Technology
We’ve got it covered
Persico Marine is in the throes of delivering everything from a new Imoca for brilliant skipper Paul Meilhat to the first batch of Persico FLY40s which will mark the debut of the large foiling one design
Development classes have always and always will be a place for innovation in our sport. For far too many years it has felt like the top end of yacht engineering was an area limited to refinement of established practices. But there is a point where the level of refinement in itself is a revolution. The current development classes ofmain focus in our sport are Imoca and AC75. PersicoMarine is currently working hard at balancing the calendar of these two classes, as well as some intriguing in-house developments, to ensure that the company is centre stage for all that the classes and their designers and teams can come up with. The AC75 build is still some way
into the future. But the planning is well established with Luna Rossa Challenge. Persico Marine was heavily involved with the first outing of these machines, with the contract to build all of the supplied foil arms to the strictest of tolerances, as well as the first two Luna Rossa designs to meet the new class rules. There is much talk about the new developments from the defender requiring challenging teams to compete in the AC40 in events and training prior to AC37. However, the management of Persico Marine has seen, through the now well- established Persico 69F fleet, that the interest for racing fully foiling
66 SEAHORSE
machines goes way beyond the rare atmosphere of the America’s Cup, and has had the development of the Persico FLY40 ticking along for quite some time now. It is important to now see the
Persico FLY40 as the standalone development that it is. It is not intended as a rival to the AC class, but as a class very specifically aimed at the owners and teams who want to race these machines rather than watch them race. As you would expect from a company seated in the foothills of northern Italy, a lot of thought has gone into the styling, with Pininfarina being a partner in the project and developing the look of the fleet. This is further enhanced with the enthusiastic involvement of Peter Harrison, CEO of the Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille and the palpable excitement of Pierre Casiraghi, Yacht Club de Monaco’s vice-president, who are both eagerly awaiting getting their hands on the wheel. The focus here is very clearly on being a step up in size and speed from the Persico 69F. Here is where the Persico Marine
experience comes into its own. The idea is not just to create a strict one-design, but a management structure for the class, circuit and maintenance of these complex machines. Persico Marine knows full well that the learning curve is still
the
Persico 69F established the template for a tightly managed one-design racing circuit for foiling boats.
the
same concept has now been scaled up for the FLY40 – a big step up in size, speed and technical complexity – with logistics, maintenance and events management included in the package
steep for this style of sailing. If the maintenance and servicing of the fleet can be centrally managed, it allows owners to focus on getting out racing and helming their steeds, not watching them from a tender. This means that resources can be pooled and costs controlled as we saw in the VO65 fleet, which Persico Marine was also heavily involved with. But none of this takes away from the fact that the engineering of these yachts has to be precise. Traditionally, if you wanted to
make sure that something was strong enough, you engineered it to what you expected to be the maximumloads, then added a bit. More weight, but necessary. This
MARTINA ORSINI/BARCOLANA
RICHARD MILLE/EMEA
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