For this driven team of Italian engineers the Hugo Boss project now added dramatic compactness to a long list of performance criteria

Over several cycles of gruelling and competitive ocean races like the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Transat Jacques Vabres and others, the Alex Thomson Racing team has demonstrated a continued focus on technical innovation. With this team’s ambitious and innovative approach, it’s not surprising they chose UBI Maior Italia as their primary provider of blocks and associated deck hardware.

The innovations seen in the new Hugo Boss, which launched in September, are no exception and the ocean racing world is abuzz as the team prepares to race the boat for the first time in the Transat Jacques Vabre. The new boat features a distinctive new hull shape and centralised, enclosed cockpit design, from which Thomson will be managing the boat’s sailing systems while staying dry.

The line handling systems aboard Alex Thomson’s latest Imoca, Hugo Boss, rely on 150 blocks from UBI Maior. Six new models were specifically designed and custom made in 6082 aluminium, titanium and 3D printed plastics. The demanding brief required UBI Maior to create unique new solutions the fruits of which can now be used elsewhere

The punishing environment the elements produce in these races presents an extreme challenge to equipment reliability, and along with the phenomenally high competitive drive of the teams to push their limits to make gains, the result is a highdemand setting that would scare off most suppliers.

Yet the team at UBI Maior Italia rose to meet this challenge with enthusiasm, having been patient to await their chance to break into what has been primarily a setting dominated by parts and systems made in France.

‘I followed the last edition of the Vendée Globe with a little more attention than in other cycles’, says Fabio De Simoni, sales manager at UBI Maior Italia, ‘because we had completely equipped Pieter Heerema’s No Way Back when it was built by Persico as Vento di Sardegna for Andrea Mura. We were more than just curious and had a healthy anxiety that comes with providing something for a very extreme event and hoping everything goes well’.

‘Obviously I was passionate about the duel between Armel Le Cléac'h and Alex Thomson in that race and felt the desire to supply equipment for the boats that were being used by those at the head of the pack. Among all the competing teams, I reckoned Alex Thomson was the one who surely would do the next edition and certainly was the one that, regardless of the result obtained on the water, always receives a great deal of international attention and success.’

Hardware from UBI Maior Italia had by this time appeared on the radar of the Mediterranean inshore racing circuit, having supplied numerous top teams in the superyacht, maxi, TP 52 and other competitive classes. De Simoni believed that their design and fabrication technology, which had proved successful in these highly competitive arenas, could also be brought to the demanding world of ocean racing and help to achieve similar success.

The dream became reality when representatives from Alex Thomson Racing met with UBI Maior Italia, examined their products and processes, and some blocks were tried on the team’s previous boat in February of this year. With the team impressed, a contract was signed and some 75 blocks were made in six different models with unique solutions found to fit applications in several areas of the boat. Strict attention was paid to minimise weight, but also to maintain safe working loads through a variety of line sizes. With the unique interior cockpit design of the new boat and all the line-handling systems protected, the blocks had to fit within tight size and space limitations.

Matthieu Delaporte from the UBI Maior Italia technical office explains the process: ‘We did some finite element analysis on the designs to optimise the materials used within the space limitations and to meet the requirements of the Alex Thomson Racing team. For example, they asked us to use ball bearings in a number of blocks to reduce friction where roller bearings would have been much more resistant. When working with close tolerances, high loads and high velocities you have to be particularly careful regarding the stresses, heat dissipation and shock resistance of the elements you design. Since these guys are passionate about saving weight, we had to thin down the size of the parts and use our lightest materials such as 6082 aluminium, titanium and even our 3D printed plastic where needed.’

‘We are thrilled to be part of this exciting project,’ said Raffaele Di Russo, brand manager at UBI Maior Italia. ‘At last we can show the offshore world what the inshore world already knows about our products.’

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Redefining the concept of a superyacht - the introduction of Dynamic Stability System (DSS), Cl Ellipse rigging from Carbo-Link and spars from Rondal - and suddenly life’s even more full-on

When Baltic Yachts set out to build the world’s first DSS-foiling superyacht for a visionary client, it was a journey into the unknown. DSS had never been used on a yacht of anywhere near this size, or power. With a host of complex engineering challenges to overcome, the owner’s project manager Mattia Belleri of Fluidsailing and Baltic’s project team assembled a world class design loop including Farr Yacht Design, Infiniti Yachts, Lucio Micheletti, Gurit, BAR Technologies, Isotop, North Sails, Rondal and Carbo-Link.

The yacht had to be fast and supremely comfortable but also safe, responsive and easy to sail, even with a short-handed crew in the Southern Ocean – but the client’s brief set no defined boundaries. Instead the design team was directed to seriously consider every possible option to achieve the owner’s vision.

The resulting yacht, the Baltic 142 Canova, is a genuine game-changer in terms of both performance and comfort. Aptly described in a recent issue of Seahorse as “a full-scale expedition into the future”, it fundamentally redefines the concept of the high-performance sailing superyacht for years to come.

Carbo-Link and Rondal were selected to deliver Canova’s full-carbon rig package on the strength of their previous collaborations, which include iconic superyachts such as Ngoni, Aquarius, Badis and the second-largest yacht built by Baltic to date, the 53.9m (177ft) Pink Gin, whose 68m sloop rig is a full 16m taller than a J Class.

Rondal’s Performance Boom, which enables very precise control of mainsail foot tension in all reef positions as well as at full hoist and can also be “styled to order” to suit a yacht’s overall design scheme, was also a key factor in the company’s selection for this project. In addition to the spars, Rondal also supplied carbon electric captive winches.

Canova’s nine-metre transverse sliding DSS foil is designed to achieve a big reduction in heel angle and pitching motion to deliver a more comfortable ride, while effectively reducing the yacht’s displacement by 15 to 20 per cent and boosting its performance. The foil is still being sea-trialed at the time of writing but a case study published by Gurit predicts that it will generate more than 40 tonnes of steady state lift and a peak dynamic lift of well over 60 tonnes.

The brunt of these additional loads are borne by the rig, so Baltic’s project management team, Farr Yacht Design, Infiniti Yachts, North Sails, and Gurit worked closely with Rondal and Carbo-Link to define the load cases and rig layout. To avoid over-specifying rigging components and structures, they had to consider the yacht’s speed-dependent, dynamic righting moment and make an accurate assessment of real-life operational constraints, drawing on their combined experience in engineering grand prix rigs.

A further consideration was the owner’s requirement for the yacht to be self-sufficient in remote cruising grounds and for its rig to handle all types of use. Unlike most superyachts, which rely on a large shore crew and spend several days in a marina transitioning the rig between performance and delivery modes, this had to be done on the fly with a short-handed crew, quickly and in any location.

Managing weight was crucial, due to the knock-on effect of any extra weight on the effectiveness of the DSS foil. ‘Working with Farr, North Sails and Baltic Yachts, we presented a wide range of different load cases to determine optimum sailplans and rig setup across numerous modes,’ Rondal’s Friso Hylkema explains, ‘and that in turn defined the rig and rigging loads.’

‘Because of the DSS system, the rig is designed and built based on 30 per cent of additional righting moment,’ Hylkema says . ‘Using advanced computer software such as FSI (Fluid Structure Interactions) which calculates interactions between spars, standing rigging and sails until it finds an optimised equilibrium, dozens of rig and sails variations, trim settings and sailing scenarios were validated. There was a lot of interaction between Rondal, Carbo-Link and North Sails.’

‘The primary variable is mast stability, driven by local and global buckling,’ says Rondal’s sail handling engineer Edoardo Volpe. Rondal optimises the stability of the mast by engineering the section’s size, shape, optimised layout and also by controlling the stiffness properties of the laminate including fibre type and direction. This fulfils the structural stability requirements, keeping the weight low while also complying with classification. Mast tune is the end result consideration throughout the process and the crucial secondary variable is strength.’

One of Rondal’s strong suits is its OOA (Out Of Autoclave) pre-preg manufacturing process – no other company can produce a superyacht mast of 60 metres (or considerably longer) in one piece with no joins, rivets or seams. Rondal’s methodology allows for full length, uninterrupted laminates to be applied with optimised fibre architecture from mast foot to mast head, resulting in consistent, harmonious thickness and strength without the compromise and additional weight of section joining. OOA manufacturing also achieves void content of less than two per cent.

The internal tangs anchoring the mast to its stays were a collaboration between Rondal and Carbo-Link. It’s a neat solution with no threaded fittings and ensures efficient load transfer between rigging and mast. The shimmed tuning process allows for adjustment ranging from 100 to 150mm. Threaded fittings are often the weakest part in the mast and rigging configuration, and if any thread is damaged, the risk for rigging and mast interface replacement is high.

Below: Canova’s custom-designed solid carbon rigging package from Carbo-Link includes CL Ellipse laterals with aerodynamic profiles optimised for broader wind angles; a CL Torque forestay that furls in both directions with 99 per cent torsional efficiency; and CL Hybrid runners that are solid carbon for most of their length with flexible carbon sections at the boom interface and at the upper and lower deflector locations. Most of the tuning is done at the diagonals with internal tangs monitored by built-in fibre optics. Load pins are used for secondary analysis and calibration.

To optimise the yacht’s performance while keeping the sail-handling as simple as possible, a joint study between the owner’s project manager Mattia Belleri and Rondal implemented some racederived custom solutions. ‘To accommodate the huge square-top mainsail in tacks and gybes, we created a backstay crane with a smart system of running backstays and deflectors,’ Hylkema says. ‘This makes tacking and gybing quick and easy with a short-handed crew, also in reefed conditions, as the deflectors function as checkstays, but it’s more effective as the deflectors pull back laterally instead of downward as checkstays do. The runner becomes a fixed backstay and the deflectors help control mast bend and stability. This system was optimised for the first reef setting as the main tacks underneath the first deflector. At third reef the main tacks underneath the lower deflector. This system simplifies sail handling especially in heavy conditions.’

Bas Peute of Rondal goes on to explain: ‘Sail handling is controlled by Rondal electric captive winches made almost entirely from carbon fibre, contributing to significant reductions in overall weight. Canova features carbon E captive winches in various sizes from eight to 18-ton pulling load, with maximum holding loads at 1.5 times this. All winches are equipped with load sensors to enable live load monitoring, further enhancing simple sail-handling and overall load awareness’.

‘Carbo-Link’s solid carbon CL Ellipse rigging package for Canova uses cutting-edge technologies recently proven on Imoca 60s, Maxi 72s and Wallycentos,’ says James Wilkinson of Carbo-Link. ‘For this yacht, the aspect ratio of the CL Ellipse laterals is reduced to better suit broader wind angles. Carbo- Link’s toughened resin system, with ultra-low friction and a very high resistance to both impact and chafe, is a major bonus given that Canova’s sail inventory includes a quadrilateral jib with two sheets on each side, doubling the amount of contact with the lateral rigging.’

Canova has shimmed V1 chainplates with tidy, below-deck terminations. The shims account for chainplate and cable length tolerances, plus tuning adjustments if required. The majority of tuning is done at the diagonals with internal tangs, including the cap shrouds. The V1 and D1 shrouds have integral fibre optics to monitor tuning, with load pins for secondary data analysis and calibration. The primary jib furls around a Carbo-Link CL Torque forestay – also used on yachts such as Saudade and Win Win – rather than a headfoil. Not only does this reduce weight, but also drag as its sectional size is much smaller. The forestay has unidirectional carbon at its core for optimum tensile strength, encased in +/-45° fibres for torsional strength and stiffness and all consolidated into a solid cable.

‘It was specifically designed for Canova,’ Wilkinson says. ‘The cable can be furled in both directions and drives 99 per cent torsional efficiency during the furl. Unlike other torsional cables, there’s no reduction in torsional efficiency over time.’

To control the mast and sail shape, Canova uses Carbo-Link’s CL Hybrid running backstays: solid carbon with flexible carbon sections where necessary. This allows the smallest diameter and toughest cable whilst allowing the cable to flex. ‘There are flexible sections at the boom interface to allow cable manipulation when required,’ Wilkinson says. ‘And also flexible sections on the upper and lower deflector locations, which enable greater scope for mast tuning and refinement through various sail configurations.’

As -’s sea trials near completion, the best testimonial for the rigging package delivered by Rondal and Carbo-Link is the fact that they’ve already started their next project with Baltic Yachts: rigging the Baltic 145 that’s currently in build and due to launch spring 2021.

Click here for more information on Carbo-Link »

Moving from Archimedean craft to foilers – and particularly to foils – demands a new mindset as much as it does a new approach to composite construction and engineering

Persico Marine is a name associated with the building of cutting-edge race craft, having been deeply involved with the Volvo Ocean Race boats, the America’s Cup and many more. This year the boatyard delivered 20 foils alone, and Persico’s order books are filling fast for more.

When sailing boats literally take off, it naturally changes the game quite a bit. Not only the sailing, but also the design and construction. Especially so when we look at larger racing yachts. We have become used to foiling dinghies of the International Moth class, which has always embraced new ideas and technology almost in a pioneering manner. But designing and building foiling sailboats of substantial sizes like the AC catamarans, last seen racing in Bermuda at speeds well in excess of 40 knots, is quite a different story.

So what are the technical challenges in building these foils? After all, appendages like keels, rudders or centreboards are basically all foils. Now, however, we are talking about profiles more akin to aircraft wings than traditional sailboat keels.

‘Boats without foils are probably around 40 per cent slower,’ says Mark Somerville, general manager of Persico Marine’s racing unit. ‘This changes the whole way of sailing. Yesterday, it was all about VMG, now it is the apparent wind. During the last America’s Cup regatta, the general public could not really tell if these boats were going upwind or downwind. And more and more classes are now changing to foils.’

As different classes and types of boat switch to foiling, from the Moths to the extreme racing machines for the America’s Cup, many different types of foils are designed. ‘These are all made with different technologies, different processes’, Somerville explains. ‘We work very closely with designers and engineers. We have a wealth of experience to share with designers. This close collaboration is necessary to keep failures down. All the loads of the entire boat must go through the foils. You can’t have any flaws here. The level of expectation and precision is much higher here than in any other part of the boat. Also, at the same time, foils are designed to be as light and small as possible.’

Marcello Persico, CEO, adds: ‘This is a lot of responsibility. The quality of the part they are flying on actually ensures the safety of the crew and the boat. Because of this, we develop ever more steps of quality control.’

This is especially true when Persico is not building the entire boat, but “just” delivering the foils to another builder. Another crucial part, obviously, is the connection of the foil to the hull. For the last generation of Volvo Ocean Race yachts, Persico points out that they were in control of the tolerances of all foil-bearings in the hulls. Progressing from this experience, Persico now often also supplies the bearings for the hulls together with the foils – otherwise, this could be a potentially weak spot.

What about other weak spots? ‘Foils are basically just another form of appendage,’ Somerville says, ‘but they are different today, keels are much stronger. Some are hollow and some have solid carbon stocks. These are very difficult to manufacture, especially as size increases. In a thicker laminate you must know exactly how to deal with, for example, thermal effects. Things literally get hot when making big laminates. We are dealing with thermal expansion and resin reaction – resin can become too hot, begin to boil and even burn in the process! Then there is also distortion during the curing process as resin shrinks when cooling down. All this is quite complex, but needs to be fully understood to manufacture these parts. The foil itself is stiffer and stronger than the tooling made for it and can, if the process is not accurately controlled, distort the tooling and its own shape. However, the final geometry of the foil must of course be fully accurate.’

For the America’s Cup, Persico Marine in fact are the official supplier for all foil arms for all teams, to one-design standard at 300kg each – with a tolerance of less than one kg. At their facility in Nembro, Persico made arm tests of these foils with all of the teams.

‘Only we can provide these services as we have the necessary machines – we use the best of man and the best of machine’ explains Somerville. ‘We take each new foil to the test bench, test it to 100 per cent and a bit more. Some we also stress to full failure and we then supply the data gained to the teams, which is a unique service.’ A Volvo 65 foil made by Persico that had sailed around the world twice was tested to failure in their facilities. They expected it to break at a load of 11 tons, but it only failed at 18 tons.

Another big issue now is the time frame. Mark Somerville describes this challenge: ‘Big regattas start at a certain date and teams need to meet these dates and have enough time to try and test before. As a consequence, we need to deliver early enough or not at all. And the foils are often the most expensive part of the whole boat. So we also need to come up with ideas how to build faster. We try very hard to improve and automate. In the next 12 months we shall install new machines that will set new standards in both quality and timing.’

Above: Thomas Ruyant winds up his new Persico-built Advens in September – the sixth foiling Imoca to be launched in just seven weeks. The science of sailing yacht foils is in a phase of rapid development and each new raceboat out of the shed sports a different, and differently engineered, set of foils.
Below: An AC foil arm under extreme loads at Persico’s in-house foil testing facility. As well as building foils, Persico applies both the know-how and the same equipment to effectively test new foil designs, ensuring their strength is sufficient for the planned programme of use

Foils and their manufacturing have developed dramatically and continue to do so as foiling itself and the understanding of this technique by the sailors evolves. The two foils for the new Hugo Boss and others for the next generation of Imoca have a very different design from previous profiles, and the technical experts at Persico have worked extremely hard to match the building process to the constraints that have come up with the new designs. As the Chief Executive of Alex Thomson Racing recently said, grand prix yacht racing at this level is no longer just about qualified naval architecture and competent ocean racing, but also an engineering challenge at the very highest level.

The engineering community now understands this a lot more, so failures have become rare and solutions more commonly available. Still, at Persico Marine they are confident and comfortable that the company can do more than others and stay a step ahead. Most foils are now moveable, one example of which is the “wing” for the ClubSwan 36, which is somewhat easier to make than Imoca or AC foils, due to its size. Size matters - and smaller is easier to build as the effects described above are less of an issue. This is still America’s Cup-level technology, but on a smaller scale. The Swan only has one foil, which moves through the boat to stick out on either side. Also, on well-designed and balanced boats, the foils are now increasingly replacing canards or daggerboards, making these superfluous by also providing all of the lateral resistance the yacht needs.

At Persico Marine, designers, engineers and directors are very proud to have supplied all new America’s Cup foil arms. The new AC75 monohulls will be more airborne than ever in the 2021 Cup races, without keels but sporting ballasted foils.

It’s a nice way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the dream of the American brothers, Malcolm and Thomas McIntyre, who were the first to imagine a flying monohull. It was only in the 1950s that another American, Gordon Baker, achieved the unthinkable by flying a monohull for the very first time with the boat Monitor, which achieved speeds of 30kts and more on its hollow steel hydrofoils.

From those times it has been a long way via canting keels to the cutting-edge, high-tech composite foils used today. As Marcello Persico puts it: ‘It has been, and still is, a remarkable journey through time and evolution and, in recent decades, we have been a core part of this.’ Indeed, the experience gained at Persico is valuable to engineers and designers and boat classes. Just remember that Persico Marine built all the hulls for the Volvo Ocean 65, plus 24 daggerboards. Now it is the America’s Cup, the new generation of Imoca Open 60s, of which the new foiling boat for Thomas Ruyant is a prime example, but also large and very large highperformance cruising yachts such as the latest and largest Wally to date. Tango, the fourth Wallycento box rule 100ft superyacht, was recently launched at Persico Marine.

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It started with the racing code zero but already the benefits are spreading rapidly out through the superyacht world (and elsewhere...)

Since Doyle Sails launched its ground-breaking cable-less Code Zero technology, the company has expanded the concept to embrace jibs, staysails and even mainsails, achieving significant load reductions in the process.

Structured Luff Technology is the new branding, which encompasses the full sailplan including cable-Less code zeros. ‘What we are talking about is sails where, rather than hanging them off a stay, we are taking the load around the natural load line of the sail,’ says Doyle CEO Mike Sanderson. ‘A whole raft of benefits come from that. ‘This applies to any jib, genoa staysail, spinnaker staysail, code zero or mainsail.’

Taken to the logical conclusion, structured luff headsails could remove the need for a forestay altogether but for practical reasons a forestay should probably be retained. However, because the sail is sharing a considerable proportion of the load, the forestay can be significantly reduced in size.

While the technology has important load-reducing implications in all applications, Sanderson believes the biggest benefits will apply to superyachts, where forestay sag is a perennial performance killer. The physics of all this are complicated, so Sanderson draws the basic triangular shape of a headsail. To demonstrate that the loadlines do not follow the outer edges of the triangle, he draws scallops curving inside the luff, leech and foot of the sail. The result looks like a series of lenses, which is the term Doyle uses.

The primary interest lies in the luff lens. ‘By following the loadline down the lens with a series of fibres, you are able to reduce the load on the forestay,’ Sanderson explains.

Main picture: before and after... these two pictures from the masthead of an 18ft skiff show the dramatic reduction in forestay sag that can be achieved with Doyle Sailsʼ Structured Luff Technology. Scaling up to a superyacht rig, the sag reduction can be as much as two metres
Below: this stress direction map of an MC38 headsail illustrates the loads along the lenses

‘On a superyacht, if you wanted to limit forestay sag to 400mm, for example, with a conventional headsail you might need 10 tons of tension on the halyard and 30 tons on the forestay. With a Structured Luff headsail, you would restrict forestay sag to the same extent with approximately 13 tons of halyard tension, but potentially as little as eight tons on the forestay, so there is a total compression reduction of almost 50 per cent.’

Put another way, many superyachts operate their jib locks well below their maximum safe working load. ‘So, another option in the retrofit world is that by taking just 30 per cent of extra load into the Structured Luff jib, suddenly two metres of forestay sag is down to as little as 500mm. That is a huge gain.’

Sail management also becomes easier, with crews relieved of trying to manhandle removable code zeros or staysails with large diameter cables. One superyacht owner, for example, only used his code zero for racing, leaving it in the container ashore while cruising because it was too big to go into the lazarette.

With cables down to a third of their original size (or completely eliminated), the new technology code sails and staysails flake easily and stow in the lazarette, which in turn allows them to be in constant use while cruising, improving the enjoyment and efficiency of the boat.

In some applications, Doyle’s designers have targeted forestay compression reductions by as much as 50 per cent. The immediate implication is that forestay sizes can be dramatically reduced. ‘On a superyacht, you could potentially reduce forestay diameter by as much as 75 per cent,’ Sanderson says.

The benefits quickly cascade to other areas. In percentage terms, the mast does not receive the full benefit of the forestay load reduction, but Sanderson argues that even a 20 per cent reduction in mast compression creates a virtuous cycle which would produce a quite different boat.

‘It means the rig can be lighter, which means the keel can be lighter, which means the chainplates and structure can be lighter, all of which means the boat would require a smaller engine. The really exciting thing is that this could be the first real development that could bring down the cost of a superyacht.’

In racing applications, Sanderson envisages trimmers learning new skills as they play with the ratios between forestay and tack tensions to adjust sail depths. ‘It is almost a little bit backwards,’ he says. ‘If you want the sail fuller, then you have the forestay tighter relative to the jib luff and vice versa.

‘Some classes specify a fixed forestay tension and some rating rules heavily penalise adjustable forestay tension. In that case, you can just vary tack tension to change the ratio.’

Structured Luff development for mainsails is still in its early stages. While the gains from a rig standpoint might not be quite the same as with jibs, there is distinct promise. Taking a square top mainsail on a Maxi 72 as an example, if you add a lens with a specific fibre layout along the luff loadline, you can redistribute the loads. When sailing upwind, by adding compression on the luff, the clew and therefore the mainsheet load would drastically reduce while still achieving the same degree of mid-leech twist.

‘A ram at the mast capable of adding more cunningham tension may not cost much extra weight in the middle of the boat, while a different mainsail structure that allows you to significantly reduce the mainsheet load means you can cut back on the size of travellers, cars and winches in a more weight-critical area of the boat.’

Sanderson concedes that by making the sails carry so much more of the load themselves, their weight does increase. ‘But the weight gain is totally disproportionate to the advantage gain,’ he says. ‘We are talking about a 30 per cent reduction in compression loads on the rig, with the massive trickle-down effect that has on the rest of the boat, and we are only talking about an increase in sail weight of a few kilograms.

Above: the supermaxi Comanche fully powered up flying a cable-less J-0 and storm jib staysail from Doyle. The initial performance gains for superyachts are especially huge as luff sag becomes such a major issue on the much larger yachts.
Below: it works on smaller boats, too. This latest brand new suit of see-through Doyle sails on the MC38 Lazy Dog is the state of the art in Structured Luff sail technology

‘Effectively, we are talking about tons gained in exchange for kilograms spent. If you add just two to three kilos of fibre into a Maxi 72 sail, it represents a huge increase in dpi. The reality is that the weight increase is quite insignificant compared with the load reduction.

Sanderson says the Structured Luff technology evolved directly from investigating how to make Doyle’s cable-less sails work in a wider application. ‘It is a little bit embarrassing,’ he admits, ‘because we really just stumbled upon the cable-less idea.’

This came from IRC code zeros Doyle Sails built several years ago, where they dispensed with a luff cable and introduced the lens concept, enabling them to achieve the required 75 per cent mid-girth measurement by adding area to the leading edge of the sail.

As the apparent wind came forward, the leading edge folded back on the leeward side, effectively reducing the mid-girth measurement to about 62 per cent without breaking the rule. ‘We were blown away by how the luff stayed on the centreline,’ Sanderson recalls.

‘When we took bow-on photographs, the sail was standing upright. It was a bit of a head-scratcher. The concept of the luff folding certainly upset some people at the time.’ Sanderson shrugs. ‘It is our job to come up with ways to win regattas within the rules.’

Sanderson says the market reaction was interesting. Rival lofts started out by dismissing the concept, but many have since attempted to imitate it. ‘It has been a fantastic opportunity for us. Boats where we never had a look-in before came to buy our code zeros. Then, when they found they enjoyed dealing with us, we got an opportunity to talk about the rest of their sails.

‘At the Maxi Worlds this year, the first three 72s were using full cableless code zeros and genoa staysails. Bella Mente was using a spinnaker staysail as well. It has certainly been a big deal for us as a brand, but we have to keep leading the charge as much as possible.

‘While others are playing catch-up in code zero world, we are moving on, which is where all this Structured Luff innovation has come from. There is still a long way to go with it.’

Click here for more information on Doyle Sails »