February 2017

FEATURES

Not so chilled in Barcelona
A good result for offshore sailing emerges from an unnecessarily messy process. ROB WEILAND

Risk management
Volvo Ocean Race-winning navigator SIMON FISHER discusses the strategy implications of the routeing changes being made for the next race with BLUE ROBINSON

Active ride
MARK WISS and BILL FAUDE talk AC50 powertrain, foil and wing management with JAMES BOYD

Twenty five years of progress? – Part 2
ANDREW MACFARLAN of Red Bull concludes that while one-designs play a valuable role it is the development classes that keep sailing interesting

La petite Anglaise
PATRICE CARPENTIER was perhaps uniquely ‘positioned’ to revisit the special story of ELLEN MACARTHUR and a remarkable Vendée Globe

Function not fashion
BRETT BAKEWELL-WHITE did not create his ‘new’ 98-footer to shock, rather as a pragmatic solution to complex problems. IVOR WILKINS

TECH STREET

Bring back the thrill
After a decade of flogging up and down on windward-leeward courses many racing sailors are growing increasingly keen on taking in a little reaching… OneSails have some new solutions

Tacking now
Or in at the deep end… having been forced into some unplanned fast-learning in the art of shipping race yachts around the world, Team Vestas’s former navigator Wouter Verbraak has joined Dutch group Sevenstar Yacht Transport to make a career of it

There is a choice
The world-renowned rope and cable innovators at Gottifredi Maffioli are enjoying fast-growing demand for their range of ‘mid-exotic’ but very high-performing Dyneema-based cables. And the majority of the Vendée Globe fleet understand why…

Stunner!
The new Botín-designed Melges 40 canting-keel one design may prove to be a major disrupter to today’s mid-size raceboat market – North Sails have been playing an integral role in the development of the latest flyer to emerge from the Melges stable

REGULARS

Commodore’s letter
MICHAEL BOYD

Editorial
ANDREW HURST

Update
Summer 1948 and something of significance is happening down in Devon. Something of significance is also about to hit the Maxi72 fleet; give the ‘small’ guys a chance, says RODNEY PATTISSON, those foils are indeed priceless, JACK GRIFFIN reminds us and TERRY HUTCHINSON has been getting out his spanners and those rusty cans of WD40

World news
Those crazy Frenchies, COVILLE on a (serious) roll, Agincourt revisited, the AC50 ‘sailing challenge’, (quite likely) the most important new high-performance small boat since the 49er… Plus keeping the rain out in Key West (at long last). IVOR WILKINS, BLUE ROBINSON, PATRICE CARPENTIER, ANDREW MCDOUGALL, DOBBS DAVIS, DEAN BARKER

Rod Davis – Damn the torpedoes
We have set a new course for the America’s Cup – for now at least we must stay with it…

World Sailing – Positive outlook
Incoming president of sailing’s world governing body KIM ANDERSEN is clearly up for the job!

ORC column
Big mountain, small molehill, but Mr Chairman STAN HONEY stayed on top of it all (somehow)

Design – Time for a truce?
GINO MORRELLI is one of a number of leading multihull designers concerned that things are getting more than a little out of hand

Seahorse build table – Rockin’ (all) around the world
The Fast40+ class now has a new fanbase… a long way from ‘home’. BRETT BAKEWELL-WHITE

RORC news
EDDIE WARDEN-OWEN

Sailor of the Month
Two gentlemen of influence… and ability