News Around the World
Compared with the multiple-appendage Imocas, launching a new Class40 just before a big race like the TJV is not such a daunting prospect. Nevertheless it would be surprising if both the brand new Class40 scows – Banque du Léman drawn by Sam Manuard (left) and Crédit Mutuel designed by David Raison (inset) – reach Salvador da Bahia without a few teething issues. Manuard designed the successful Mach40 series of Class40s but his latest boat is a completely different beast. The all-round Mach40.3s were outgunned power-reaching in the Route du Rhum by the first scow-types from Marc Lombard so now Manuard has gone all out with the nearest thing yet to an inflated Mini scow. Both new boats also share an aggressive approach to a class rule written to prevent extreme bow shapes… Aside from a Lombard Lift40 in build expect other orders to slow until we see how these super-powerful designs perform
and vices. ‘It is like unwrapping Christmas presents,’ said Mike Drummond, former head of design for Team Oracle USA and currently in that role for the SailGP circuit. ‘They are four quite different boats.’ That squares with the expectation that any new class, let alone
a radically new concept, will produce first-generation designs that vary quite widely – providing much fodder for armchair speculation. Indeed, some are so far apart that commentators are already reaching for the verdict expressed by the Marquis of Anglesey in 1851 after inspecting the black schooner, America, when it arrived in Cowes to take on the best of the British fleet. ‘If she is right, then all of us are wrong,’ he huffed. The joy of all this analysis is nobody knows which is right and
which wrong until they line up and race. Be sure, however, that every team will be burning the late-night oil analysing what their rivals have done to compare notes and understand each other’s thinking. Nick Holroyd, design chief for the British team, says that ‘with
the technology we now have we can quickly generate a set of accurate lines of a rival design from a handful of good photos. In due course we will have pretty comprehensive models of all the boats and understand everything about them…’ Former America’s Cup competitor and now TV commentator Peter
Lester notes, however, that all the teams are fighting the clock. Delays in launching have left little time for testing and validating their first boats before committing to the design of their second boats, leaving limited opportunities for fundamental changes in philosophy. All the teams attest to the complexity of achieving the design
and construction of these boats. Holroyd said 90,000 hours went into the design of the British boat and most teams talk of 50-80,000 hours for construction, involving some 25,000 custom parts. Drummond agrees direction changes are difficult, but adds, ‘It
24 SEAHORSE
would not surprise me at all if, in the version two boats, we see much more convergence with designers borrowing ideas from other teams.’ In terms of hull shapes, the name of the game is to spend as
much time in flight as possible, so aerodynamic efficiency is much in play. At apparent wind speeds that might reach 70kt much effort has clearly gone into reducing aerodynamic drag across the upper surface of the hull, with cockpit configurations set in low trenches to keep grinders out of the airflow. At the time of writing the Italian and British boats had not yet
been seen with their rigs and sailplans working, but the expectation is that all teams will have their headsails and the new double-luff mainsails sealing with the deck for maximum endplate effect, dramatically improving lift-vs-drag aero performance. In their early outings the Americans did not follow that route.
They had their mainsail setting on a boom quite high off the deck, but this is a temporary arrangement while they come to terms with all their systems. ‘The benefits of the endplate effect are well under- stood,’ Lester says, ‘so you have to assume the American boom will quickly disappear.’ The way the sailplans integrate with the hulls is an important
area of performance and Drummond says the treatments of the top edges and sides of the hulls are also about maximising aero- dynamic efficiency. The British boat is distinctive in this respect with manta ray-type wings sweeping up along the sides of the hull, creating a quite slabby aspect. ‘The flow calculations around the sailplan and the hull are very
complicated,’ Drummond says. ‘When you look at the geometry of the various topside shapes they all add to the complexity of building the boat, so you can be certain the teams would not have done
CHRISTOPHE BRESCHI
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