boats could finish separated by anything from a few seconds to several days. Now in a one-design fleet the performance of the crew matters more than ever. ‘The Volvo Ocean Race is hugely


demanding from a human point of view, and the welfare of my crew is paramount,’ says Caudrelier. ‘Having the right technical clothing is as race-critical as having the right food. As an elite sailing team we are always looking for the extra edge on our competitors. We share the same goal with Zhik – to optimise everything we do in every area. ‘Detail is key in this race and if


Zhik first became well known


outside the Southern Hemisphere for carefully targeted


(successful) development of specialised small boat clothing, working


working closely with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) on various collaborative projects. ‘We use RMIT because they have the best equipment and great knowledge in the garment testing space,’ says Hussey. ‘Tests on Xeflex are done via a sweating guarded hotplate. It maintains body temperature at 37°. It is then placed into a chamber to simulate different climatic conditions and we then use a standard industry test based on activity and conditions. The idea behind this process is to test the material’s thermal resistance against known benchmarks.’ Xeflex has proved to have very


high levels of thermal resistance – so is good at retaining warmth. It achieves similar levels of insulation to down feathers, but for much less thickness. ‘Down and synthetic down-like jackets need to use tightly woven, high-density outer fabrics in order to prevent the feathers or fibres migrating through the fabric. But these fabrics necessarily then have low air permeability and so are not very breathable,’ explains Hussey. ‘Xeflex nano-coating means


fabrics can be more “open” and breathable. We can use different


closely with some of the world’s best Olympic sailors. The company


then took the same values of light


weight and exceptional flexibility – two features that make sailing clothing much less tiring to wear – into their big boat garment range. This (left) is a Xeflex mid-layer, warm and breathable but again unusually thin and flexible. Above: As well as the less crush- able core material in a Xeflex sailing garment the material itself features this reflective element to reduce loss of body heat


insulations that do not migrate through the fabrics yet still provide very high levels of warmth. With the Xeflex mid-layer we’ve managed to match down for its thermal qualities while improving significantly on levels of breathability.’ While Lisa Blair’s challenge to circumnavigate Antarctica was primarily about fending off the cold of the Southern Ocean, Volvo Race sailors are required to contend with all extremes of weather, from freezing to tropical, sometimes all in the same leg. Space onboard is severely limited and the sailors are obviously restricted in terms of how much kit they bring, so the versatility of each garment is a crucial criterion for selection. Two Volvo teams have already


decided to go with Zhik as the best option for addressing the massive challenges that these mixed-gender crews will be facing. One is Dutch entry Team AkzoNobel, skippered by Volvo and America’s Cup veteran Simeon Tienpont, with a massively experienced crew that includes previous Volvo winners Brad Jackson and Stu Bannatyne from New Zealand. The other is Dongfeng, which is


back for a second assault on the race after the Chinese entry surprised a lot of people with its strong performance in the 2014-15 edition. Frenchman Charles Caudrelier is


again the skipper, along with an experienced international group as well as the core of Chinese sailors who will now be embarking on their second circumnavigation, this time with a view to winning overall. With the advent of the one-design


Volvo Ocean 65s, the margins of winning or losing a leg reduced massively compared with previous editions of the event, where the


we succeed in being innovative together, it could make us even more competitive on the water. Zhik can help us to perform at our peak, day and night, week after week.’ No one bears the brunt of the conditions quite like the bowman in a Volvo Ocean Race, so it makes sense that Dongfeng’s point-man Jack Bouttell has been working closely with Zhik’s designers to help them produce offshore gear that does the job that he and his fellow crewmembers need. ‘It has been a fascinating


process to test new foul-weather gear and give them feedback from the front of the boat,’ says the Australian-British pro sailor. ‘We need to stay as dry as possible, and maintain ideal body temperature as much as we can. New technologies like Xeflex are really moving the game on in terms of enabling us to perform both well and also for as long as possible.’


Xeflex


Revolutionary mid-layer garments that combine Zhik’s Xeflex radiant barrier technology with compression-resistant, vertically lapped insulation to provide high levels of thermal insulation and breathability with minimal weight. Xeflex technology reflects radiant


body heat that is not normally insulated by conventional fibre or down insulations, while the vertically lapped insulation resists wind compression in all conditions. The water-repellent composites


used in Xeflex provide class- leading levels of breathability, allowing the garments to be worn successfully over a very diverse range of inner layers so that the base layers through to the high performance waterproof and breathable outer shells can all function as intended.


www.zhik.com q SEAHORSE 59


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