Contents August 2025 FEATURES
4 Into the groove JEAN-MARIE LIOT
36 Big at the top Watching a brand new superyacht pass by his window every few weeks prompted ROB WEILAND to think up new ideas to encourage more owners of these leviathans to consider proper yacht racing instead of yet more luxury holidays afloat
Moderately cool The latest of Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones’s Magic Carpet Maxis has certainly turned heads, as it should given the amount of innovation that designer Guillaume Verdier, builder Persico and the experienced Magic Carpet team managed to squeeze into 100-foot of sailing yacht. Verdier did, as instructed, focus his work on the best solution for Mediterranean regattas sailed in light conditions, but he obviously could not help himself by engineering the boat robustly enough that a transat would equally be on the cards… if ever required. As the co-designer with VPLP of the monster 100-footer Commanche he should know his numbers when he says that Magic Carpet e is a faster yacht all round – and dramatically faster in light to medium winds when Commanche is glued to the water. In her opening few races Owen- Jones’s new boat at times looked just as slippery as expected, but all those new variables, lifting rudders, multi-axis canard, folding canting keel etc, are going to take a lot of sailing hours in the hands of the best sailors and technicians before being calibrated well enough to give confidence in what settings to use when. So if ever a Maxi had untapped potential it is this one. In this issue Rob Weiland also looks more widely at today’s Maxi scene, suggesting ways to further tighten up the racing, even hinting at a ‘retrospective’ box rule. Given the success of the box rule TP52, which Rob has managed almost since its inception, and his Maxi72s, which continue to win everywhere, we find his ideas as attractive as usual. To encourage the building of more ‘racing’ Maxis, that is a cause worth pursuing…
COVER: Franco Ferri
42 What’s new? Surely we’ve heard it all by now… Not at all, argues CHRISTIAN FEVRIER, as he revisits the 1851 Regatta that led to the America’s Cup
48 Taking stock Like many observers and Cup figures, DAVE HOLLOM expected greater convergence among the 2024 AC75s. He looks at some of the reasons why things did not quite work out as expected
56 Under the hood Describing the latest Magic Carpet maxi as an ‘innovative new maxi’ is like describing an F1 car as a single-seater with four wheels plus the occasional waggly tail. GUILLAUME VERDIER, DANNY GALLICHAN, BLUE ROBINSON
REGULARS
6 Commodore’s letter DEB FISH
11 Editorial ANDREW HURST
12 Update They say it won’t happen but JACK GRIFFIN is not yet ruling out a Deed of Gift Match in 2027. TERRY HUTCHINSON’s trophy cabinet is back to overflowing and ‘CLOUDS’ BADHAM on why winning an Admiral’s Cup requires a new skillset
18 World news Utterly terrifying… CORENTIN DOUGUET and
ALEX TREHIN won this year’s CIC Normandy Channel Race but the real story was about Class40 rivals THOMAS JOURDREN and CEDRIC DE KERVENOAEL, STUART CHILDERLEY turns his laudable focus to Cowes Week, tough opener for VASCO VASCOTTO and CHECKO BRUNI, more light than heat in Cup World and the peripatetic SEAN LANGMAN. IVOR WILKINS, PATRICE CARPENTIER, BLUE ROBINSON, MAGNUS WHEATLEY, CARLOS PICH
32 Rod Davis – Free speed So many low-hanging performance improvements on offer, so many of them all too easily overlooked
34 IRC – Less maths more sailing
Even before the main event, multiple split second finishes in Admiral’s Cup warm-up
regattas set IRC fair for a most splendid month! JASON SMITHWICK
38 Maxis – Packed programme With 40 Maxis competing in the Med somebody is doing something right. ANDREW MCIRVINE
40 TP52 Super Series Starting out with a couple of absolute blinders, the new kids on the block failed to read the script. ANDREA LACORTE, ANDI ROBERTSON
63 TechStreet 68 Seahorse Regatta Calendar
78 Seahorsebuild table – Tempting CFD whizz AKIHIRO KANAI has a new light and speedy mid-sized IRC racer ripe for the silverware
80 RORC – Fastnet traffic How the level of interest in racing offshore is now becoming extraordinary… JEREMY WILTON
110 T minus 40 years MARCUS HUTCHINSON
111 Sailor of the Month
The Manuard Mach 40.5 Class40 Machouquette crosses the finish line of the two-handed Normandy Channel Race in 5th place. In the last 3 years budgets in this fleet have shot up, with expensive triple-head rigs now de rigueur. Class managers are looking at initiatives to maintain the interest at all levels within this great offshore fleet in the face of growing gaps between different design generations, learning too from similar experiences within the Imoca 60 fleet
JEAN-MARIE LIOT
BENOIT STICHELBAUT/DPPI
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