Walk on the wild side? Part I

Perhaps not many readers must have wondered about the alternatives to canting the ballast for an ocean racer beneath the water surface Rob Humphreys has progressed these ideas a little further

About a year ago we were asked by Offshore Challenges Group to submit a proposal for a new Open 60 design, targeted at the Barcelona World Race and the Vendée 2008. Although we have not been putting ourselves forward as mainstream Open 60 designers we have a longstanding relationship with the Cowes-based operation after carrying out the naval architectural work on the Open 60 Kingfisher, and over the intervening years we have supported OCG with various levels of optimisation and IMOCA rule maintenance on the boat, for Ellen MacArthur and later Nick Moloney.

Not unnaturally we closely followed trends in Open 60 design, so it was interesting to respond to OCG's request. It is already well documented that their plan initially was to build two near-identical boats and to seek competitive advantage through exhaustive sail and rig testing, America's Cup style, perceiving that hull design had pretty well polarised.

It follows that a two-boat testing programme requires a pair of boats as similar as possible, and bearing in mind the extent of the investment it wasn't going to make much sense to build anything other than a low-risk, state-of-the-art design. Nevertheless, our interest was not to try to gain this commission by whatever means possible, but to reflect on the class and the direction it has taken, with the benefit of some dispassionate distance.

It will be evident that the concept I outline here describes anything but a low-risk, state-of-the-art boat. To build one might be considered brave; to build two the gambler's equivalent to the shirt off his back. Not unreasonably OCG chose to pursue the safety-in-numbers route, and since we were not about to try to sell the concept to anyone else it looked as if the project would be consigned to the 'bottom drawer', a euphemism that has grown within my office to mean the repository of good ideas which the world is either not ready for or not prepared to accept. Peter Harken once told me that he and his brother Olaf have one too — in their case it is called the field of broken dreams!

To read the remainder of this and many other articles, please purchase your copy of the May 2007 edition of Seahorse International Sailing available at selected newsstands or by calling: + 44 (0) 1590 671899 or by email at: info@seahorse.co.uk

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