Rob Weiland


Within a month of her launch in England French skipper Frédéric Puzin’s Carkeek 54 Daguet 5 was racing in St Tropez. Carrington Boats delivered their newest IRC racer in the same ready-to-go, flawless trim we have got used to since Jason Carrington’s very first Fast40 Rán… so good it killed the class stone dead. Daguet 5 is lining up for one of the French teams at Admiral’s Cup 2025. Boats slightly bigger and also slightly smaller than the dominant TP52s continue to be tried for IRC racing. Bigger can offer you a reasonable shot, a smaller boat is usually left behind in bad air


All about fun!


Another year done… and from a TP52 perspective done amazingly well. A nice cherry on the 2024 cake was to see the 2008 TP52 Red Banditwin the Rolex Middle Sea Race – well sailed Carl-Peter Forster and crew! I keep being pleasantly surprised to see TP52s do so well offshore, whether IRC or ORC scored;


the ultimate test in 2025 will be the Admiral’s Cup including the Fastnet Race. I guess one day somebody will come up with a different concept, would not be surprised if from France, working well both inshore and offshore but outperforming TP52s on handicap. Funny thing, and probably the reason why the TP52 class has


been a success for so many years, is that the TP52 box rule was never intended to produce boats doing well on handicap, but to create a relatively simple and fast boat that is fun to sail boat for boat. Many have tried to find an answer to TP52 dominance, promoting their boats as TP52-beaters. In itself a compliment, but to a class that was never bothered about having its boats com- pete with non-class boats, let alone be competitive against them on rating. We see and have seen all sorts of self-proclaimed TP52-beaters,


boats of similar length but wider beam, for example the Carkeek 52. Or a bit longer than 52ft, rating similarly to a TP52, like the


36 SEAHORSE


successful NMYD 54 Teasing Machine. Or a bit shorter, a shrunken TP52 hull but rating higher than a TP52, aiming to sail all-up lighter and on average faster than a TP52, with the benefit of water ballast and a relatively deeper draft allowing for a lighter bulb. I guess most of these concepts one could get to ‘work’, in the


sense of generally doing equally as well as a TP52 adapted to coastal and offshore racing in IRC or ORC-scored regattas; just as any one-off design can be made to work by an experienced designer, builder and crew. The problem is that it is just not that easy to get a one-off design


to optimum performance from scratch. It is hard enough when launching a new TP52 – even though the changes from the previous generation are usually hardly visible. But launching a one-off, even if at first sight similar to a TP52, there are many more, if not too many variables to consider, testing patience and skill, budget and process. If looking for guidance on how to design or improve handicap-


scored boats, I feel one should not waste time, or at least spend much less time, looking for rating advantages but focus on producing a ‘Fun to Sail’ boat… Not all that different from focusing on per- formance, but it starts with setting some pragmatic limitations. A good start then could be one hull, one mast, one fixed keel – would not mind two rudders but one will do up to TP52 maximum


RICK TOMLINSON


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