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News Around the World


A younger Ian Burns at his (large) desk on USA-76 during the first Oracle America’s Cup challenge in 2003 in New Zealand. By this point Burns was already one of the world’s most sought-after navigators – who still keeps his hand in with the occasional cameo. Then there was also the design firm of Murray, Burns & Dovell which produced a string of successful IRC designs for Sydney Yachts


11m, the Ross 45 and a TP52 modified with a canting keel. Then he switched to multihulls with the purchase in 2009 of the VPLP-designed Orma 60 Géant, previously campaigned by Michel Desjoyeaux. With every keelboat Hull owned he replaced the keel and rudder,


experimenting with some quite radical concepts along the way. Having to fit in sailing with building a successful labour-recruitment business, plus family commitments, he was always time-constrained and reckoned that, alongside optimising sails, the quickest way to get a boat going faster was to play with the underwater appendages. ‘And I have never been scared of doing that…’ Again this goes back to his father, whom he describes as a bit


of a mad professor. ‘It was something I grew up with. In the mid- 1960s my father took a single A-class hull and basically turned it into a mini Hydroptère,’ he says in reference to the giant French foiling tri that achieved a top speed of 56.3kt. Years later Hull decided to try applying foil assistance to a


monohull and the M1 project began. ‘My father and I sat down with the NACA profiles and looked at the speed range we were trying to operate in and the lift-drag characteristics we were trying to achieve. None of that science has changed really. Those books from the 1950s are still as pertinent today.’ They came up with two independent horizontal boards extending


2m out of the side of the hull and operated on a mechanical block and tackle. ‘They cost an absolute fortune to build. They didn’t work and we didn’t persevere with it, unfortunately. We should have. The potential was obviously there. Our mistake was we didn’t make the boards adjustable, so they were limited. It was blindingly fast at times and at other times it was just drag you didn’t need.’ Hindsight and subsequent development have more than proved


that the M1 concept was valid and ahead of its time. In fact, Guillaume Verdier (of Team New Zealand) critically used the M1 drawings to prove the early existence of the idea in his defence against a patent case brought by a rival designer many years later. So in a way it made perfect sense for Hull to find himself on the


starting line of a foiling world championship in 2018. While he was understandably respectful of the competition, he was certainly no newcomer to foiling, having been experimenting with it before some of the young guns were born… although that was probably of little comfort arriving in Lake Garda.


20 SEAHORSE The cast was indeed laden with talent: multiple world champion


and America’s Cup winner Glenn Ashby, French multihull star Franck Cammas, America’s Cup helmsman Chris Draper, world match race champion Phil Robertson, Volvo Race helmsman Adam Minoprio, a youth crew backed by the British America’s Cup programme, America’s Cup winner Ernesto Bertarelli… the list went on. Alongside Simon and his son, Harry, were some stellar sailing


CVs in their own right: Will Tiller, Guy Endean and Josh Salthouse have all competed at the highest level. And, while Hull’s own trep- idation was typically self-effacing, he is not one to back away from a challenge. Rather than chickening out, he relished the opportunity to compete in such exalted company. ‘It was a baptism by fire,’ he says back in Auckland. ‘Reaching


starts in a foiling boat with 13 others… it was quite a challenge. Luckily I was spoiled with a wonderful crew who were much more experienced at this pace than me.’ Racing conditions were mixed, but for Hull the adrenaline rush


of multiple foiling cats converging at turning gates in 25kt of breeze was a memorable, if daunting, experience. ‘I just kept my head down and did what I was told. It was a really steep learning curve for me. I have never even competed in a national championship, so to go to a world championship populated with A or B America’s Cup helmsmen was a big step. It was everything I expected and more. I felt I should have done better, but I guess we did OK.’ Indeed, for a first-time privateer to come away with 10th overall


and third in the owner-driver category was a more than creditable performance. Finishing the final race of the series with a win was a high-note that underlined that his team had indeed rocketed up the curve. ‘We were pleasantly surprised by our boatspeed,’ says Hull. ‘As


everybody knows, racing on foils is all about fly time. Any manoeuvre is so costly. The name of the game is to minimise tacks and gybes and execute them as fast as possible. We improved a lot through the regatta. Competing against the smartest sailors in the world you learn so much by osmosis. At the end we were sailing the boat better than we ever have. We had a lot of fun. My guys got me round the course and no children or small animals got hurt in the process.’ This was the first official world championship of the combined GC32 Racing Tour and the Extreme Sailing Series and Hull says the w


DANIEL FORSTER/DPPI


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