More than you think
It started with the generic mini 12 Metre Illusion ‘sit-in’ keelboat designed in Cowes in 1981 by Jo Richards and Neil Graham – still an active class in pockets around the world. Over time there have been many spin-offs, with well-known designs from Peter Norlin as well as miniature versions of full-sized 12 Metres. Most consequential is the modern 2.4m one-design, first introduced as a Paralympic class and still a popular choice for non-Olympic competition. Former America’s Cup tactician and current Open 2.4 Metre World Champion Dee Smith explains how there can be a lot more to these ‘little’ yachts than first meets the eye
Because of Covid the 2.4mR Class had a long wait for the 2022 Open World Championship to finally take place at Davis Island YC in Tampa, USA. Come the final run-in and while Hurricane Ian failed to have an impact the next one along, Hurricane Nicole, would end up costing us two days of racing. My 2.4mR 2-for-1, built in 2017 by
Charger, Finland, was already a good boat. But what is fun about the 2.4mRs is that it is a development rule and those end- less delays gave me almost three years
54 SEAHORSE
to tweak and optimise my boat to the rule. Over my racing career I’ve optimised
many big keelboats. This little boat is no different and there are all the same areas to be looked at. Sail area, righting moment, windage, wetted surface, mast configura- tion, and of course a sail programme. And always the priority to minimise weight. Let’s start with righting moment. In the
2.4mR open rule any weight you can save in the boat equals more lead in the keel as stability is unrated. Everything that I could get out of the boat I did. I replaced every stainless steel screw with titanium screws. Anywhere I could use strops instead of metal fittings I did. The class rules allow any material to be
used for the steering system. So why not a new custom quadrant, foot pedals and hinges… all in carbon of course, as was a new seat back for the skipper? Then there is a custom stem fitting in milled titanium. I ground off all the glass fittings and
brackets I deemed unnecessary inside and outside the boat. I cut the middle out of the bulkheads and refinished them as ring- frames. I used the lightest hoses I could source for the bilge pumps and installed a lightweight 6-amp/hr lithium battery to power them. I took every alternate screw out of the mast collar… who needs ’em? After getting the weight out of the boat
my next job was to lower the lead as much as possible. I looked at many options, going as far as to make digital files to
ensure that I could get a new milled-ingot as low as physically possible. (Sadly, while I have the files for future use the bill for a complete CNC-milled lead package got a little out of hand…) In the end I modified the lead package I
still had from my 2016 Paralympic boat, Kanaloa. This was standard one-design lead, but I made a new bottom piece and back pieces that fitted in pretty snuggly together. The result was I had lowered the lead by 5cm from the standard position. People have done a better job with time
and money, but it was the best I could do; instead of the one-design lead package of 181kg I ended up with 192kg of ballast and a lower CoG. Wetted surface is reduced by using the
original smaller rudder that Peter Norlin designed some years ago. Meanwhile, the rage in Europe has been
to drop the 2.4mR keel an extra 20mm. But Norlin designed the original boat with 20mm less draft than the rule allowed; I felt the keel was big anyway, so why add drag by going deeper? As well as extra lift area the other
benefit of adding the 20mm is a little more buoyancy allows more lead – but with the trade-off of increased drag. In keelboat terms the 2.4 had a lot of drag already, so I thought best to minimise, not to add. Drag was further reduced by taking the
splash guard off the foredeck and replac- ing it with a smaller one back at the
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