Wild Joe was launched (way) back in 2002 as one of the earlier members of the Oatley family’s Wild Oats line. Built in Australia at Iain Murray’s Azzurra Marine, the 60-footer was Reichel/Pugh’s first offshore CBTF design preceding their matched pair of 100-footers Wild Oats XI and Alfa Romeo that launched two years later. It took a while for the smaller CBTF design to find its way and it was not long before CBTF itself went out of fashion, leaving the smaller yacht sidelined in the development race. Like the two other big CBTF designs Wild Joe is narrow and struggles for stability – so a much bigger bulb and more structure… or DSS. The obvious candidate
the strong reaching and running conditions which had previously been the Achilles’ heel of this slender Reichel/Pugh design, particu- larly against the newer, more powerful 100-footers Loyal and Comanche. But we knew at the time that these gains
were a long way from what was possible if the foil length and shape were optimised more boldly – and that one was prepared to look at the DSS as more than just a tool to prevent nosediving. Wild Joewas originally launched as Wild
Oats, the smaller sister that spawned the 100ft Wild Oats XI. At 60ft she was the first foray into the Canting Ballast Twin Foil (CBTF) format for Reichel/Pugh and she successfully led the Australian team to their Admiral’s Cup win in 2003. Lean and quick for her time, the 60ft Wild Oats was certainly groundbreaking and close to 20 years ago appeared to herald a new dawn in offshore yacht performance. However, over time CBTF was replaced
in popularity by more versatile and effective canard development. One by one all of the original CBTF maxi and mini maxi designs evolved away from the configuration – with one exception. Wild Joe was bought by her current
owner, Marton Jozsa, in 2010, a passionate sailor and experimenter who had already been trialling twin-masted ‘crazy’ cata - marans on Lake Balaton in Hungary. Even
so Wild Joe was a serious step up from his previous yacht, a Fastwave 40, and for the next few years Jozsa and his band of young, up-and-coming, predominantly Hungarian crew came to grips with their powerful 60-footer, taking on the Mediterranean classics with some respectable results. But by 2016 it was clear that for Wild
Joe to move up the leaderboard in the off- shore events that dominated the team’s programme a better all-round performance would be required. Wild Joe was sailing in the original configuration in which she had launched, with the exception of a bowsprit and a bigger square-top mainsail. She was clearly quick in light air, being narrow and relatively light at 10,000kg displacement, but those attributes were also her downfall in stronger conditions; and when power reaching she simply did not have enough stability to compete. In late 2016 it was decided to look seriously at retrofitting DSS – a refit was overdue anyway, making this the perfect time to start cutting holes! Fortunately, all the boat’s original engi-
neering drawings were still on hand at Gurit, with whom numerous DSS projects have now been undertaken. This simplified the process of firstly establishing the feasi- bility of the project and then the execution. A couple of key decisions were taken
early in the process, the most relevant being that the mast would not be replaced as part
of the refit. Working with Chris Mitchell of AES in New Zealand, who had engineered the original mast, and then Doyle Sails in New Zealand under the guidance of Stu Bannatyne and Stefano Nava, it was decided that we would give ourselves some rig and righting moment limits for the first season, keeping a close eye on the V1 loads in particular before deciding if a new mast was warranted. Isotop Composite in France was chosen
(again) to build the DSS foil and Pauger in Hungary worked closely with Gurit to define all the laminates and details for the structural changes as part of a wider refit. As more opportunities for improvement
presented themselves, what started as a three-month project evolved into a longer programme as the refit was lengthened and sailing in 2017 was put on hold. During the refit all systems were reviewed and other areas for weight saving assessed. The DSS installation itself, including the
replacement of the chainplates, structural modifications in the middle of the boat, foil, case and drive system would add 160kg and so for a start we were looking to recover this weight in the systems. Aron Nemeth, Wild Joe’s very capable boat captain, worked hard with VoltSport, chipping away at the power systems to eventually achieve a weight saving that equalled the installation weight of the DSS, rendering it neutral in
SEAHORSE 43
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