Design Insight
The best yet?
The confident and very successful Grand Soleil shipyard gave the brilliant design talent (and regular Seahorse contributor) Matteo Polli free rein with their first collaboration. The result is exceptional... in every sense
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the old saying holds true for yacht designers and builders too. No matter how much CFD modelling has been done, the first sea trial of a new model is always a nervous occasion. Can it match its polars? Could it even beat them? Whatever the numbers say, when you take the helm does the boat behave, respond and feel like a thoroughbred? When the brand new Grand Soleil 44 Performance set sail for the first time off Portofino, it had a lot to live up to. The boat’s designer Matteo Polli gave his own verdict. ‘With the helm in my hands, I was able to judge the characteristics of the boat in various different wind conditions,’ he says. ‘The GS44 sailed well at all speeds, both upwind and downwind, confirming my expectations as a pleasant and fun hull to be at sea with, especially thanks to the ability to make careful and precise adjustments to the sails and the well-designed deck layout. ‘Even in windier conditions, pointing high on the wind and at a steep angle of heel, the helm responds well,’ he says. ‘You can even afford some handling errors: her stability allows you to carry full sail even in strong winds, an interesting aspect for a boat that does not necessarily rely on having the weight of a full crew on the gunwale.’ The GS 44 is a particularly important boat for the builder and the designer. Polli is the most successful ORC designer in recent
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years – his boats have won three world championships since 2015 – but this is his first design for Cantiere Del Pardo and it had to be even faster – but with a higher-volume hull, too. Likewise for the shipyard, this is the most race-focused boat they’ve built in a long time but it still has to work equally well as a cruiser. Easy handling for a shorthanded crew is crucial.
‘We had a range of conditions between 6kts and 14kts with sea state from calm to 0.5m waves with a pretty long wavelength,’ Polli says. ‘The boat was equipped with a cruising fully battened mainsail and furling jib plus a furling Code 0 and sailed in double handed mode. Unfortunately the instruments were not calibrated so we had the chance to check the speed but not the angles.’
That said, even with cruising sails the boatspeed read-outs were promising. Top speed close-hauled was 8.2kts and 15.5kts was achieved on a beam reach with a Code 0, which is remarkable for a production cruiser-racer. There wasn’t a gennaker or spinnaker on board so the boat’s downwind potential is yet to be confirmed. So how is this boat different to Polli’s previous designs? ‘The GS44 being larger and with a more cruiser- racer soul compared to more racing oriented designs I did in the past, needed a diverse approach on the hull shape,’ he explains. ‘Extensive use of CFD allowed me to find the
Above: the prototype
Grand Soleil 44 Performance aced its first sea trials off Portofino. It’s the most race-focused boat that Grand Soleil has built for a very long time and it’s also the first Grand Soleil drawn by
‘ORC Wizard’ Matteo Polli whose
designs have dominated top-level ORC handicap racing in
recent years. The GS 44 bears many of Polli’s successful design hall- marks now in a higher volume hull
best compromise between rating and performance while trying to maximise real performance, which is always important even when racing on handicap. More attention was paid to the low wind range where boats with such a high level of comfort tend to lack speed and fun factor.’
‘The most important feature of the hull is the ability to change the shape characteristics as the heel angle varies, passing from a relatively narrow, dry and low prismatic shape when upright to a wide, powerful and longer shape at higher heel angles. It is particularly challenging trying to achieve this goal while maintaining the correct longitudinal trim balance and of course the volume for the interiors. The result can be easily seen looking at the boat from the stern and when entering in the saloon… hopefully soon we will also see it on the scoreboards!’
The GS 44 is very much an all-rounder. ‘From the design perspective, I have tried to achieve an all-round performance profile without preferring one range of points of sail to another, looking for a balance that could be enjoyed both when racing and when cruising,’ he says. ‘Of course particular attention has been paid to VMG performance since it often represents the largest percentage of sailing, not only during inshore racing.’
Why the pinhead mainsail and fixed backstay? ‘A square top
CARLO BORLENGHI
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