Like most of today’s large and complex racing yachts it was only after a couple of seasons of finessing that the 2017 Cannonball really came on song, winning the 2019 Maxi World Championship in Porto Cervo. This was the first large grand prix monohull to adopt the reverse bow; however, the TP52 rule is written in such a way that this ‘du monde’ look is forbidden. So set a TP52 next to a new IRC racer – even a Sun Fast 3300 – and it does indeed look a little ‘establishment’; but then sail a TP52 in breeze and you’re soon reminded that even today looks can be incidental to staggering sailing performance. Of course the group of owners who could literally build anything they want already know that…
all the boats in the fleet. We can do so many things, but will we? Visually, a big move would be to go more aerodynamic on the foredeck transition, from hull to deck. Ever since the reversed sheers and bows in the Imoca fleet and boats like the Maxi72 Cannonball or, more recently, the Fast40 Rán and the IRC52 Oystercatcher I wonder ‘how that would look on a TP52?’. And, because in most cases I do not really 100 per cent like what I now see, also ‘how can that be improved?’ It might be interesting to go that way but at the same time I hardly see a performance reward (at best one second per hour) and am not convinced we can make it look better than the simple as well as classic sheers of our current boats. I reckon the Imoca choices are mainly triggered by working their class rule to its max trying to create a Scow bow. Then by weight gains through reducing deck and hull area and last – as well as least – by windage gains. If I estimate on average a two seconds an hour windage gain this amounts to about one hour on a 74-day Vendée Globe. But then again on some of the Imocas these bows really do look fit for purpose. Maybe also because most photos show the bow completely out of the water?
Truncated and spatulated (flattening and rising… as in ‘spoon’) bows do not for sure fit Archimedean sailing where waterline is king. But in Imoca not just the boats go fast, so does design development. Hard to imagine, but the 2020 Hugo Boss bow is already not the latest and greatest any more… far from it, in fact, and all the 12 or 13(!) new Imocas being built will look dramatically different. I struggle with the resulting narrow foredeck once you let aero- dynamics dictate sheer design and where stanchions and lifelines end up. These look like a bit of an afterthought, as in ‘oh my, we still have to comply with the safety regulations’. Like it or not, crew hiking is a main stability feature in fully crewed racing, and this has priority for its effectiveness. As far outboard as possible, and then as comfortable as possible. Better said, the least uncomfortable. All in all the TP52 classic sheer might not survive another rule change, then again it might… I am sure that in itself more aerodynamic solutions will not make the existing boats obsolete, which is probably a good thing. With stability we can always tinker to correct between new and old. A (semi)-Scow bow I am assured by designers will not improve a TP52’s performance when windward-leeward racing. But I can imagine the Scow bow doing wonders running/reaching/planing in good breeze. Still, there might be the desire to just push TP52 bow design marginally wider, flatter and so on? Soon you then need to raise the bow entry to avoid water bumping into it. Or perhaps exces- sively heel the boat? Whatever, in a no-discard series you do not want to be a turtle in the light just to be a dolphin in a breeze. What I do like visually is the sheer and so deck tapering down at the stern. I can imagine bringing the TP52 minimum aft freeboard, now 1.14m, down by 10 or 15cm, say to 1m. Possibly for even better looks this requires also lowering the forward freeboard limit? But there is a limit to reducing sheer, we’ve got to keep an eye on the boats remaining practical for offshore racing in their ‘other’ life. Right now, if contemplating building a new racer, a whole new spectrum of choice faces you once you include ‘semi-flying’ or ‘full flight’. I can imagine this then gets you into the complete unknown, but still for sure also not even close to whatever the optimum will be in 10 or 20 years’ time.
I feel in the long run Archimedean and non-Archimedean sailing will be two different divisions, not or only very rarely racing together. Mixing the two seems like racing cars against planes. What’s the point, except proving that it makes no sense? The future might prove me wrong. Rob Weiland, TP52 and Maxi72 class manager
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SEAHORSE 35 VerticalHalfPage-GEN22 cmyk.pdf 1 13/12/2021 11:23
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