black Pearl is a 56-footer designed by Botín and built to a very high spec by King Marine. Despite a few obvious parallels with the highly successful Botín/King TP52s, this boat is com- prehensively optimised for offshore racing, based on five years of compiled performance data. Key features include a fixed keel and cleverly designed water ballast system
average range of conditions to target in the design. They knew that TP52s rate well but they wanted a boat a little larger, yet not so large that a canting keel was going to be cost- effective for rating. So we opted for a fixed keel design with water ballast used to compensate for the smaller hiked crew.
‘And unlike the TPs, their offshore programme meant the boat had to be completely waterproof yet also lightweight and strong. There are many details needed to keep a high- speed boat like this waterproof, so deck design is really important. Many builders underestimate the effort needed to achieve this, but with Marc working with King Marine build manager Tony Evans and Black Pearl technical consultant Micky Costa, they have been able to achieve success.’
Lagesse agrees it’s this attention to detail where King Marine really excels. He says the atmosphere at King Marine is one of collaboration and not simply taking what’s proposed from the builder then fighting through detailed redesigns. ‘Micky and I could sit alongside the technical team and co-design the details in real time rather than endless iterations of shared drafts passed among all parties. And when
Re-writing the rules
Conventional wisdom suggests that promoting a maxi-sized one design will always be a challenge. But then who cares about convention when a boat like this pops up on your radar?
Despite the continued growth and success of one-design classes around the world, there’s a reason why there has not been an 80ft one- design since the Grand Mistral Maxi class of 1999. For many owners, winning at this size has frequently been as much about smart thinking and engineering their own private advantage, as it has been about success on the racecourse. One- design takes all that away. The big guns at Nautor’s Swan know this, some of them have been a part of those very circuits, but they also believe that the landscape is different today and that their recently announced ClubSwan 80 one-design will succeed.
The announcement of this striking, all-out 80ft racer marks another bold step forward for a builder that has reinvented itself once again by managing to shake off the popular image of a range of elegant but sedate racer/cruisers in favour of two fresh and distinct new lines – racing, with ClubSwan Yachts, and performance cruising, with the Swan and Maxi Swan lines.
But this has been just the start of a long-term campaign for the company. The launch of the radically
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styled ClubSwan 36 took many by surprise with a design that appeared so far out at the extreme that it was difficult to imagine it had come from one of the world’s oldest and most famous yachting marques. And for those who took a closer look there were more surprises in store. Despite her looks and technical specification, this was a boat aimed squarely at owner/drivers.
Due to COVID19, and the
cancellation of many of the season’s regattas, the impact that the CS36 was certain to have, has been put on hold, at least for now. But when racing resumes, the indications are that the class will be making the headlines once again, which is good news for her 80ft sistership. Based around a similar concept, both in appearance and in operation, by the time the ClubSwan 80 hits the water in spring 2022, the ClubSwan 36 will have done much of the ground work when it comes to putting theory into practice. ‘The ClubSwan 80 is a challenging project,’ admits Nautor Group ’s vice president Enrico Chieffi. ‘The Maxi scene is in a deep crisis. Historically this class has been very successful but this success has decayed over
Above: the ClubSwan concept
scaled all the way up to 80 feet with a canting keel, a very tweak- able rig, half the crew of a typical maxi... and about about one third of the normal running costs. The first
ClubSwan 80 due to hit the water in 2022 will be the forerunner of the first new maxi-sized one-design class since the turn of the millennium
time with far fewer boats being built. We believe there are two reasons for this. The first is owners asking themselves why they need to go racing with a Maxi when they could have a lot of fun on a much smaller boat. We are seeing this already within the ClubSwan 36 and ClubSwan 50 fleet.
‘The second is that owners are becoming increasingly frustrated by the different rating rules and the ways that different boats are compared. This has led to a large number of classes but with few boats in each, which in turn has diluted the competition for all. So we said, why don’t we try to develop a one-design class along the same lines as the boats that we know have been successful, our own ClubSwan 36, ClubSwan 42, Swan 45 and ClubSwan 50s.’
With a typical combined fleet of 45 boats across the classes competing at each of the various ClubSwan events, a key part of the evidence to support their idea has been staring them in the face. But would the concept really scale up to a Maxi?
‘Aside from creating a boat that is clearly going to be an exciting, high-
Design
Andrew Hurst, Editor
H-Jan21-Cover hi res.qxp_Cover 07.qxd 20/11/2020 09:27 Page 2 Seahorse Issue 491 £6.50 US$8.50
Choices – Clay Oliver Backstory – Rod Davis 50 is the new 60 –Fred Augendre Keep it close – Michel Desjoyeaux All in the mind – Munge, Walsh, Carr
Beyond words – Jérémie Beyou
JANUARY 2021 The official
magazine of the Royal Ocean Racing Club
ISSN 0143-246X 0 1
9 770143 246146
JULIAN LUCCA/LUNA MARIANI
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