Your own style of boat, your own style of crew and to some extent your own style of sailing, the Newport-Bermuda classic is not your typical ocean race

Whether in light winds or a gear buster, 160 to 200 boats depart Castle Hill, Newport every two years and take aim at Bermuda’s northeast tip across 635 miles of open ocean. Seeking competition, camaraderie and personal challenge, skippers race for lighthouse trophies and other silverware bearing names of 114 years of previous winners.

The water warms, the history grows richer
Ranging from 33ft to 112ft LOA, the fleet flies a mix of Dacron and carbon sails as it crosses the chilly late-spring waters of the continental shelf, slices across the thermal engine of the northeast-flowing Gulf Stream and sails down “happy valley” on the final miles to Bermuda. The first boats usually finish in two to three days; smaller boats may take five or six.

The sailing is not always comfortable, but when you finish, you feel you’ve earned a place in the race’s extraordinary history. At age 20, Olin Stephens sailed this race aboard John Alden’s Malabar IX in 1928, then designed Dorade to shake up the ocean-racing status quo. Legendary racers have been winning ever since, from Carleton Mitchell’s three-timewinning yawl, Finisterre, to Dick Nye’s series of sloops named Carina, Ted Hood’s Robin, and maxis from Bolero to Boomerang, Kialoa to Comanche.

Main picture: the flat-out racer division crosses the start line of the 2018 Newport- Bermuda Race, competing for the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Trophy. The race is one of the world’s all-time classic ocean handicap events with a long, illustrious history.
Below: Breezing Up approaches the finish off St.David's... you can almost taste the rum punch

Racing for all ocean sailors
Each race includes divisions for different boat types and with different levels of professionalism allowed, so sailors can race with the boat and crew they prefer. The Offshore Racing Rule (ORR) handles scoring and protects the fleets from the disruptive obsolescence of rules in the past.

• St. David’s Lighthouse — for the winner of the largest division, a mix of racer/cruisers crewed by amateurs (limited non-steering Category 3 pros are allowed). In 2018, it was won by a family crew on a well-tuned Columbia 50 built in 1968.
• Gibbs Hill Lighthouse — for the winner of the flat-out race class, no limits on pros. Won in 2018 by the Volvo Open 70 Wizard.
• Castle Hill Lighthouse — for the multihull winner, a division open to larger multihulls only. Won in 2018 by the Gunboat 62, Elvis.
• Finisterre Trophy — for the winner of cruising division boats steered by Category 1 amateurs. Won in 2018 by the Island Packet 38, Orca.
• Also, Doublehanded, Superyacht and Open divisions for boats with lifting foils.

Emphasis on safety, youth
Co-organisers Cruising Club of America and Royal Bermuda Yacht Club prize the contest’s safety record, requiring hands-on safety training for all skippers and at least 30 per cent of each boat’s crew, plus serious yacht safety requirements with pre-race and post-race inspections. For 2020, race organisers have streamlined entry and compliance procedures (see bermudarace.com/entry).

The Stephens Brothers Society and Youth Division Prize recognise young sailors following the likes of Olin and Rod Stephens. Coincidentally, the top Stephens Brothers Youth boat in 2016 and 2018 won senior silverware, too.

A Caribbean complement
For European boats, the race fits with events like the Caribbean 600 and Antigua Bermuda Race, plus crew spots are available on some of the charter boats that do the Caribbean races. Officials use the SailGate entry system, like the Fastnet, so many owners will have a ready boat profile. Sooner or later, another European boat will make history and match the UK’s Noryema, winner in 1972 of the roughest Bermuda race on record.

Race entry commenced in June 2019.

Click here for more information on the Newport Bermuda Race »

The basis for modern theories of competition success... but to achieve tiny but incremental gains successfully relies primarily upon reliable feedback from the coal face

The concept of “marginal gains’ has been well explored and explained in recent years, especially in relation to the success of the British Cycling Team both on the Olympic velodrome and in the Tour de France with the success of Team Sky. However, as Musto’s head of marketing Nick Houchin explains, the concept of marginal gains has been at the core of the company since its foundation.

‘When Keith Musto went to the Tokyo Games in 1964 and came home with a silver medal in the Flying Dutchman, he realised how small the margins were between winning gold and silver. It was that experience that led him to form the company and to create products that would always seek to eliminate those tiny weaknesses, to make clothing and equipment that would help enhance the performance of the athlete to the nth degree. It’s from Keith’s original philosophy that we coined our brand’s strapline: The Inside Edge.’

Musto’s marginal gains have come from working closely with the best sailors in the world, taking on the toughest challenges. Whatever is good enough for them is surely good enough for the average weekend enthusiast. Vendée Globe and Volvo Ocean Race veteran, Sam Davies, has been one of Musto’s ambassadors for many years. She very much holds to Keith Musto’s view that a sailor’s clothing is every bit as important as the boat and equipment powering them through the water. While corporate requirements have obliged Davies to wear many marine brands over the course of her professional career, whenever she has the luxury of personal preference, she always comes back to Musto.

Houchin admits he was a little surprised when Davies got in touch a few months ago to report that she’d worn through the knees on her trusty HPX salopettes. ‘We weren’t expecting that,’ he says, ‘but the explanation was pretty straightforward. Now that the new generation of Imoca 60s are riding on foils, speeds have gone up exponentially, and so has the bumpy ride. It’s almost impossible to stand up and walk around without hurting yourself, so Sam has been spending a lot of time scrabbling around the boat on her hands and knees. That’s a useful piece of feedback for us to take back into the next design cycle for our HPX offshore range.’

There are three big races coming up for Musto to use as its next R&D platform: The Vendée Globe, The Ocean Race (formerly the Volvo Ocean Race) and The Clipper Race. ‘We work closely with those races because they are the toughest,’ says Houchin. ‘They place the biggest demand on the equipment, including clothing. Each race places a different emphasis on the kit and poses distinct challenges for us to address. In a long, solo circumnavigation with no stops, like the Vendée, these sailors live in their HPX trousers day in and day out, both on deck and down below. Whereas in the Ocean Race it’s a team of sailors spending a lot of time on deck, very exposed, in the “fire hydrant” for hours at a time. Then in the Clipper Race, they might not be travelling at the same kind of high speeds, and the water might not be hitting them with the same force, but the sailors are still exposed, and they need to be kept dry and warm for weeks at a time. We’re talking about three very distinct types of race, and monitoring the feedback from the sailors gives us a much broader overview of how our kit is used and what we need to do if we’re to keep on improving it.’

The Clipper Race is a new venture for Musto, which is the official supplier for the next edition starting later this year. Musto’s head of products, Chris Holliman, comments: ‘We're very proud to be involved in the Clipper Race because it’s got such a special place in our sport. The sailors are not professionals, they’re ordinary, everyday people taking on an extraordinary challenge, giving up their day jobs to go and achieve something remarkable.’

Because Clipper Race sailors are not steeped in the sport, Holliman says there is an education process involved, to guide them through the “three layer” process that is at the core of Musto’s offshore range. ‘We help educate them on the pieces of kit that they need to wear on certain legs and essentially how it all works together as a system. In the tropics for example, they need to make sure that they're well protected from the sun. Simple things like making sure they've got a wide-brimmed hat and a long-sleeve T-shirt with UV Factor 50. For the Southern Ocean they need to make sure that they've got the base layer, the mid layer and the outer layer. You need something that’s comfortable against the skin and we recommend a Merino base layer, which is soft, it wicks away moisture and is odour-free, as well as having great thermal properties.

‘Then we recommend a fleece midlayer and salopettes to make sure that the core is kept warm. When they put the Gore-Tex HPX waterproofs on, it means that when they go through those high levels of activity, with manoeuvres, pulling sails up and down, tacks, gybes and so on, the whole system allows the body to breathe. The moisture is transferred away from their skin, through the breathable outer layer, which means that their base layer doesn’t get wet with perspiration. So the sailor stays dry and warm.’

Clipper Race sailors are issued with a standard amount of Musto kit as part of their race package, but they’re still going to need to buy some of the gear for themselves, which is why the education in the system is important. What might look or feel good in the store might not deliver what you need out in the midst of a Southern Ocean gale. The importance of Gore-Tex is a case in point. Only when you’ve started shivering from your own sweat drenching you and then cooling you down when you’re trying to stay warm, do you really fully appreciate the best breathable gear in the business.

At the other end of the scale from the everyday heroes in the Clipper are the big-name pros in search of every tiny advantage. Winner of the last Vendée Globe, Armel Le Cleac’h, suffered that major setback last winter in the Route du Rhum when his Ultime maxi trimaran capsized and had to be abandoned. However, even these setbacks help inform Musto about what’s important in an unforeseen emergency. Le Cleac’h’s sponsor, Banque Populaire, has committed to continuing its long association with offshore adventure sailing, and Musto looks forward to supporting one of France’s most talented sailors whenever his replacement Ultime is launched.

Above: the “ordinary heroes” of the Clipper Race have now become a crucial element of Musto’s R&D alongside top professional sailors like Sam Davies (below) and Armel Le Cléac’h. Sailors in the Vendée Globe, The Ocean Race, the Clipper Race and the America’s Cup will all provide vital feedback to help improve the next generation of Musto’s technical clothing

Another high-profile star of the offshore scene, and also a Musto ambassador, is Jérémie Beyou whose Imoca 60 Charal has delivered the most breathtaking performance yet. Again, like Le Cleac’h, Beyou failed to complete the Route du Rhum, although for him it was a retirement from breakage rather than a capsize. It’s not altogether surprising either, when you see the videos of Charal flying above the waves, a 60ft keelboat defying gravity with some of the most advanced hydrofoils yet produced. There are bound to be teething problems at the cutting edge of development.

Perhaps all this high-speed foiling is so outlandish as to be almost irrelevant to the average weekend racer though? Holliman, a keen dinghy and keelboat racer himself, doesn’t believe so. ‘We can see that boats are changing in the market, and pretty quickly. Nick and I have done a reasonable amount of sailing; just a few years ago you’d be sailing around the Solent pushing water, not going very quickly, now you’re doing 25 knots. That changes the demands quite considerably, especially when you go offshore. So yes, I think what we’re doing at the elite end of the sport feeds back very directly into the wider sailing market.’

As for Sam Davies’ worn-through knees, Musto is now working in close partnership with D3O, billed as the “Gore-Tex of impact protection”. With an enviable track record for providing impact protection in the military, heavy industry and a number of contact sports, D3O started working with Musto more than two years ago on Franck Cammas’ Groupama campaign for the 2017 America’s Cup. Musto learned a lot about how to incorporate protection into sailing gear, and has continued to do so with its Foiling range of clothing for dinghy sailors. Musto’s close partnership with the British Sailing Team is keeping the company at the forefront of developments here, particularly with experience from the Nacra 17 foiling catamaran where the risk of impact and injury is high.

The lessons learned from the last America’s Cup and the British Sailing Team are already being applied to the gear being developed by Musto in its role as exclusive official technical sailing apparel sponsor of Stars + Stripes, challenger for the 36th America’s Cup presented by Prada. Those same lessons will also carry across to the increasingly bumpy world of high-speed offshore sailing. Whatever new challenges arise, Musto continues to work hard to maintain its status as the clothing of choice for sailors who want to race without compromise. More than half a century later, Keith Musto’s “marginal gains” philosophy endures.

Click here for more information on Musto »

Jeanneau’s Sun Fast 3200 was one of the most popular and successful designs for today’s thriving shorthanded offshore racing market. Their latest 3300 promises to go one step further

Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300
Shorthanded sailing, be it single or double handed, has seen a steady rise in popularity in recent years. From the continued strong interest in the Mini-Transat to the thriving Class 40 fleet and Imoca 60 class, be it crossing the Atlantic or lapping the planet, there seems to be no shortage of takers among those looking to go it alone, or with just one other.

One of the most recent launches that is due later this season is Jeanneau’s Sun Fast 3300. This 33ft production racer takes over from the company’s highly successful Sun Fast 3200 of which more than 250 boats were produced since first hitting the market in 2007.

Following this sustained growth in shorthanded sailing and for the first time, the Olympics will include an offshore class where mixed gender double-handed teams will compete in 2024. There can surely be few better validations for this popular style of racing.

But it’s not all about the highprofile end of the sport. Indeed, some of the most impressive growth has been closer towards offshore racing’s grass roots. This year’s Rolex Fastnet Race will once again host a large fleet of double-handed entries.

There are many reasons behind the steady increase in this area of the sport, but among the main drivers is the development of the boats themselves. Designs that are better balanced, more easily driven with deck layouts and sail plans that are significantly easier to handle, have all played key parts in the development of the scene.

The Jeanneau 3200’s fair lines, good manners and easy-to-handle deck layout made this not just a favourite of the shorthanded scene, but a design with a long list of victories that saw it become a benchmark for others. So, after 12 years on top and with the last 3200s being delivered this year, it was time for a new model, the Sun Fast 3300. But this is no straightforward like-forlike replacement, this is a boat that bucks the trend.

It was designed as a collaboration between two of the biggest names in yacht design, Guillaume Verdier and Daniel Andrieu. Verdier is well-known both for extreme designs such as the Ultime class tri Gitana 17 and for working with some of the most advanced projects in racing such as Emirates New Zealand’s America’s Cup winning cat from Bermuda in 2017. His ability to think outside the box has made him a very soughtafter designer.

So too is Andrieu. A veteran designer with a long list of successes to his name, Andrieu designed the highly successful Sun Fast 3200 and 3600 and it was important not only to retain his strong experience with Jeanneau, but his track record in mainstream racing and his eye for detail made him the perfect match for a project that was to deliver a boat that would work in IRC racing where optimisation would be key. At the same time the new boat had to be appealing to those looking to buy into a class. Performing such a balancing act is one of Andrieu’s great skills.

The goal was made tougher for both and indeed the builder, by the amount that has changed in design during the 3200’s reign, not least the rapid development of foils. Fin and bulb keels have also been a large part of racing yacht design over the last decade. Interestingly, neither of these features has been incorporated into the new 3300.

‘Going down the foiling route means that you need to be light. Being light means carbon, which would have increased the cost of the 3300, which in turn would have priced the boat out of our market’, says Jeanneau sailboat product director Antoine Chancelier.

‘There would have been disadvantages to the IRC handicap too so it was a very easy, but important decision to make at the start of the project.’

Instead, the 3300 starts with an innovative hull shape. On the face of it the most striking feature is its bluff bow that quickly opens out into fuller than normal sections as you look aft. This distributes the buoyancy more evenly along the hull’s length when heeled and as such distributes the pressure more evenly too. In addition, the wetted surface area is reduced when heeled, which reduces drag.

Looking further above the waterline, the topsides have tumblehome, which in conjunction with the reverse rake in the bow profile, help to reduce weight as well as reducing the centre of gravity.

But the biggest departure from the norm is in the shape of the underwater sections in profile. Both forward and abaft her keel the boat has a concaved profile.

‘A conventional convex profile produces lift as the water flows over it, just like any foil section. But because it is convex it pulls the section down,’ explains Chancelier. ‘If we are looking at stern sections it makes the boat sink by the stern as the speed builds which increases drag. A concave section does the opposite. So with a concave section aft we needed to include the same in the forward sections to balance the boat.’

To the casual eye, this fuller form might suggest a potentially slower boat than the Sun Fast 3300’s skinny-looking predecessor, yet the reality is quite different.

‘The 3300 is actually 40mm narrower than the 3200 and is a slippery boat in light airs, and particularly powerful in above eight knots of true wind speed,’ says Jeanneau distributor Nigel Colley, of Sea Ventures, himself a keen shorthanded and solo racer.

Another interesting feature is the rectangular-shaped keel, which is further aft. This means that the rig and sailplan are sited further back too, which in turn helps to improve the size of the foretriangle and with it the performance of the asymmetric spinnakers that are flown off the fixed bowsprit.

‘The fact that she doesn’t have a keel bulb helps under IRC, but it also reduces the wetted surface area which works towards better light airs performance. Off the wind, the lower drag is a significant benefit too,’ continues Colley.

When it comes to the rig, a square top mainsail and shorter hoist genoa provide an easier sailplan for shorthanded crews. It does mean the boat has a pair of running backstays which provide excellent support for the mast both upwind and down. With two sets of spreaders that are swept aft, the rig configuration provides a great deal of security, especially through manoeuvres.

While the design had clearly been thought through in great detail involving two of the world’s best designers, Jeanneau believed there was still important validation and development work to be done before the production lines are set in motion this Autumn.

This season, four development boats have been launched in order to assess the finer details.

French sailor Alex Ozon demonstrated the potency of this design in light weather by taking second place in the prototype’s first competitive regatta, the 50-strong IRC Doublehanded division at Spi Ouest. And just a few weeks later he had won a 170-mile offshore race out of La Rochelle by a large margin sailing singlehanded in much stronger conditions.

Others who will be campaigning the three additional prototypes this season are British sailors Henry Bomby and Hannah Diamond aboard a boat supplied by Sea Ventures that will be run in association with The Offshore Academy. Their season will include the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Bomby and Diamond had met while competing on the last Volvo Ocean Race when they were sailing Turn the Tide on Plastic and 11th Hour Racing. With the announcement of a mixed event at the Olympics both were keen to work towards that goal. The 3300 provided a perfect vehicle to gain valuable experience in competitive fleets while also feeding back to the Jeanneau technicians.

Below: an important part of this boat’s strong appeal for solo and shorthanded sailors is the easy handling sailplan which features a big square-top mainsail plus a short-hoist genoa. Note the reefable assymmetric kite, an interesting feature that reduces the overall cost of the boat’s sail wardrobe. With two sets of running backstays as well as the swept-back spreaders, this boat has a belt-andbraces rig configuration that inspires confidence and provides a great deal of security in manoeuvres. The photo above shows two other key features of this design: pronounced tumblehome and powerful chamfered shoulders

Diamond comes from the Olympic pathway having campaigned the Olympic Nacra 17 and is familiar with the realms of Olympic planning and preparation. ‘Teaming up with Henry was a natural fit as his solo experience combined with my Olympic programme experience alongside our time in the Volvo Ocean Race will be a good foundation to build upon,’ she says.

For Bomby, the support that is available from both the Offshore Academy and Sea Ventures is another key advantage in working towards their season’s goal while getting early knowledge of a boat that is a strong contender for the 2024 Olympics.

‘Being able to start our campaign now is a fantastic opportunity, but there are still many unknowns about the mixed offshore medal,’ he says. ‘What we do know is being skilled in the shorthanded discipline on 30ft boats will be crucial and so that’s where we’ll focus our energy initially. I'm also really looking forward to racing with Hannah, she’s got great complimentary skills and I think we can do well.’

All of which feeds back to Jeanneau, not just to improve and refine the boat for the competitive shorthanded scene, but in providing valuable development work in order to present the Sun Fast 3300 as a serious contender for the Paris Olympic Games.

With short handed sailing on the rise, the lure of a World Championships next year and Olympic medals at stake in 2024, the Sun Fast 3300 represents much more than simply another racing product launch.

Click here for more information on Sea Ventures »

After three decades of development and investment, the North Design Suite is able to produce reliably fast sails, that keep their shape, leading the way in modern sailmaking tools

The legendary figures in the history of sailmaking made their reputations by having a keen eye for recognising what they knew from experience to be fast shapes. Their methods to achieve this were mostly variations of the long process of trial and error, where proven fast shapes were first recognised and then catalogued for later reproduction. Some were more rigorous than others at this process, implying that the trade of sailmaking was more art than science.

With an engineering background, Lowell North was a pioneer half a century ago in developing this process with more rigour and detail than his peers and embracing the important role that complex computational tools were to have in transforming ideas developed about 3D shapes into the reality of cutting panels in 2D. Along with this, a thorough understanding of the material properties of sailcloth was needed so that when assembled, those panels could predictably hold their shapes. North’s mastery of this made them an early leader in the field of computational sail design built mostly on developing their own tools in what’s now known as the North Design Suite.

Leap forward to now after three decades of development and investment in these tools, and we can marvel at the astounding computational power available to reliably produce not just fast shapes out of the box, but sails that remain fast as well. The software in the North Design Suite not only models sail shapes in detail for production purposes, but these shapes are the product of a complex process where everything that affects that sail while in use is now also modelled within North’s Flow and Membrain programs: stiffness of the mast and rigging, sheet tensions and sheeting angles, luff tension, leech tension, etc. can be characterised as the sail is virtually brought through a broad range of wind angles and speeds.

And the advent of bespoke fibre sailcloth construction for upwind sails that started with North’s 3DL technology 27 years ago has since evolved in sophistication and now there are many more fibre types available – such as carbon and Dyneema – that provide the strength used in 3Di technology. With 3Di construction, an advanced composite structure is now possible to better handle all loading scenarios. North’s software has also evolved to where deformation of shape can now be made not only predictable, but manageable through clever engineering and design.

Likewise, for offwind sails, what started as a catalogue of flying shapes tested in the Twisted Flow Wind Tunnel at the University of Auckland two decades ago has become a simulation program called the Virtual Wind Tunnel, which is used to observe laminar and turbulent flow of offwind sails as a tool, to better understand flying shapes and how they change through varying wind conditions.

Flying shapes can now be coupled with North’s own Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) to model their effect on boatspeed. And to refine this even further, North has also been at work for some time with support from the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation (SYRF) on a comprehensive Performance Prediction Program (PPP) that can be used to iterate through not just sail sizes, but shapes as well to accurately predict their effect on performance.

Putting the tools to work: Collaborative partnership
The strong reputation North has developed over the decades is based on having organised feedback loops from its sales experts, sail trimmers and customers back to the sail designers, who in turn could adopt and adapt this important information into their design work. Now their role has become more complex and has evolved into a performance consulting service that can become an added value to North customers, whether working directly in a grand prix environment or benefitting indirectly from how those innovations may become adopted through the broader fleet.

Take for example a customer who has an interest in building a new 65ft boat that will race primarily inshore on day races, with the occasional short offshore race. He and his project manager and naval architect would derive great benefits by meeting with the North Design Services team at the very outset of the project to collaborate on how to help efficiently transform ideas to expectations and then on to realities even before lines are drawn.

‘We first need to understand some basic parameters in the design of the boat,’ says North’s head of design and engineering, JB Braun, ‘like righting moment, centre of effort in the sailplan, and whether a fixed or rotating mast is planned. Then, with our rig design software, we can start the design iteration process. With our experience and from being involved at an early stage, we can not only provide answers, but also help shape the relevant questions that arise to help the client define their goals. This becomes a real partnership, whose mission is to deliver performance in line with the definition of the project. Working through this is where we can help clients explore options in the available design space since we have tremendous experience and a huge knowledge base from many different fields.’

With this approach the team at North are also able to assist clients competing in a contrasting situation like the TP 52s – the 52SuperSeries formats are fixed and the boats and class rules are highly evolved and extremely tight. The best teams on the best boats therefore make a winning edge in performance very difficult to find, so this pushes everyone to their limits looking for some incremental advantage. North team member Dave Lenz, who is based in the UK and is a regular observer and coach on this circuit, says, ‘so much of our strength comes not just from the software and design tools, but in knowing just how they can be put to use alongside our observations. We spend hours and hours on the water analysing everything related to performance in the 52 class so we know how the data can be used in context to refine our tools to explore new ideas.

North’s ongoing association with successful teams in this and numerous other classes and events is an important core strength, since all members of the team can benefit from the contributions made to the knowledge base. The value of these are not just at the front end of new projects, but insightful debriefs held during and after projects are complete are also vitally important. Imagine, for example, all that North learned from their experience in two multiple cycles of the Volvo Ocean Race, the numerous course records set by Comanche and other first-tofinish programmes, the Imoca 60s and other trans-oceanic classes, and how that is put to use in every new sail built to race offshore?

Not to mention the America’s Cup, which is pushing toward the next generation of sails in an attempt to marry the practicality of a “soft” carbon sail with the performance of a “hard” wing. The solutions arrived at and the process of engineering and design is very relevant throughout sailing, which is why so many of North’s talent base are involved with teams in every cycle. This includes Burns Fallow who is embedded with Emirates Team New Zealand, Gautier Sergent who is with INEOS Team UK, while Michael Richelson and Juan Garay are at Luna Rossa.

In the most intensely competitive classes like the Figaro 3 (above) and TP52 (below), it can be very hard to find a winning edge in performance. This is where North Sails experience and huge knowledge base can deliver big dividends to its clients. By combining cutting-edge sail design software simulations with expert insights and real-world observations, North Sails has delivered a real competitive advantage to many of the leading teams

These projects often have a single point of contact on the North team, who can then reach out to the broader North group of experts to get help when needed in a collaborative style that Lowell encouraged in the early days and is very much in the DNA of the company. And with that group also now including sparmakers and riggers at Southern Spars and Future Fibres, that reach goes very deep indeed into the knowledge base.

‘This communication across the group has made huge progress in the last few years,’ says NZL-based veteran sail designer Mickey Ickert. ‘We’re getting really good at having an open string of communication among team members and a stream of valuable info from both the design and sales forces.’

The importance of this process cannot be overstated - teams in the Grand Prix arena have dedicated professional sail trimmers who collect and manage the settings and performance data, so North has developed the protocols and tools to best digest their valuable input.

Having been both a sailmaker and pro sailor for decades himself, North Sails president Ken Read says he’s impressed with what the design group has developed with their tools, such as the new HELIX approach to designing and building the next generation of performance sails. The use of Load Sharing Technology to produce a new generation of selfsupporting sail structures is "nothing short of being a game-changer”.

‘I sat in on a meeting of the design group recently, and I hardly understood what they were saying,’ Read said. ‘This is how I know I’m doing my job, having guys this smart working on innovation. And I’m really encouraged that we have new members of the team fresh out of school that are really familiar with the latest ideas and the software tools to pursue them. This is great news for the future.’

Click here for more information on North Sails »