Design
(Mighty) congratulations all round
When the first ClubSwan 80 made its racing debut at Porto Cervo in September more than a few of those most closely involved were collectively holding their breath. They need not have worried...
themselves an ambitious goal. But what they and indeed everyone else hadn’t predicted was the arrival of a global pandemic that would turn the world on its head. Almost two years later and with the ClubSwan 80 afloat and with early results from the racecourse now declared, the project is still raising eyebrows and the reasons are clear. This is a stunningly good looking, high-
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performance carbon racer, but one that has also been created to be a strict owner- driven one-design. These are factors that place her in a category of her own from the start, but there’s more. This is a carbon composite rocket ship that can be reconfigured in hours to be a performance cruiser, capable of being sailed
hen Nautor Swan announced their new ClubSwan 80 at the Düsseldorf Boat Show in 2020 they knew they had set
shorthanded. And even then, with all this in mind, the final key objective is arguably the boldest, to ensure that she can fight it out with the best in a handicap fleet. It’s difficult to imagine a tougher design
brief, but as one of the longest running and best-known luxury boatbuilding companies in the world with a reputation for delivering, Swan’s size and experience is frequently their trump card. Having said that, they also knew that one of the biggest challenges they would face was not something that they could necessarily control, the owners themselves. In the maxi world, creating customised
racing machines for campaigns that start with the building of an impressive technical and sailing team staffed by some of the most experienced people in the professional sailing world, is often the preferred route for owners. Here, success begins on the drawing board and follows
through step-by-step to the racecourse. As a result, a project that is based on an identical platform and strict class rules that forbid any performance changes is less likely to appeal. So, what made Nautor think that their
project could buck the trend and what is so special about this new 80-footer? The answer stems from experience.
Easy to say, difficult to substantiate for many, but Nautor have some compelling evidence to support their claims. Fromthe original Swan 45 through to
the latest and radically styled ClubSwan 36, the ClubSwan circuit has been extremely successful. At the recent ClubSwanWorlds in Valencia this class was the biggest with 16 entries enjoying some consistently close racing day after day. Like the others in the range, this is an owner-driven boat and not only has no other companymanged to build such a
SEAHORSE 83
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