The JPK 1010 has been one of the most successful IRC designs of all time, if not the most successful. No JPK 1010 has won more than the Loison family’s Night and Day, seen racing the 2015 Fastnet with the two-handed father-and-son team of Pascal and Alexis Loison… The pair won the 2013 Rolex Fastnet overall – sailing two-handed – but could ‘only’ finish fifth overall this time. They did of course again win the two-handed division. Four out of the top five boats in the 2015 Fastnet were Jacques Valer JPK designs…
damaging gap in its performance. But it remains a boat that is intended for offshore racing with a small crew. This will never be a boat for racing fully crewed in light weather. Coming off a startline in a chop, a boat like the JPK 1010 with its thinner hull and taller rig will inevitably do better. But the Ofcet 32 is not designed for that.’ From this point of view Mestral
Marine’s MMW 33, of which the first example launches this month, is almost an ‘anti-Ofcet’, the polar opposite of the French design. One of the key words designer Michele
Molino (an Italian architect but based in La Rochelle) frequently uses to describe his new boat is ‘versatility’. With 3.4 tonnes of displacement on a length of 10m, the MMW 33 is relatively light displacement but not extreme. Similarly sail area (59m2 upwind and a symmetrical spinnaker of 92m2
) is generous but not off the scale. ‘Firstly, we wanted a lively boat that
could quickly get in front,’ Molino explains, ‘which is why we also chose a sail area/displacement ratio a little higher than some of the competition… Actually we didn’t really think about the IRC rating until much later in development. ‘The deck beam (3.45m) maximises the
crew contribution to righting moment, while the smooth turn of the bilge flows nicely up and outwards into the relatively
50 SEAHORSE
flared stern. So wetted surface is also kept low to ensure good light-air performance.’ But the most obvious design character -
istic of the MMW 33 is undoubtedly the substantial rocker, producing a slightly banana-shaped hull in profile. ‘This type of boat does not fit into the category of planing hulls,’ says Molino. ‘We are instead dealing with sailing yachts in semi- displacement mode, or at most semi- skimming, which does not justify lines that are too straight and harsh. ‘A hull with plenty of rocker,’ he
continues, ‘will be more sensitive to crew placement and so easier to “stand on the nose” in light air, while dragging less wetted surface through the water and also showing less hull asymmetry with heel; this makes for less helm load and reduces the drain on the autopilot when used. ‘We wanted to make an all-around
boat, easy to sail, which will have perhaps less potential in absolute terms than some of its competitors but which will reach it easily. Initially launched with symmetric spinnakers, the MMW 33 is devoid of a bowsprit but asymmetrics can be flown off the spinnaker pole lowered flush to the deck, the forces at the end of the pole being taken up with a temporary stay. A former collaborator of Bernard Nivelt,
Michele Molino worked at Archambault on the construction of the first Teasing
Machine and then participated in the JND 39 project which has so far produced two boats both racing under a French flag: Lann Ael 2, overall winner of the 2017 Fastnet, which was entirely manufactured in Portugal by Trimarine, and Stamina IV, whose hull was also built at Trimarine, but whose deck had been designed, manufac- tured and assembled in Tarragona by Mestral Marine Works with the aim of launching a series (the MMW 40). Today Molino is in-house architect at
Mestral Marine, with a brief to create series-built boats that can still be tailored to a customer’s reasonable requirements. For example, the plug on which the deck mould of the MMW 33 was built has been retained and will serve as a mock-up to test different deck fittings or layout options that owners may be interested in. As with other IRC boats of this size, this
new 33-footer will be available in single and twin-rudder versions, with a straight keel for IRC racing or fitted with a bulb for ORC enthusiasts, and with a more or less spartan interior to suit. The prototype is very much intended to
be a genuine racer-cruiser, with significant interior comforts including wood finishes throughout. The second boat will be built with all-composite bulkheads, carbon rudder stocks and a twin-spreader rig. For boat no1 the yard preferred a mast
KURT ARRIGO/ROLEX
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