Oiled wool and waxed cotton... not so much
The garment requirements for the next America’s Cup have more in common with motocross body armour than traditional yachting apparel
It says a lot about how much the America’s Cup has changed in the past decade that Musto will be supplying the Stars & Stripes team with gear not from its yachting apparel, but from its dinghy range of technical clothing. Musto is the exclusive official technical sailing apparel sponsor of Stars & Stripes, challenger for the 36th America’s Cup presented by Prada, and Musto’s design team can’t wait to get stuck in. The jump-off point begins with the
work lead designer Shane Rhone and his team did with Franck Cammas and Groupama Team France for the 2017 Cup in Bermuda. ‘That was a very interesting and challenging project which sets us up well for the work we’ll be doing with Stars & Stripes this time round,’ Rhone says. For Groupama , Musto teamed up
with D3O. ‘They’re the Gore-Tex of impact protection,’ Rhone says. ‘They make some of of the most trusted and advanced impact protection technologies on the market.’ D3O has developed its own patented materials which in their raw state flow freely when moving slowly, but on impact they lock together to absorb and disperse energy, before instantly returning to their flexible
72 SEAHORSE
state. The greater the force of the impact, the more the molecules lock together and the greater the protection. D3O materials are used in kit worn by the US military, pro athletes in many contact sports including American football, and three Formula One teams. For Groupama the sailors were
armed with 16 impact protection pockets: one for the spine, one for the coccyx and two each for elbows, forearms, shoulders, hips, knees, shins and upper side thighs. Since then Musto has brought out its “Foiling” range of high-tech clothing for high-performance dinghy and small-boat sailors, which has been a godsend for sailors of foiling boats such as the Olympic Nacra 17 cat, where the injury count from impact has been worryingly high. Amazingly no major injuries were
sustained during the 2017 Cup in Bermuda, albeit there were a few hairy moments such as Emirates Team New Zealand’s dramatic pitchpole, and that pre-start clash of hulls between SoftBank Team Japan and LandRover BAR. Taylor Canfield, a co-founder of
Stars + Stripes, has experienced the power and adrenalin of these AC50
Above: the co-founders of the Stars & Stripes America’s Cup team, Mike Buckley (left) and Taylor Canfield, for whom Musto is designing a new range of technical clothing with built-in body armour. ‘The crashes can be hard and they can hurt,’ Buckley says, ‘so we need plenty of protection while still retaining full movement and flexibility’
catamarans now that they have been converted and souped-up into F50 one-designs for the new SailGP circuit. ‘The F50 is an amazing platform for stepping into this kind of sailing and getting ready for the next Cup,’ Canfield says. ‘Getting used to sailing at 45 knots is a challenge in itself. It has been a huge help joining that team and great to be alongside Rome Kirby, who's got a lot of great experience and two America's Cups under his belt. In addition to that, we have two GC32s from the Extreme Sailing Series in Long Beach and we’re out on the water every day and working hard to get as much foiling experience as possible.’ Foiling is undoubtedly fast, but it
can also come to a halt crashingly quickly, says Stars & Stripes co- founder Mike Buckley: ‘The crashes can be hard and they can hurt, so we need the protection whilst retaining full movement and flexibility. The challenge is making sure that the sailors wear gear that will allow them to be operating at an extremely high level of athleticism. On the AC75, there'll be eight grinders doing very hard, uncomfortable work, and it will be vital to keep them at the right temperature while also making sure
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115
