Rob Weiland
Big at the top
Up at the increasingly competitive Maxi level of fully crewed monohull racing all is looking pretty healthy, both for the number of boats competing and a high level of pro sailor employment. Regatta entry numbers are stable, new boats are being launched but mainly of 80ft+ size. Even a growing scarcity of qualified hands and brains
and consequently decent wages for many. But in sheer numbers the Maxi and Supermaxi racing scene is
a drop in the ocean that is the ever growing fleet of private maxi and supermaxi cruising yachts, in number as well as in size. In Hol- land alone I see a new superyacht on its way to the North Sea every three weeks, and half of them the length of a soccer pitch, so about 100m. The yearly value of superyachts launched in Holland is about €1.5 billion and the combined dozen or so Dutch yards have another 60-70 in the order books for a total value of about €7 billion. Roughly 6,000 superyachts over 30m currently occupy the world’s
seas, of which at most 900 have one or more masts from which sails are occasionally flown. The number of sailing supermaxis actu- ally racing at least one regatta per year will be small, I guess around 100 and only a tiny percentage would describe racing as their primary activity. The J-Class and Maxi 100 classes spring to mind as the hottest show in that segment, a total of just over 20 yachts, but what a sight when four or five of these beauties line up on a start. Of the roughly 170 superyachts over 100ft produced around the
globe each year about 25 are sailing yachts. A relatively large number when you know that no more than 120 sailing yachts between 60 and 100ft are launched each year in total, of which almost all are cruising yachts (the Imoca class is not included in this number). I estimate that less than 10 per cent, so 10-12 of the 60-100ft
new builds, mainly cruiser-racers, will enter a regatta at least once a year. Building a pure 60-70ft racer for fully crewed corrected-time racing seems a thing of the past, but we do see activity in the 70- 90ft range. Examples include the smart Django 7X, recently launched in Valencia by builder King Marine, along with other beautiful racing yachts like My Song (80ft), Capricorno (83ft) and Deep Blue (85ft). But I fear the current absence of clear length targets, as we had
for the Maxi72 Class for 10 years or so, and dropping the previous 100ft entry cap for offshore races, is frustrating interest in building. Too much choice can kill you, but we won’t see this tide turn till maxi
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owners sit down and agree size limits, and maybe a few more restric- tions, to produce boats similar enough to deliver close racing. At maxi size, however, buying into any such limitation seems as
if we are asking too much, the result being that currently races run on corrected time, inevitably triggering continuous complaining about rating systems, scoring methods and class splits. Below 60ft owners seem more prepared to accept length and
class restrictions, if not one-design solutions. For the last 25 years the TP52 class has been carrying the box rule flag, satisfying one- off design and construction demand and delivering close and fair racing, free of handicap, measurement and scoring complications. This has resulted in 90 TP52s built to class rules so far, plus around 25 more yachts built from TP52 moulds optimised for handicap rac- ing. As well as a flurry of TP52 lookalikes with all kinds of sizes and concept choices from one-design to one-off corrected-time racing. In boats competing at the top end of crewed yacht racing below
maxi size, say 44-60ft, besides a dwindling number that race on corrected time a different picture can be painted. For the first time since Covid the RC44 class has 11 boats racing, the Swan 50 class 10-12 boats and the TP52 class 11-13 boats. Of the 90 TP52s built I estimate 85 regularly compete all over the planet; about half race mainly professionally crewed. The numbers for other types of boats between 44ft and 60ft do not get anywhere close to this. During the current northern hemisphere summer you will see,
besides 13 TP52s in the 52 Super Series, seven offshore-optimised TP52s in the Admiral’s Cup, nine or 10 TP52s in the Copa del Rey, nine or so TP52s in the Australian TP52 Series and 10 GL52s racing in the USA east coast 52 Great Lakes Series, as well as another four or five 52s racing out of Newport RI. So a total of about 50 boats in what can be described as the top level of crewed monohull racing below maxi size, across these popular locations! Seems good going and keeps many professional sailors busy,
but a total of 75 RC44s, Swan50s and TP52s competing worldwide. Modesty is required, however, certainly when this is set against 40+ Maxis on the starts of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, or Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, and employing roughly the same number of crew. Also, we should not forget that across these fleets the principal
afterguard members and sail trimmers are often the same people! The 2,000 crew it would require to race all these boats at the same time in reality is achieved with at most 1,700, because 30-40 of
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