It’s the people (stupid)
We’ve followed the story of the Paul Bieker Moth since the first prototype lifted off in 2018. It looked special from the start – as you would expect. A steady development process then ensued, every potential improvement being first carefully researched and then beautifully executed. And that requires people… good people. The Bieker Moth attracted some of the best people you will ever hear about
The Bieker Moth project started in June of 2017 on the porch of our house overlook- ing the Great Sound of Bermuda. I had just been part of losing the America’s Cup to ETNZ and was in the process of packing up our belongings for the move back to our home in Seattle. Scott Babbage came over to propose the
idea of designing and building a new Moth. Scott is an intelligent and very tal- ented sailor with a lot of experience in the Moth class; although quietly spoken and a man of few words I soon sensed the depth of his commitment to the project. Having just finished three years helping to develop the AC50 class design and rule
50 SEAHORSE
and preparing the Oracle defender, I was ready for a fresh challenge. America’s Cup campaigns are complex efforts, involving relatively large teams of people working together for several years towards a single goal. The design of a new Moth is a very different experience. It is still a hydro - dynamically and structurally complex boat, with many challenges, but the budget would be small and the number of people involved could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Figuring that at the very least it would be good therapy, I accepted the job. Although I first started playing around
with lifting hydrofoils on skiffs back in 1999, my involvement in Moths has been spotty and only began in 2008 when Bora Gulari first approached me to help him with some foil developments for his Moth. Since then I have worked here and there
on the boats – often unsuccessfully. Moths are the most challenging of skiffs to design and build. Moth projects push foil and hull structures to the edge and their small size demands a great attention to hydrodynamic and aerodynamic detailing. When accepting the job from Scott I was under no illusion that the process of creating a new competi- tive Moth was going to be easy. Scott’s vision was to concentrate on the
aerodynamics of the package. Deck sweep- ing sails were just getting adopted in the fleet at that time and the performance gains from this development made the power of aerodynamic improvements on the boats crystal clear. Scott wanted clean aerodynamics, especially around the base of the mainsail and hiking wings. In addi- tion, we would do what we could to increase the power (righting moment) of the boat. ‘Might makes right’ is a common lesson in yacht design (although there are plenty of cautionary tales). Aerodynamic and hydrodynamic gains
rarely come without a weight cost and hence I knew that pushing the envelope in the aerodynamics department was going to challenge us in the weight department. Minimising weight in Moths is of
critical importance. With that in mind I engaged my old friends from several America’s Cup campaigns, iXent GmbH of Munich, to do the structural analysis for the project. Having worked our way through many great structural challenges with them in the past I was confident that Thomas Hahn and Leopold Fricke from iXent could see us through. In addition we had an experienced and highly motivated builder, James Gell, to make sure that
ANGELA TRAWOEGER
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