Two birds with one (Aussie) stone... why not?

Stacey Jackson had a vision of putting a team of professional female sailors together to compete in the 74th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, then using the biggest event in Australia’s sailing calendar as a platform to elevate the message of sustainability, raise awareness of the need to restore ocean health, and inspire action for positive change. This vision was supported by two principal backers; the Oatley family who provided the Reichel/Pugh 66 Wild Oats X, and 11th Hour Racing, the team’s sponsor, which promotes ocean health through strategic partnerships within sailing communities.

The team, Ocean Respect Racing, came together with 68 Hobart races and 21 laps of the planet between them. The focus was on winning the race, inspiring future generations of young sailors and promoting environmental responsibility. This powerful initiative was born from viewing first-hand the scale of the problem of ocean health, as Jackson outlined just before the race start.

‘I was motivated by the amount of debris I came across in the ocean during my two Volvo Ocean Races around the planet - that really hits you; an eye-opener was where I saw it, not even close to land, confirming that pollution really does travel vast distances. What became very important to me was the educational work that we did with Vestas 11th Hour Racing, and why it is vital to reduce single-use plastics and look after our oceans’ health. I became highly involved with the activations that we carried out at the various stopovers around the world, and at the end of the Volvo Ocean Race I knew that I wanted to continue this work. I returned home to Australia to find a large number of yacht clubs using plastic cups, plastic water bottles and plastic straws. My home – which is a beautiful country and wonderful place to live – is somewhat behind with this issue. People are still buying bottled water in supermarkets or service stations, and takeaway coffees in single-use cups, rather than carrying their own bottle or keepcup. I think we can help spread the message that change can be achieved one degree at a time. We all have to start small and work big, particularly in the sailing industry with single-use plastics.

‘So in mid 2018 I started working on this new project, which became Ocean Respect Racing, connecting with women whom I knew would get involved if I got it up and running. I then approached Sandy Oatley from the family who owns Wild Oats X and XI, and suggested an all-female team in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race – would he be interested in having a conversation about this? Sandy immediately responded in a highly positive way, supporting us by loaning Wild Oats X and taking care of all the race preparations, which was a truly fantastic gesture and one that enabled this project to evolve into a partnership with Wild Oats Yachting and 11th Hour Racing.

‘The Oatley family is highly supportive of this message, which they are implementing on Hamilton Island – one of Australia’s most spectacular holiday destinations in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef – in the push to reduce single-use plastics and the overall impact of their operations on the surrounding environment. One of the critical data you have to remember is that current research shows that by 2050, if we don’t create significant change, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. That's why our team is ditching single-use plastic and encouraging our fellow sailors to do the same.’

Above: Stacey Jackson’s team, Ocean Respect Racing, was sixth across the finish line and second overall on handicap.
Below: think global, act local. Before the start, the team removed 12 big bags of plastic waste from a supposedly clean Sydney Harbour beach.

Ahead of the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Ocean Respect Racing joined forces with Clean Up Australia, the not-forprofit Australian environmental organisation, to raise awareness about how rubbish finds its way into the ocean, and encourage positive behaviour change. At beautiful Whiting Beach in Sydney Harbour, the team removed 12 large bags of rubbish, filled with soft plastic wrappers from food, cigarette butts, plastic water bottles and many tiny plastic pieces that were unidentifiable. As part of its commitment to leave a lasting legacy in Australia, 11th Hour Racing awarded a $10,000 grant to Clean Up Australia to support the organisation’s mission and expand its waterway cleanups.

The interest both nationally and internationally for Jackson and her Ocean Respect Racing crew was phenomenal, and was also helped by having the team’s ambassador and Australia’s former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on board Wild Oats X for the Boxing Day start of the race in Sydney, jumping from the boat as they raced past Bondi, making the team front page news and helping promote their message.

As the team’s ambassador was being safely collected in a chase boat, the Ocean Respect Racing crew pushed south, just behind the five 100-footers leading the fleet to Hobart. The challenge for the fleet in this year’s race was the Bass Strait transition, and navigator Libby Greenhalgh nailed it, emerging through the fog and shaking off all but one competitor, the fellow Reichel/Pugh 66 Alive, which they match raced down the east coast of Tasmania to Hobart. Having blown out a panel in their A2 pushing the boat hard earlier in the race, Jackson and her crew were without that key sail to stay close to Alive, who pulled away from them up the Derwent river to win the race overall on handicap.

It was a superb performance for the Ocean Respect Racing team to secure second place on IRC and sixth place over the line – all of this with only 12 days sailing on the boat before the race. The reception the team received when they docked in Hobart was extraordinary, showing the power of Jackson’s vision around sustainability, ocean stewardship and female leadership, creating a catalyst for change in Australia and beyond.

Though the 2018 Rolex Sydney- Hobart Race is over, the work inspired by 11th Hour Racing continues: it started immediately with the crews on both Wild Oats X and XI collecting ocean water samples from selected areas up the east coast of Tasmania, in the Bass Strait and off the NSW south coast on the delivery back to Sydney, for an analysis led by Griffith University to check levels of microplastics in the ocean, providing key data to assist in understanding the problem and help promote change for the health of our oceans.

Click here for more information on 11th Hour Racing »

Speed, reliability, skipper comfort... so far it’s all going the right way for Sam Davies’ third Vendée Globe programme

‘I spent five days non-stop in full foulweather gear and my Musto kit was amazing,’ says Sam Davis, when discussing the first five days of the recent Route du Rhum. ‘It was absolutely epic weather, some of the worst conditions my boat has ever faced,’ Davies adds, recalling the storm that crushed part of her hull and knocked her out of the race along with almost half of the fleet.

There’s a crucial correlation between comfort and speed, which sailors ignore at their peril. It has ever been thus, but today’s singlehanded ocean racers are on a steeper learning curve than ever as they push the outer limits of physical and mental endurance while battling the violent motion, brutal shock loads, deafening noise and utter fatigue of bashing and slamming a foiling Imoca 60 through heavy weather at full tilt.

The Route de Rhum is a notorious race for gnarly starts – in November the Bay of Biscay often lives up to its evil reputation – and an additional, unusual challenge of this race is the sheer size of the fleet. With 123 yachts jockeying for position on the start line, there’s a lot of closequarters, high-speed manoeuvring – an exhausting business for a solo sailor in a powerful boat that’s been designed and optimised for ocean passage-making rather than short tacking. Getting away cleanly can be quite a challenge.

‘I started in light thermals and got a bit wet,’ she says, ‘then changed into my proper Musto ocean kit – thermal base layer, Frome mid layer, HPX Gore-Tex Pro Series. After that, I couldn’t allow myself to get wet, never going on deck without a dry top and my fleece-lined waterproof hat, affectionately known as the duck hat.’

Long-term comfort is crucial, she explains: ‘On a singlehanded ocean race in a boat like this, you have to wear the same set of clothing for at least the first few days. Your offwatch time can never be more than 15 to 30 minutes so there’s no time to get gear on and off, even to sleep – you just live in a full dry suit. In my case, that’s a lighterweight MPX Gore-Tex Pro Race Dry Smock and heavy-weather HPX Gore-Tex Pro Series Trousers. The French guys are mostly still wearing hoods and collars but they’re starting to see the benefits of the dry top and duck hat.’

The Route du Rhum was the first real test for Davies’s boat, Initiatives-Coeur, following a major refit. The reengineering of her 10-year-old VPLP design – which began life in 2010 as Michel Desjoyeaux’s Foncia; placed second in the 2012 Vendée Globe as Banque Populaire with Armel Le Cléac’h at the helm; and then came third in the 2016 Vendée as Maître Coq with a modest pair of foils added by Jérémie Beyou – is a potentially pivotal project for the Imoca class. If Initiatives-Coeur can indeed remain competitive against several generations of newer Imocas it could be a game-changer for grand prix ocean racing, lending a new lease of life to other old boats and making the sport more accessible by lowering the cost of entry.

‘My boat is heavier than the newer ones and its centre of gravity is not quite as good,’ she says. ‘Hull shapes have evolved but we should be able to overtake the 2016- generation boats, at least the ones that haven’t been modified in a similar way, which is very exciting.’

The Imoca class has been encouraging, Davies says. ‘They want the boats to last as long as possible and the grandfather rule helps keep boats like mine competitive. I don’t have to have a one-design rig, so I can adapt the sailplan to suit how I sail. The difference is in the crossover: the overlaps are bigger, so there are fewer gaps between my sails.’

The hull damage in the Route du Rhum was a setback for Davies and her team, but also a useful crash test for the three-year development project to prepare for their ultimate goal, the 2020 Vendée Globe. ‘We’ve been following an upgrade path that was created in 2017 when we bought the boat,’ she says. ‘That first year we essentially did nothing – we were getting used to how the boat performed – and since then we’ve had two big development years. During the first winter of 2017-18 we changed the ballast, adapting it to the rule change. We changed the sailplan, installed new electronics, developed a new autopilot and designed a system to adjust the rake in the old foils.’

It wasn’t the foils that failed in Biscay. ‘Long before I got back to Lorient, in fact very soon after it happened, I had a pretty clear idea of what had happened,’ Davies explains. ‘When you put foils on a boat, it sails with the bow more up in the air and the slamming zone, which is usually in the bow, comes further aft. In the new Imocas, the slamming zone is monolithic singleskin carbon to cope with this. My boat is sandwich construction with a Nomex core, which is quite brittle and not a great shock absorber. ‘When the foils were fitted for the last Vendée Globe, extra reinforcing structure and longitudinal stiffening was added but they didn’t change the core. Last year we made some rake adjustments with the foils and changed the forestay angle to get the boat more airborne.’ With flatter areas of the bilge slamming hard in big seas, the Nomex core was crushed.

‘We’ve now got several experts working with us to help decide what needs to be done,’ Davies says. ‘To change the core from Nomex to foam, the exterior skin has to come off. Removing the inner skin would be an even bigger job because all the interior structures would need to be taken out. Unfortunately the hull moulds don’t exist anymore, which makes it more difficult.’

Other Imoca skippers rallied round offering help, ideas and advice. ‘Singlehanded sailing is like that,’ Davies says. ‘We keep our performance data to ourselves, obviously, but when it comes to things like keeping a boat in one piece, we all tend to share knowledge and experience. We all have to get heavily involved in the technical side of things, we have to know how to repair our boats.’

Next on the refit schedule is a new, more powerful set of foils. ‘We’re working with Guillaume Verdier who designed foils for some of the latest Imocas, like Charal’ Davies says. ‘He’s really into the recycling aspect of this project – rather than throwing away an old boat, we’re re-engineering it. We’ve also cut out the old foil cases and we’re deciding where and how to insert the new ones. At the end of this refit, the boat will be more or less as I want it for the Vendée Globe. After that, we’ll focus on making it solid and strong, as reliable as possible. And I’m getting a new rig in 2020, before the English Transat.’

Above: a potentially pivotal project for the Imoca class... Davies’ team, Initiatives- Coeur, is reengineering a 10-year-old boat and attempting to leapfrog several newer generations of Imocas with the help of leading foil designer Guillaume Verdier and a “grandfather rule” that the Imoca Class Association hopes will enlarge the fleet by giving old boats a new lease of life.

Recycling and re-engineering isn’t the only remarkable aspect of the Initiatives-Coeur story. There’s also a unique arrangement with the team’s sponsors who have donated nearly all the advertising space on the boat to a charity, Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque, which brings children from impoverished countries to France for heart surgery. For every “like” on the team’s Facebook or Instagram page, the sponsors give the charity €1. The scheme has already raised €2 million and saved 176 children’s lives – and counting.

Davies, who has volunteered with the charity’s cardiology team in Burundi and meets some of the children in France, says it’s a great source of inspiration on bad days at sea. Davies also has an R&D role with Musto, providing feedback for the next generation of technical clothing for sailors. ‘Solo ocean racing is definitely the best way to test gear,’ she says. ‘What we do pushes technical clothing design to the limit; we’re the best ones to find weak links.’

Foiling boats are a game-changer. ‘We’re not fully flying yet and already the landings are getting more extreme,’ she says. ‘The foils do absorb some of the shock loads created by the faster boatspeeds but it’s a lot harder for us to stay upright. We’re moving around on our hands and knees, finding places to wedge ourselves in to avoid being thrown around.’

‘The gear we use is definitely going to change,’ she says. ‘It’s going to have more protection integrated into it. That’s already happening with inshore foiling racers, but a lot more development is needed. Their kit doesn’t have to be worn continuously for three days in a row; it doesn’t have to be breathable. We don’t have off-watches anymore, so there’s no time to get in and out of kit.’

When you face the world's most extreme ocean conditions, you need the world's best ocean sailing clothing,’ says Nick Houchin, Musto’s head of marketing for sailing. ‘We rely on sailors like Sam, who are at the top of their game, to test our new products at sea before we bring them to market so you can be confident that our Ocean Sailing garments are the very best you can buy.’

Click here for more information on Musto »
Click here for more information on Initiatives-Coeur »

With new Melges IC37s underpinning the world champagne market at the other end of the scale the company’s little unballasted puppy is doing pretty well too...

Nearly everyone reading this will have sailed or raced a singlehanded dinghy, either as a youth, more recently as an adult, or both. The pure joy of being in complete control of your own craft speeding effortlessly across the water and the direct feedback it brings to the senses is indescribable and keeps us forever attached to this sport.

So it may come as a surprise that, with this genre being crowded with so many designs over the decades, there could still be space left for innovation – yet Melges Performance Sailboats has done just that with the Melges 14, which is now under consideration as a new Olympic singlehanded dinghy.

Similar to the excitement caused with the introduction of the Melges 24 two decades ago – a design that completely redefined the highperformance small keelboat marketplace and remains popular around the world – the Melges 14 may quite possibly do the same for all the same reasons. It takes a new and fresh approach to use of modern design tools, high-quality durable materials, fastidious fabrication standards and strict one-design class rules and management to create a brand new experience in the joy of singlehanded sailing.

Innovative design
When designing the next global singlehander for Melges, Reichel/Pugh took a fresh look at the basics, just as Bruce Kirby did with the Laser nearly 50 years ago. How could boat performance be improved while remaining practical and versatile for a wide range of users, from juniors to adults? Can this design be robust to withstand years of use and abuse and still be competitive? Will it be attractive enough to lure the interest of newcomers, but also die-hard veterans of other classes?

One look at the Melges 14 shows the results of this approach with the following features standing out right away:

• Wide hull and side decks: this feature helps not only with the stability of the boat under sail, but also makes hiking an ergonomically efficient experience for all sizes and body types, rather than an athletic torture. The beamier design with a long waterline also helps reduce the inherent size advantages that taller sailors will have on narrower boats, making sailors across a broad range of sizes competitive in the Melges 14. This feature levels the playing field.
  And the extension of the wide sidedecks fore and aft allows not only for variable body positioning according to wind conditions for the singlehanders, but also encourages two-kid doublehanded fun sailing.
• Open transom: this reduces weight and lets water slide out the back without the need for bailers that jam and leak. It also makes beach launching and capsize recovery easier because there are no barriers and the cockpit floor is at water level so it’s easy to climb aboard. The open transom combined with plumb bow shape also gives this design a decidedly sleek and modern look when under way.
• Excellent traction underfoot: the large cockpit has better traction than moulded non-skid due to the use of SeaDek flooring, a grippy and durable coating suitable for any footwear – or none at all.
• Simple controls and deck layout: easy but effective and reachable by a free hand on both tacks, even while hiked. The centreboard box is positioned so that it’s easy to use as a footbrace while tacking or gybing and the auto-ratcheting mainsheet block ensures proper handgrip tension in both light and heavy air. The mainsheet traveller bridle being placed forward in the cockpit means it is less prone to wrap around the back of the boat, yet it can still handle the mainsheet loads to provide proper control of mast bend.
• Carbon spars: greater strength and resilience from carbon fibre means the loads from the laminate spar are not lost in sail shape distortion. The spar’s lighter weight means less pitching and more righting moment to contribute to speed. The mast is in two pieces with a common base section and different top sections of varied stiffness appropriate for different sail sizes that are tailored to be suitable for different crew weights.
  The carbon mast weighs only 4.25kg and the carbon boom weighs 2.0 kg rigged, making the rig and sail easy to handle when rigging and de-rigging.
• Efficient sailplan, with multiple size options: the high-aspect ratio sail built in fibre-Mylar laminate sailcloth means light weight and durability with little shape distortion. Full-length battens preserve the sail for much longer than conventional battens, and being adjustable they can be tuned for any wind condition. Instead of a luff rope or slides, the sail has a sleeve for the carbon mast to slide in so there are no halyards to break, sail tracks to crack or fall off, or bolt ropes to wear out.
• Light weight and easy to rig and de-rig: being a mere 52kg (115 lb), the Melges 14 is easy for two people to lift on and off any car top, making for easy transport. And the simplicity of the spars, sail and control lines allows the boat to be rigged for sailing in just 15 minutes – and de-rigged quickly as well.
  The Gold Rig is the full-range sail with an area of 9.1 m², ideal for sailors in the 75kg upwards range. Plenty of power makes this setup fast and athletic, yet incredibly simple to depower.
  The Blue Rig is the mid-range sail. At 7.4 m², it’s ideal for 57kg–75kg sailors, with plenty of power for racing sailors in this size range.
  The Red Rig is for smaller sailors who want to get out and enjoy the performance of the Melges 14. With a 5.46 m² sail, the ideal weight range is 34kg–57kg.

Below: could this be a Laser for the 21st century? Just as Bruce Kirby did 50 years ago, the Melges 14’s design team Reichel/Pugh took a fresh look at the basics. Their brief was to create an enduringly practical, robust and simple dinghy for a wide range of users, from juniors to adults and from novices to experts – with vastly improved performance. They came up with a superlight, widebeamed hull with a plumb bow and open transom, powered by a high-aspect mainsail on a carbon mast with interchangeable top sections of varying stiffness to suit a wide range of both sailor weight and sailing conditions

Modern materials
Unlike most production one-designs built with inexpensive cloth, polyester resins and gelcoat materials to meet cost targets, the Melges 14 follows the long tradition of boatbuilding quality inherent to all boats built at Melges: spend more on high-quality materials and take more time to use proper fabrication techniques to do it right. The end result is a boat that is lighter, stiffer and lasts longer and hence has a greater resale value than boats built otherwise. Melges have used this philosophy for decades throughout its diverse product line of keelboats, scows and other one-designs, which in turn is reflected in the greater than average longevity of all their boats.

For the Melges 14 this starts with high-quality moulds created with CNC milling tools to exact specifications and the fabrication of strong, stable tooling of the sort you would see at production shops that build much larger boats. This is essential to ensure consistency and quality throughout production runs.

The composite engineering for the Melges 14 is also at a level you only expect to see in much larger racing boats. The lay-up process starts with an exceptional epoxy-compatible gelcoat product that leads the industry for weather resistance, high gloss finish and excellent scratch and wear resistance. Then the laminate starts with detailed specifications and use of sophisticated materials, such as biaxial and uni-directional E-glass as well as 0-90 cloth, 12mm closed cell PVC cores. Selective and detailed carbon fibre reinforcements ensure rigidity and stiffness where needed, laminated with carefully weighed and measured amounts of epoxy resin. The package is vacuumbagged to ensure full resin penetration, with no dry spots that could result in delamination. The target weight for a Melges 14 hull laminate before trimming out of the mould is only 21kg.

This approach is taken with both hull and deck, which are bonded together at the wide shear flange with a permanent rigid adhesive that keeps that joint strong and inflexible through years and years of hard use.

Build partners
To meet the worldwide demand for Melges 14s, which have so far been sold in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa, Melges has formed partnerships with three builders who share the same philosophy and technology to create boats to their exacting standards: Ovington Boats in the UK, NELO in Portugal, and Mackay Boats in New Zealand. All have had decades of experience in producing high-quality one-design racing sailboats and other craft for the recreation and performance marine market. NELO, for example, has produced 30,000 boats in the past 40 years, and is the world’s largest manufacturer of Olympic rowing skulls, with 175 employees. What has been learned from production at this volume contributes to the quality and success of the Melges 14.

Strict one-design standards and the Melges World League
One final attribute to the Melges 14 is its strong one-design heritage with sensible and adaptive class rules. The Melges brand remains strong and recognisable due to not just the boat itself and its clever design and build quality, but the integrity of class rules and a class organisation that stands behind these rules to promote fair and fun racing. It’s no wonder that some of the biggest fans of the Melges 14 are those that have already experienced years of fun in the Melges 20, 24, 32 or Scow classes, or have seen or heard about this and wanted to find out for themselves what it’s like to sail this newest member of the Melges family.

This has been made even easier with the Melges 14 having joined the Melges World League, the global racing platform and ranking system for Melges owners around the world. This clever idea in class management is designed to increase rivalry as well as camaraderie and to enhance the overall racing experience for owners and crews of Melges 20s, Melges 32s and now Melges 14s. The Melges 14 World League will feature eight championship-level regattas in its 2019 season: four in North America and four in Europe. The first ever Melges 14 World League Overall Champion, Female Champion, and North American Division Champion will be crowned at the League’s final event in the USA at Lake Lanier, Georgia next autumn. The European Division will crown its Champion in September at the Euro Cup on Lake Garda.

Click here for more information on Melges 14 »

Or more accurately Act Two? Either way the new 44Cup takes a great boat that is already acknowledged as perfect for the task and fires in a whole heap of fresh energy...

Classes of raceboat tend to die prematurely once they reach a certain age. Ironically this seems to have less to do with the boat and more the marketing or having the correct driving force behind it. Witness Peter Morton miraculously breathing life back into the Quarter Ton class, a boat on which many sailors cut their teeth – and can now afford to own. Compare that with the premature demise of the much-loved Mumm/Farr 30.

Attempting to ensure it is one of the success stories is the newly rechristened 44Cup, formerly the RC44 Championship Tour. This year it starts its 13th season with staunchly faithful owners resolute in prolonging the life of their beloved circuit.

Those involved are experienced, level-headed individuals who have been through many classes before finding their home with RC44s. They include Artemis Racing’s Torbjörn Törnqvist, a former Audi MedCup TP52 champion and the 44Cup’s reigning champion Nico Poons, who previously campaigned a Farr 40 and a Swan 45. Aleph Racing’s Hugues Lepic also came from Farr 40s, while Peninsula Petroleum’s John Bassadone went through a J/109 and a GP42 before arriving at the 44Cup, where he has remained for nine years. Then there’s Vladimir Prosikhin, enticed into the circuit while having a cruising boat built, who in 2018 became RC44 World Champion for a third time. Others like Team Aqua’s Chris Bake and Team CEEREF’s Igor Lah have stayed with the class since its outset.

All recognise the value the 44Cup provides, enabling them to compete at the highest level with crew who are likely to be racing a Maxi 72 or TP52 the following week. The tacticians who guide them around the racetrack, coaching them en route, are all America’s Cup or 52 Super Series calibre, or have Olympic medals. 2019 will see regular 44Cup tacticians like Dean Barker, Ray Davies and Vasco Vascotto re-joining their America’s Cup teams, replaced by Tom Slingsby and Ed Baird.

Thanks to the RC44 being a hitech, but (by today’s standards) a relatively low-cost one-design, the price of racing one is a fraction of the cost of a box rule boat. Relatively, the expense of buying a boat is negligible – a new one is around €450,000; a good second-hand example is €250,000 complete, including a flat rack container and a 20ft workshop/storage container. Depreciation is slight as even old boats are competitive: Teams Nika and CEEREF for example have been racing since the class’s start, yet the former was 2018 World Champion; the latter won the 44Cups in 2016 and 2017.

Running costs are typically €450,000 to €700,000 a year as there are few opportunities for teams to outspend each other and there is no arms race. Sail inventory comprises a main, three jibs and two spinnakers, plus a one-design class gennaker. Sail buttons are limited to six per year, with an extra permitted for teams completing a whole season. Annual sail budget is around €120,000.

Beyond this are salaries for crew and shore crew and extras such as coaching. Among the eight crew, up to four can be World Sailing Group 3 pros. Few shore crew are required – if a boat is damaged, it is fixed by the 44Cup’s own boatbuilders. If things go badly wrong, structural integrity should remain intact as the two most vulnerable areas, the bow and stern, are removable.

Transport is especially cost-effective. The RC44 was conceived as being not just a great 40+ft raceboat, but one that fits into its own 40ft flat rack container. Shipping this way is around one third to a quarter of the cost of deck cargo and makes storing the boats easy, with reduced risk of damage.

The RC44’s bespoke container is a design masterpiece. It allows the boat to be assembled and stowed away without a crane or forklift. Four vertical beams plug into the flat rack, enabling the hull to be elevated by four metres. The keel fin is dropped onto the bulb and the hull onto the fin. The carbon fibre foil weighs just 120kg and can be positioned by three people.

Shipping is also zero stress as it is all handled by the class association. One of the few stresses for crew is staying within the class’s maximum combined weight of 680kg.

Is the boat is outdated? Not at all. The RC44 was drawn by Andrej Justin and is built by Pauger Carbon Composites in Hungary, but the boat and circuit were conceived by Russell Coutts in his most creative period, “between” AC campaigns. Coutts, one of the greatest sailors of all time, also subsequently developed the boat – that’s like Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel creating and then tweaking your racing car.

The RC44 may be a one-design, but it should be thought of as Coutts’ best expression of a fully teched-up 40ft+ grand prix raceboat (albeit one that fits into a container and is exclusively amateur owner-driven with an experienced crew) that has been “production-ised”. It has not been dumbed down nor built to a price as one-designs often are. It may not be the ultimate state of the art, but it is fully carbon fibre and 90 per cent there.

Others have tried to better the RC44’s core features but over the last 13 years none have come close. It was for this reason that the RC44 owners recently voted not to change the boat – there was nothing better out there and certainly nothing as cost-effective.

In contrast with more modern designs the RC44 is unfashionably slender, with just 2.75m beam compared to the Melges 40’s 3.5m. However, this enables the boat to fit in its container. While fat, powerful hulls are the trend, there are other ways to gain righting moment – like the RC44’s deeper keel and bigger, CNC-machined bulb.

Skinny hulls also have low drag, making them particularly effective upwind. The RC44 is assisted by a trim tab, allowing its foil to have a smaller section with lower drag, eliminating leeway and improving pointing. Similarly, the bowsprit articulates, enabling the boat to sail deeper.

Below: In 2018 Team Nika owner Vladimir Prosikhin celebrated his third World Championship victory. He likens the experience of sailing these thoroughbred yachts to riding an Arabian racehorse: sometimes challengingly skittish, but in a good way! An owner driver class from the start, the RC44 attracts some of the world’s top pro and amateur sailors alike. Events are family-friendly with VIP facilities plus hospitality boats and a guest sailing programme

Artemis Racing tactician Andy Horton observes, ‘the narrowness of the RC44 and the trim tab let you point well upwind (some of the wider boats just won’t do that) and the foils are more efficient downwind.’

It has been observed that the RC44 has similar lines to a V5 America’s Cup Class boat, but there any comparison ends. The RC44 has an entirely different length: displacement ratio, with a light displacement of 3.5 tonnes (compared with 3.8 for the Fast 40+) and around 2.2 tonnes in the bulb. Its 63 per cent ballast ratio is high compared with a modern yacht (34 per cent for a Melges 40, albeit with a canting keel), but the boat remains light enough to plane in just 15 knots.

As Coutts intended with his subsequent AC catamarans, the RC44 can sail well in the broadest wind range. This recognises owners’ time being ultra-precious by minimising days lost due to unfavourable weather. The RC44 is genuinely able to race well in five knots and is a blast in 25, when the boat sails downwind at roughly wind speed.

Team Nika’s Vladimir Prosikhin shares his view: ‘The RC44 is unique, a completely extreme boat, no compromise, nothing inside, very light, very strong, very narrow. In less than five knots, it makes six knots because it is a narrow, very slippery boat. When it blows, the boat does 22 knots and planes easily. It can be difficult to control, a bit like riding an Arabian racehorse! But that is what a good rider wants. The racing is totally fair. Ashore the hospitality and support is unbeatable. And I’ve made some close friends.’

The RC44 class is managed by Bertrand Favre, who also runs the D35/TF35 catamaran classes, but the owners call the shots. Two seasons ago, they shortened events by a day, dispensing with match racing. They also reduced course lengths (now 0.8-1.2 miles), enabling 10-14 races to be sailed over each event’s four days, further maximising their “bang for buck”.

From the outset, the class has had top-level race management run by Peter Reggio and Marco Mercuriali. RC44 class events are “familyfriendly”, with a VIP entertainment area and a hospitality boat from which friends, family and sponsors can watch the racing. A guest sailing programme permits guests to experience the thrill of sailing an RC44 when conditions allow.

As an owner-driver boat the RC44 is second to none. It is even suitable for owners with little experience. With a good crew and a top tactician on board, it is possible to be winning races within a season.

Anyone interested in joining the 44Cup circuit should contact .

Click here for more information on the 44Cup »