as an expert at optimisation among the US west coast offshore community, with 20 clients among this year’s Transpac fleet of 52. Among this group is Dave Moore’s Santa Cruz 52 Westerly, overall winner of the 2023 race and the prestigious King Kalakaua Trophy. ‘Dave came to me after the 2019 race and we set out to develop a longterm plan,’ said Stewart. Moore raced another SC52 that year and finished on corrected time 14 hours behind the winner of a class composed of similar boats – often called the Fabulous Fifties class. There seemed to be room for performance improve- ment by taking a sharp look at these similar but rival designs. These are not new boats: Bill Lee started building SC50s in 1980 as smaller versions of his glorious 68ft ULDB Merlin – which rocked the offshore world by smashing the Transpac course record in 1977, Lee’s mark holding for 20 years. At about 7,300kg with around 120m2 of sail, these boats espoused the Santa Cruz Fast is Fun philosophy: 28 were built and they excelled in offwind sailing typical of west coast races to Hawaii and Mexico.
The Santa Cruz 52 was developed 12 years later by Bill Lee and Bob Smith, as a more modern and more comfortable design with somewhat better all-around performance but still excellent offwind speed. At 9 tons target displacement, this a larger, heavier boat, and with added interior options this weight could climb further. Nonetheless, many of these boats have had incremental upgrades over the years to improve performance.
‘We started with a clean slate and determined we could strip out a ton of spare weight,’ said Stewart, and under the watchful eye of Nacho Serna in Marina del Rey Westerly was eventually returned to its designed fighting displacement. The new measured DSPL is 9,211kg, 1,164kg less than the previous weight. Next up was upgrading the foil package from the original trapez - oidal lead keel of 2.75m draft to a 3.0m steel keel with lead bulb, while matching the same target stability. A new rudder design was planned as well to give more control with less drag, and a stern scoop added 0.65m to the LOA.
Moore and Stewart also looked at the Hall Spars carbon rig which is taller than other SC52s’ (in part to handle the higher DSPL in original trim) and decided on upgrades to include carbon standing rig- ging to reduce pitch gyradius and contribute to mechanical stability. The original goal was the 2021 Transpac. The pandemic ended that idea but it did allow time to explore other areas… starting with sails. Rather than work around the existing inventory, the team went to Kevin Miller of North Sails Santa Barbara for a complete new wardrobe, emerging with modern triple-head reaching capability which proved key in this year’s big race. ‘Now she feels like a real raceboat again,’ summed up Stewart after the first trial sail. The three separate start dates in the Transpac can have a significant influence on results due to differences in the weather patterns, and this year was no exception: the first two waves of starters had favourable weather while the last starters were trapped in light air for days trying to get off the coast. Even with a complex scoring model based on historic averages of wind speed and direc- tion, it is difficult to overcome these differences in actual weather encountered by the fleet and its effect on the overall results. Nevertheless, with careful analysis of the 2023 Transpac fleet’s polars, ratings and finish times, Stewart has determined the pre- dicted performance of the boat’s new rating on the Transpac course model compared to the actual performance on the course. With this he reckons Westerly outperformed the predicted elapsed time by 3.9%, while another division winner from the same start wave, the J/125 Nereid, had a figure of 1.9%. Meanwhile, the last day’s fastest starters were well into negative numbers… Was the Westerly upgrade worth the substantial investment in time and money? Owner Dave Moore has no doubts. Winning the Transpac overall is many an offshore racer’s bucket list dream. And there were plenty of others in the Fabulous Fifty chasing this dream too. Then again… Moore does note rather wryly that ‘we could have purchased another SC52 and run a pretty serious two- boat programme with what we spent on the upgrades!’ Dobbs Davis
SEAHORSE 29
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