Technical


New broom Not forgetting that the old one was pretty good!


There is plenty to shout about in the racing world, particularly for those who are involved at the cutting edge. Pro-Set has a long list of clients that are right in the thick of it, building boats fromthe blisteringly quick to the jaw droppingly beautiful. Among themisMaguire Boats, a small builder in a nichemarket based on the UK’s south coast that has enjoyed an impressive run of success and has played a huge part in shaping the high-performance world. The company is famous for its


International Moths, in particular its Exocet. In almost 10 years it has built 170 boats and won pretty much everything in the Moth world. But many believe that the influence of the Exocet was down to far more than simply straight line and argue instead that it redefined this popular foiling class while raising the bar among the fleet. And a look at their route to success over the last decade makes it easy to see why. To dominate any development


class, let alone such a vibrant and innovative one is impressive, but to do so for almost eight years is nothing short of extraordinary. But nothing lasts forever and as other builders and designers caught up and the performance gap started to close, Maguire Boats knew they needed to create the next generation ofMoth. A reappraisal of what wouldmake


66 SEAHORSE


the next boat faster was required but they also knew that the success of the Exocet hadn’t just been about speed. Tapping into the recipe that hadmade themsuccessful so far was going to provide an important focus. ‘We’ve been foiling for around


13 years now and our story started when we designed and built a couple of Moths that attracted the attention of a Gosport-based designer, Kevin Ellway,’ says company founder Simon Maguire. ‘Out of that came the Exocet. A number of features made the design quite radical when it came out, one was the hull shape. ‘Until then, hulls were quite


square in section. At the time it was felt that because the boats would be on their foils most of the time there wasn’t much need to focus on hull shapes. But Ellway designed the Exocet with a more refined shape that would get to hull speed more quickly and therefore help the boat lift onto the foils earlier. ‘Then there was the configuration


of the foils. Balancing the need for a large foil to promote early flight against the increase in drag at speed that would result from a bigger span foil was a tricky one to get right. There were plenty of other factors as well, but overall what became clear was that success would be about the entire package.’ Aside from straight line


Above: designed for minimal aero drag in 35kts of apparent wind, the new Aerocet Moth from Maguire Boats is a big departure from current Moth design. This next- generation Moth calls for the most advanced materials and Pro-Set is a key supplier


performance and handling, Maguire also believed that the goal for the Exocet was also to produce a boat that had good reliability, good after sales and good regatta support. ‘It won four world championships


and numerous Europeans along with two or three national championships, so it took us to a point where we were selling boats worldwide and offering support and upgrades. It was this, as well as the speed of the Exocet that got us established in the Mothmarket,’ he continues. ‘After we won the 2019 World


Championships with Tom Slingsby we sat down with Kevin to map out what would shape the next generation. We knew one of the big factors would be aero drag as the boats are now going so much faster. Typically we used to go upwind at 15-16kts, now we’re doing 20 and downwind the speeds are even higher. Apparent wind speeds are now around 35kts over the boat so with drag increasing exponentially against wind speed the need to focus on reducing it was clear.’ Determined that the next boat


needed to be a significant step forward, but conscious that there was less open space to design in, their starting point was Slingsby’s Exocet from which they ran computer models for 30 different versions with a range of ideas from


MARTINA ORSINI/FOILINGWEEK


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