and putting them onboard… The commu- nication between the yacht designer and sail designer is integral. SH: 3Di RAW was originally developed for inshore use, TP52s, Melges and the Maxi 72s; but the Hobart is not inshore. KR: There is the constant tug of war between the sailors/salesmen and the oper- ational people. And operational people love to be cautious, as they don’t want to put a potential disaster out on the water. But salesmen and sailors, they are more ‘stuff it, let’s go try!’ I think I fall into the latter category, for sure – and by the way, so does Jim Clark. He loves that part of it, a bunch of smart people focusing hard to make his boat go faster, so 3Di RAW was right up his alley. Look at the weight reduction in the sail inventory, plus as I mentioned the light-air headsail is also the heavy-air downwind sail. Such a wide range means that we are eliminating sails here – which is a really interesting concept. SH: And 2016… KR: When we crossed the line in Hobart the clock started for the Caribbean 600. Everything had to work seamlessly for us to get there on time, hit the dock at the right time in Charleston, put the rig back in the boat – plus when we lifted out we found a crack to fix where the board broke through. Then most of the race crew hop on and get the boat from Charleston to Antigua in time for the Caribbean 600. Then it’s the Voiles de Saint Barth, then to Rhode Island for a lift out, keel off and full check of the boat, then the Bermuda Race.
Then we go on call for the Atlantic record – during July, August and Septem- ber we will wait for a small hurricane to come up the coast to send us across fast. SH: In terms of growing the 100ft group, I’m thinking here of how Lindsay Owen- Jones led the way with the wide Magic Carpet3
in the Wally fleet, encouraging other owners in the process… Is there still a wide vs slim debate in the race fleet? KR: Well, it is really the funky daggerboard vs wide boat debate, and it is hilarious to hear some so-called experts say why that boat doesn’t do this or this boat do that… Every horse has its course and whether the funky foils on a monohull work depends on what you want to do with the boat. So a short ocean passage – and by the way an Atlantic crossing on Comanche now is short – is completely different from a round-the-world challenge. If we were plan- ning to go round the world on Comanche we would rip the daggerboard system out of the boat and put a completely different system in; but we did a heap of weather forecasting for the short ocean races we have been doing, and they are mostly wind- ward/leeward. The Transpac is downwind. The transatlantic either upwind or down- wind. Sydney-Hobart, upwind/downwind. The Bermuda Race, tight reaching or upwind. The Fastnet, windward/leeward. That information slides you towards the wide boat plus long straight daggerboards solution; for us to be in good shape upwind then heading downwind we want to get rid of all that drag underwater. We have talked
about special foils for transatlantic or Transpac races, but that is low on the list right now. SH: And any special foils must be 100 per cent reliable. KR: Every time the dreamers start dream- ing big things we have to remind them that to get this boat out of the water means finding a marina deep enough – which isn’t easy – hiring a crane, taking the mast out and then assembling this ridiculously high cradle. So essentially a four-day process just to get the boat out of the water. So we can’t break anything. If all of a sudden we have a bearing problem underneath the boat with some funky foils we have a major issue… on one of the most impractical boats on earth. SH: With the new Imoca 60s on the Transat Jacques Vabre, mostly when they broke stuff it was game over, but you broke stuff and still won the Hobart… KR: Yes we did, but the Imoca 60s mainly had problems in the construction and engi- neering details. Comanche had a finite period of time between launching and per- forming, meaning very high expectations from the owners and crew. We had to be more cautious. We didn’t have the two- year warm-up period the Vendée guys have to get things right, we had two days to get it right before our first race, then the regattas were back to back from then on. Failure is a very unpleasant option here. I don’t need to remind you that nothing drives an owner out of this sport faster than their boat not finishing.
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