Design
Re-writing the rules
Conventional wisdom suggests that promoting a maxi-sized one design will always be a challenge. But then who cares about convention when a boat like this pops up on your radar?
Despite the continued growth and success of one-design classes around the world, there’s a reason why there has not been an 80ft one- design since the Grand Mistral Maxi class of 1999. For many owners, winning at this size has frequently been as much about smart thinking and engineering their own private advantage, as it has been about success on the racecourse. One- design takes all that away. The big guns at Nautor’s Swan know this, some of them have been a part of those very circuits, but they also believe that the landscape is different today and that their recently announced ClubSwan 80 one-design will succeed.
The announcement of this striking, all-out 80ft racer marks another bold step forward for a builder that has reinvented itself once again by managing to shake off the popular image of a range of elegant but sedate racer/cruisers in favour of two fresh and distinct new lines – racing, with ClubSwan Yachts, and performance cruising, with the Swan and Maxi Swan lines.
But this has been just the start of a long-term campaign for the company. The launch of the radically
66 SEAHORSE
styled ClubSwan 36 took many by surprise with a design that appeared so far out at the extreme that it was difficult to imagine it had come from one of the world’s oldest and most famous yachting marques. And for those who took a closer look there were more surprises in store. Despite her looks and technical specification, this was a boat aimed squarely at owner/drivers.
Due to COVID19, and the
cancellation of many of the season’s regattas, the impact that the CS36 was certain to have, has been put on hold, at least for now. But when racing resumes, the indications are that the class will be making the headlines once again, which is good news for her 80ft sistership. Based around a similar concept, both in appearance and in operation, by the time the ClubSwan 80 hits the water in spring 2022, the ClubSwan 36 will have done much of the ground work when it comes to putting theory into practice. ‘The ClubSwan 80 is a challenging project,’ admits Nautor Group ’s vice president Enrico Chieffi. ‘The Maxi scene is in a deep crisis. Historically this class has been very successful but this success has decayed over
Above: the ClubSwan concept
scaled all the way up to 80 feet with a canting keel, a very tweak- able rig, half the crew of a typical maxi... and about about one third of the normal running costs. The first
ClubSwan 80 due to hit the water in 2022 will be the forerunner of the first new maxi-sized one-design class since the turn of the millennium
time with far fewer boats being built. We believe there are two reasons for this. The first is owners asking themselves why they need to go racing with a Maxi when they could have a lot of fun on a much smaller boat. We are seeing this already within the ClubSwan 36 and ClubSwan 50 fleet.
‘The second is that owners are becoming increasingly frustrated by the different rating rules and the ways that different boats are compared. This has led to a large number of classes but with few boats in each, which in turn has diluted the competition for all. So we said, why don’t we try to develop a one-design class along the same lines as the boats that we know have been successful, our own ClubSwan 36, ClubSwan 42, Swan 45 and ClubSwan 50s.’
With a typical combined fleet of 45 boats across the classes competing at each of the various ClubSwan events, a key part of the evidence to support their idea has been staring them in the face. But would the concept really scale up to a Maxi?
‘Aside from creating a boat that is clearly going to be an exciting, high-
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