Thatwasquick
In no time at all New Zealand composites company C-Tech have gone from making some of the world’s fastest battens to building substantial chunks of (very) fast boats
When Alex Vallings set about building composite spars for his skiff two decades ago he had little idea that his efforts would blossom into a specialist facility building custom components for America’s Cup campaigns, superyachts and spacecraft – not to mention 50,000+ spars, battens, tubes, poles and booms. His primary interest in the hot cauldron of skiff racing was in ‘making cool things go fast’ – and 20 years later that goal remains the central philosophy of the company he founded. In a world where loads are
constantly increasing but the competitive edge demands lighter and lighter components, C-Tech have carved a niche in precision composite engineering, taking them to the limits of material properties. When C-Tech was established it
operated out of a farm shed to the west of Auckland. Now its fourth premises is a modern 2,000m2 factory, with a 600m2
world-class
temperature-controlled clean room, an autoclave, 10m flatbed plotter and recently installed five-axis CNC cutter. The factory was purpose- built for C-Tech seven years ago, but already it looks as if further expansion might be required. ‘It really began with making 49er
wings and foils for Mackay boats,’ says Vallings. ‘At the same time we were developing spars and hulls for 12ft skiffs. Then in 2002 we started getting into making carbon
66 SEAHORSE
sail battens. I went to Europe and watched the start of the Volvo Ocean Race and listened to sailors complaining about battens breaking.’ That got him thinking that C-Tech
could step up into bigger boat battens, so he worked up a prototype and presented it to Team New Zealand, who were busy preparing for the 2003 America’s Cup defence. ‘After trialling a full set of the C-Tech battens they reckoned ours were lighter and stronger than those they had been using, so they agreed we would become exclusive batten supplier. This was the beginning of the large square-top mainsails and batten technology had to take a big leap forward to support the leeches.’ Alinghi had also tested the new
battens, so in the 2003 regatta C-Tech battens were on both sides of the America’s Cup match. For the 2007 Cup cycle all the teams specified C-Tech mainsail battens. There is much more to battens
than meets the eye. At the top end the C-Tech battens are high-tech, hollow and tapered rectangular structures of varying stiffness, individually designed to match the sail’s curvature and chord-depth. An in-house software program for
batten design provides predictions that allow sailmakers to evaluate stiffness, camber and weight before confirming batten specifications. This is particularly important on high-end projects for performance
Above: Tom Slingsby practising on Sydney Harbour for the 2018 Moth Worlds in Bermuda. Last year in Garda he finished fourth overall in a hyper competitive fleet topped by fellow Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison. Given the skiff flavour of much of the racing in Australia and New Zealand, it is not very surprising that many of the best Moth sailors were very early converts to the C-Tech products – which have continued to evolve as both the boats and the fastest sailing styles have continued to develop
yachts and very large superyachts. Also widely used on the grand
prix circuit, including the Volvo Ocean Race, is the PlateBatten range. These are like a modern version of pultruded battens, but made with a pre-preg autoclaved system, which is much stronger. The C-Tech product has the taper built in on the centreline, rather than ground off afterwards, which eliminates outer skin delamination issues under bending. In 2007 the AC rule also allowed
headsail battens, spurring C-Tech into developing inflatable versions that could withstand the constant bending and abuse inflicted during tacking duels. The Cup projects enabled C-Tech to invest in a new plant to improve their processes, while the kudos of working in the Cup also attracted attention from the superyacht market, where their Air Battens found an application on large furling headsails. As part of their constant R&D,
which is both internally driven and responds to customer demand, C-Tech later came up with a better headsail batten solution with their C-T Flexifurl battens, which comprise two curved composite plates encased in a durable webbing cover. They resist bend up to a certain point and then kink, but spring back. ‘It sounds pretty simple in principle but there are a lot of technical challenges in producing something that rolls up
BEAU OUTTERIDGE
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