Persico Fly 40 Polars
Polar Curves
the boat itself but also the events. We’ll be holding events around Europe and a 40-footer is a good size for that. We want to put on nice events that are not too far apart and it shouldn’t cost the earth to move boats between them. We need to be able to do it fast and efficiently. It’s a 40ft boat that you can pull apart and fit on a trailer, or you can ship it. It’s quite easy to move around.’ Somerville declines to say whether the foils of the Fly40 will be more like the surface-skimming type used by Luna Rossa or the more deeply immersed ones used by Team New Zealand. But they will, he says, be directly derived from AC75s. ‘The appendages will be what we call a drag and drop copy – which sounds easy but it’s actually not that easy to do – with the same technology of the America’s Cup, so anyone who sails the boat can be pretty confident with what they’re sailing on and what they’re flying on with the same materials, the same concepts and the same build processes from beginning to end.’
‘We’re going to take it further in building the structure for this boat – the hull, deck and internal structures, let’s call it the composite box,’ Somerville says. 'We’re going to build 90 per cent if not more, and laminate all the fibres, with a robot. The engineering will be derivative of the AC75s. We’ve invested in an automatic tape laying (ATL) machine – you do the programming and it laminates all the parts a lot quicker than a human can do it and a lot more accurately, which takes it to another level when it comes to building a one design. We’re using
Above: the polars
released by the Fly40’s designers, Caponnetto & Huber, predict a low take-off speed of just 7kts TWS and exhilarating performance in a wide
range of wind conditions. Equally important, however, is that this new boat aims to broaden the appeal of foil- ing by being relatively easy to sail
the same technology as the AC but taking it one extra level higher. It means we can build efficiently and produce a number of these boats extremely accurately within a much shorter time frame than we could before. Probably faster and more accurately than anyone else can.’ Owners get to choose their own sailmaker – that’s the only part of the concept that’s not one design. ‘Sailmakers are aware of what’s going on but they haven’t been brought into the loop yet,’ Somerville says. The onboard systems are again broadly similar to the AC75s. ‘The technology and components, compasses, all the sensors and control systems are all the same,’ he says. ‘The only part that’s fundamentally different is that the AC boats had grinders creating energy and pumping oil to look after the aero package and the canting system for the foil arms was a completely different system driven by a battery pack powering a DC pump which drives the hydraulics and pushes the pistons up and down to control the foil arms. So they had two or three independent systems because of the way the AC rule was written. We don’t have that rule. We’re not going to have grinders on board. We’ll have everything combined in one system with an electric pack, DC pumps, that side of things will be a lot simpler.’ The safety of flight control systems is taken very seriously. ‘The learning from the AC and all the programming that’s gone on there trickles down into this boat to keep everyone safe,’ Somerville says. ‘When we launch these boats we’ll be updating the software straight away to
accommodate the owners and the pros and make manoeuvres easier. We can fully automate it if we want, or not. We’ll need to keep everyone happy, keep the sailors doing their job, make it difficult at some point – there’s that playoff there but fundamentally it’s designed to keep everyone safe. Because they’re one design we’ll implement that over all of the boats. We’ll manage it ourselves and keep updating the software like any other component, which is part of the circuit.’ You don’t need pro-levels skills to sail a Fly40, Somerville says. ‘The owner profile we’re looking at is quite broad. The boat will be comfortable and easy to sail. It’s designed to be sailed by four people and we’re spec- ing it for five so you can have someone on board who is not really doing much or they can help out too. Some owners might be a bit reluctant right now due to their age or skill level; we’re hoping we can change that opinion when the boats are in the water and everyone can see them flying around having a lot of fun and it’s relatively simple to do so.’
www.persico.com
Persico Fly40 vital statistics LOA
Beam
11.8m 3.4m
Displacement 1,600kg (light ship)
Sailing weight about 2,000kg Sail area
100m2
Take-off speed 7kts TWS Crew
4-5 SEAHORSE 67
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