News Around the World
hot drink in our stomachs to keep us going. The other useful thing I have learned from grim circumstances
is the power of the Spanish windlass. Yep, that strange twisting thing with rope. When you are falling off large, steep waves and bits of your boat are acting like the San Andreas fault and moving noisily away from you, the Spanish windlass is gold. With the high-strength rope now standard on yachts, there is immense binding power achieved very simply and quickly. Form a loop through or around two parts of the separating structure, put a winch handle or section of sail batten in between the two ropes and start twisting. It is easily relocated and repeated (I remember during one winter
North Atlantic crossing the forepeak looked like the inside of a harp- sichord…). And fitting them has the added power of keeping hands busy and giving the crew – again some of them with large Bambi eyes – something positive to do in an emergency. So think through the possibles and probables of situations
happening at 3am, when half the crew are asleep in lightweight thermals, and what your reaction would be, plus what tools do you have both mentally and physically to deal with them. As the rest of the world knows, we have had some massive bush
fires here in Australia, and during that terrifying time leadership emerged from unlikely areas –- not always from people in positions of power. It was the quiet talkers, those with experience who used economy of words rather than filling out the sound bites to verbalise
2018, set the bar high with their new boat, accelerating the Fox team’s discussions about going to Botín and Longitud Cero for a new platform of their own to battle it out in Newport this autumn. ‘It became clear to us back in 2017 when first racing against
Beau Geste that the new-generation boats were always going to have an edge,’ said Fox project manager Kieran Searle. ‘They have just a little more stability and structural rigidity – which allows the higher headstay loads – to give them just enough upwind edge to dominate the first beat of any race.’ So Searle and his team set out to make a thorough analysis of
which elements of the newest-generation SuperSeries TP52 designs could be used for their own handicap programme with its different mix of inshore and short-offshore races. The first big decision was to use the same hull mould as the
latest Quantum and Alegre TP52s but with a few key tweaks. For the carbon pre-preg hull and deck laminates, Kevlar honeycomb cores have been used for greater robustness compared to more conventional Nomex, with extra foam also placed in the hull’s slamming areas. This and an internal structure beefed up to take more abuse than the standard SuperSeries inshore racers results in a very stiff package. Searle reckons that the new Fox will be strong enough with its
high-modulus carbon spar from Southern and composite shrouds from Future Fibres to maintain 9.5 tons of headstay load, compared to 7.5 tons on their previous boat. Remember that six of the eight races in the Newport worlds will be windward/leeward, making upwind performance of paramount importance. Searle says they have focused initially more towards optimising
for ORC rather than IRC, with features like a slightly shorter rig than the IRC-optimised 52s (for example, 600mm rather than 800mm taller than a standard SuperSeries spar) because in ORC the girth dimensions of the main are not assessed as heavily. He also said their aero studies with Jordy Calafat and Brett Jones at Quantum indicate the flying shapes used to be slightly more efficient at this lower aspect ratio (a slightly surprising conclusion to reach). And because the 2020 worlds are being held in late September when the water temperatures are at their peak, this suggests much less wind shear than observed in early-season New England events. There are other features in Fox’s design optimisation scheme:
Designed by Botín, the new turboed TP52 Fox comes together at Longitud Cero in the Quantum Racing moulds. In Australia Ichi Ban skipper Matt Allen has shown what you can do by beefing up and optimising a TP52 design for a mixed inshore/offshore programme – two wins in three Hobart races is proof of that. As on Ichi Ban stability is up compared to a Super Series TP52 but there is also a weight penalty with the choice of wheel steering
the wisdom to get folks through the short and longterm issues. All the while doing what we all know to be critical: not making a drama out of a crisis. Blue Robinson
USA There is life After a season of Pac 52 Class racing on the west coast in 2017 Victor Wild and the team on Fox headed east to challenge them- selves against the likes of Steve and Heidi Benjamin and their well- honed Spookie team and other east coast regulars. Racing in the newly revived SORC overnight offshore races in Florida, the team learned more about use of both ORC and IRC (neither used in south- ern California), and when the news of the 2020 Worlds being hosted by New York YC in Newport was announced in November 2018 it gave them a new target to aim at. Their trip north from Florida included a stop at Charleston Race
Week, where they were virtually unopposed, followed by a full season of racing in New England with 52 rivals Karl Kwok’s new Beau Geste and Tony Langley’s Gladiator. The sorted and mature Beau Geste team, winners of the ORC/IRC Offshore Worlds in The Hague in
28 SEAHORSE
use of Kevlar honeycomb saves some 30kg in hull and deck weight compared to a SuperSeries 52; the bevelled hull/deck join at the shear also saves weight and windage compared to a conventional shear structure (but nowhere near as extreme as the latest Rán Fast40); and the bulb is 50kg heavier than a typical SuperSeries design, resulting in 4.5 per cent more righting moment… again favouring upwind pace. The compromise in terms of weight comes with the choice of
twin-wheel steering, versus the mainstream TP52 fleet which relies almost universally on a much lighter tiller. The rudder on Fox also features around five per cent greater area than its inshore TP52 equivalent, primarily for better control offshore. David Team’s ex-Quantum 52 Vesper has also signed up for
Newport and, though not a new design, they managed to terrorise their much newer Pac 52 rivals in California last season. Tony Langley has not entered yet but with one of his TP52s based in Newport he is expected to join the fun. However, team manager Gavin Brady says current Class A world champions Beau Gestewill be prioritising the ORC Europeans in Capri this summer, and will stay in the Mediterranean to then race Giraglia and Les Voiles de St Tropez, thus missing the chance to defend their world title. But the Fox team are taking no chances and are fully focused
on preparing for Newport, spending most of summer training here – aside from a brief detour to the midwest to play in Chicago and Michigan in August, with a new group of older 52s that have organ- ised themselves on the lakes… including their own previous boat, now owned by Phil O’Neill and renamed Natalie J, helped by fellow Detroit-based Olympian and multiple Moth champion Bora Gulari. So another interesting Newport summer…
Dobbs Davis q
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