Two from three, Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban glides towards Hobart for her second IRC win in the last three editions of the 600nm classic. Unlike 2018 when victory slipped from their grasp at the end, this time it was breeze-on all the way to the finish. Ichi Ban is a further demonstration of the all-round competitiveness of the TP52 model – a mid-sized planing design that has been optimised out of its skin in a cauldron of virtually one-design grand prix competition in Europe; the design and engineering perfection of a Super Series TP52, plus some carefully tailored changes to sail further offshore, and you have the ultimate ocean-racing machine
Sydney to Hobart Race starting on Boxing Day, frankly it will be scary if that is not the case…’ he explains rather grimly. ‘There’s plenty of life left in this boat for
our purposes. We built her to sail in the ocean, not for flat-water short-course racing. So down below it’s a much stronger boat than the Med TP52s. But crucially it’s much drier too. You simply wouldn’t get too far in the Bass Strait in a TP52 designed for European conditions, the crew just wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of water coming in. ‘The top three or four TP52s down here are now all very close to each other in
performance if you are trying to hold a lane off a tight startline. Maybe the latest hull forms are a little better then, but when it gets to the ocean that advantage is just not there. The hull form of Quest, the Hobart winner in 2008, and the 2015 TP52 Balance is better when it is rough – they become very competitive. ‘Sailing these boats as close as you can
to 100 per cent is hard in the ocean, so being able to always replicate the best sails and angles for windspeeds and sea state just helps. But if you can do that and you have the boat in the right position, and you have a crew like ours who have been
sailing together for ever, like Gordon Maguire, Ant Merrington, myself and Will Oxley and in recent times Rob Green- halgh, in that case you are hard to beat. ‘For the ocean races we’ve previously
been looking at the 1% gains, but we also need to look at the 0.1% improvements. There is a constant evolution of the 52s, from the Super Series but also from the off- shore ocean racing we are doing and there is a long way to go. Especially when you get to the reaching gear, where everyone is experimenting now with sails that have quite narrow optimum wind angles and strength bands.
SEAHORSE 59
KURT ARRIGO/ROLEX
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