Excellent and reliable all round performance, safely and easily driven in bad weather, unremittingly well-built and with those legendary resale values... when J Boats step up into the long distance cruising market it’s always going to be good...

J Boats is so well-known for building racing yachts that it’s easy to forget they also produce a lot of cruising boats with the same well-defined character. The original J/24 is the world’s most successful onedesign racing keelboat with about five and a half thousand launched worldwide, but it was initially conceived, designed and built as a family boat, primarily intended for fast coastal cruising. And the J/112E, which won the last ORC/IRC combined World Championships, is another cruising boat that just happens to be a brilliant performer on the racecourse as well as a comfortable, easy-to-handle offshore voyager with a fully fitted interior.

Throughout the four decades that separate those two designs, J Boats has introduced a dozen pure cruising models (as well as a lot of cruiser-racers and racer-cruisers) and launched more than 500 purpose-built offshore cruising boats in North America alone, with many more built by the J Composites shipyard in France that now plays a major role in the development process as well as building the boats under licence. The most recent pure cruising model, currently in production in France, is the blue water-focused J/45.

The J Boats philosophy is not about trying to achieve the highest possible top speed. It’s about maintaining consistently high average speeds in a wide range of wind and sea conditions

‘Ever since the beginning of the brand in 1977, cruising yachts have been part of the J Boat range and cruising has been an important part of the brand’s DNA,’ says J Composites’ commercial manager, Fréderic Bouvier. ‘People often assume that J Boats are stripped-out racers but many of them aren’t. When we hear people saying this at boat shows, we invite them to take a look down below and they are always amazed.’

Over the years J Boats have gradually evolved with new features added but with great effort made to preserve the marque’s distinctive character. ‘All new models are designed completely from scratch, not adapted from a previous model. Each one represents at least two years (and often three or more) of design and development work. The devil is in the detail, quite often there are heated discussions within the design team and between the US and French partner companies about tiny details like a centimetre of headroom or beam.’ Crucial strands of the brand’s DNA include high righting moment and good performance in light airs. The design office’s rule of thumb is that in five knots of breeze, a J Boat should be able to sail at least as fast as its cruising speed under power.

‘Every sailor in their heart loves a bit of extra boatspeed but very few cruising sailors will buy a new boat just because it’s half a knot faster. It’s not about that. For most of us performance is about the pleasure we get from sailing. It’s about speed but also about achieving a superfine balance. On most cruising yachts when you adjust the mainsheet by 30cm you won’t notice any difference. On a J Boat you feel it instantly through the helm.’

Having a single rudder is a key factor in optimising helm response but it’s not the only one. ‘It’s also important to have a balanced hull shape and sailplan,’ Bouvier says. ‘And we do a lot of work on steering system alignment. Even with self-aligning rudder bearings attention to detail is needed.’ This includes sourcing top-quality bearings, minimising friction throughout the system, using precisely balanced rudders custom made by a specialist rudder builder, and a carefully judged ratio between the quadrants and the size of sprocket behind the wheel. ‘From stop to stop is not much more than one turn of the wheel – it’s very direct. The risk when you do that is the wheel gets too heavily loaded. Getting it right requires engineering and a lot of time spent.’

Below: boat show visitors are often amazed when they look inside a cruising J Boat

Another important part of the J Boats formula is that the yachts should be able to sail through difficult conditions with relative ease. ‘Most boats, especially cruisers, can’t sail upwind effectively in 35kts, you need to motorsail or run downwind. In a J Boat you can, you just need to reduce the sail area. All J boats have super high stability – their STIX numbers are far higher than a typical offshore cruiser that relies on form stability. And in heavy weather the quality of the infusion in the hull makes a difference: the hull doesn’t deform under load which improves the boat’s sailing ability.’ All-round performance in the full range of conditions and all-weather seakeeping are regarded as critical safety features.

Most cruising yachts currently on the market are optimised for sailing downwind, yet only a tiny minority of cruising sailors spend most of their sailing time reaching or running in trade wind conditions. ‘Upwind VMG is very important in normal cruising use,’ he adds. ‘In crowded sailing areas like the Mediterranean you can’t always go where you want. In high season many harbours are fully booked up a month in advance so the reality is that you go where you can. And that often means you have to sail upwind.’

Light air performance is also important, he says. ‘For a typical cruising sailor, 90 per cent of sailing is done in winds of 5-15kts. Most cruising boats, when heavily laden, are simply stuck and rely on their engine in less than 10kts of breeze. J Boats are among the lightest in displacement and have the smallest wetted area, which ensures that they perform extremely well in light airs.’

Why care about how a cruising boat sails in winds above 15kts? ‘It’s important because you do get caught out from time to time in a rising wind and sometimes you simply have to get around that headland. Hull stiffness becomes a key consideration in stronger winds. When the hull doesn’t distort under load, the sails will keep their shape more effectively in 20kts-plus.’

The shape of the hull also dictates sailing ability and motion comfort in waves. ‘That’s why J Boats have a fine entry and narrow beam. There is no slamming and less pitching, both of which compromise the boat’s sailing ability as well as being uncomfortable.’

Low freeboard is an asset when cruising – it makes berthing and mooring easier as well as reducing windage – and it doesn’t necessarily mean the crew gets wet. ‘The shape of the hull and especially its forward sections have a much greater impact than freeboard on the amount of spray that reaches the cockpit,’ Bouvier says. ‘A blunt, high-volume bow and a shallow forefoot will make a boat wet as well as uncomfortable when sailing close-hauled in stronger winds.’

Hull shape also has a significant impact on load-carrying ability. As ocean racing hulls have got progressively beamier, super-light displacement has become ever more crucial to ensure good boatspeed. Cruising yachts have followed a parallel trend of increasing beam and as a result, their load-carrying ability has diminished.

‘For a family cruising long distance in a 45-footer, the payload of equipment, provisions and gear is often as much as 2.5 tons. That weight will have a far greater impact on the boat’s performance if it has a wide, shallow-bodied hull than if it has a relatively narrow, deeper-bodied hull shape. For the moderate hull of a J boat the effect of payload on performance is basically linear; for a more fashionable modern cruiser the effect is exponential.’ ‘For a yacht with a wide, shallow-bodied cruiser with a full payload the solution is to add more sail area, which increases the loads on the rig and deck hardware and makes trimming the sails more complicated and difficult,’ he says. ‘In light or moderate winds you’ll need a big code sail to keep up with a J Boat with a standard genoa and mainsail.’

Below: cruising J Boats, like this J/45, have a good standard of interior finish but the brand’s build quality is primarily focused on long-term durability and strength

For ocean racing there’s a big benefit in a hull shape that generates a lot of form stability, hence the trend for powerful aft quarters and hard chines. For this configuration to work efficiently, upwind or reaching, you need to sail the boat with at least 20° of heel. ‘For offshore cruising that's not comfortable for the crew,’ Bouvier says. ‘Instead of relying on form stability J Boats have more ballast in the keel. They’re designed to sail efficiently at a less steep angle of heel.’

The downside of moderate beam is less interior volume. ‘That’s true, but we offer a similar size of living space by building our interiors with everything tabbed directly to the hull. Most shipyards tend to leave big gaps to ensure that the furniture fits easily, which also speeds up the installation of systems. The way we do it is more labour-intensive for our workers but it’s a more efficient use of space.’

The brand’s approach to build quality is also a bit different. ‘We achieve a good standard of finish but our interior fit-out is primarily focused on long-term durability and strength,’ Bouvier says. ‘In Cannes this year we exhibited a one-year-old J/45 that has competed in various regattas, cruised long distances and seen quite a lot of hard offshore sailing use. After a bit of careful cleaning it was indistinguishable from a brand new boat.’

J Composites has a general philosophy of sourcing equipment and hardware separately for each model, rather than the simpler and more usual approach of buying in bulk from a small number of suppliers for the entire range of yachts. ‘Some of the boats’ technical systems are assembled in house from individually sourced components rather than being bought in as complete systems,’ Bouvier says. ‘And where whole systems are supplied ready to fit, they are often customised by the supplier to our own specifications.’ This level of attention to detail might seem over the top to some cruising sailors. But to a racing sailor that’s how it should be.

Click here for more information on J Boats »

Fast and light, a mix of the finest traditional and environmentally-kindest modern materials, no wonder that 2022 Route du Rhum winning designer Marc Lombard is so proud of his successful association with RM Yachts

Walking around a boat show or a big marina, it’s easy to conclude that all modern cruising yachts are basically the same. Then you’ll see something like an RM yacht and realise that it’s not true at all. Distinctly different from most of their peers in both concept and construction, RMs have earned a reputation over 35 years for being practical and durable, seaworthy and fast.

RM hulls are built without any moulds. The multichine shape is inherently stiff and it adds a useful bit of extra form stability

Most of today’s cruising boats have hull features loosely derived from ocean racing. It’s now the norm to have broad aft quarters with hard chines for extra form stability, twin rudders, a shallow bilge and a high-volume bow. Mast steps are moving aft in the hull. What sets RM apart from most other builders, as the shipyard’s commercial director César Dohy explains, is a very strong emphasis on ensuring their boats’ displacement remains light enough to take advantage of these design features. Despite being a blue water cruiser the RM 1070 for example has the same displacement, ballast ratio and sail area : displacement ratio as a typical offshore racer-cruiser of the same length.

Below: Far from a typical cruiser. RM yachts don’t just look different, they are different in many ways

One of the key factors in achieving lighter displacement is that RMs are built in epoxy-plywood with foam sandwich decks. Contrary to what you might expect, epoxy-ply has a very high strength-toweight ratio. Some of the weight saving is used to strengthen the boats’ internal structure, which includes a steel frame that bears nearly all rig and keel loads. The multi-chine shape of an RM hull is inherently stiff and like a racing boat the internal structure is laminated to the hull, rather than set in place with mastic like a typical GRP cruiser. The first RMs from the late 1980s are still sailing with no structural issues, which says a lot about their longevity. The current boats are even more durable.

The ease of repairing plywood is a big advantage for blue water cruising. ‘Most of the world’s fishing boats are wooden so the repair techniques are well-known everywhere,’ Dohy says. ‘Or you can do it yourself with plywood and glue. For temporary repairs you don’t even need epoxy. You can use Sikaflex, which is useful because even when it’s wet it can stick.’

Above: RM yachts have a huge amount of sailpower, especially downwind

How come other yacht manufacturers aren’t using epoxy-plywood? Many small-scale builders are, Dohy explains, ‘but it’s not good for high-volume industrial production because you have no moulds. Making 10 boats or 200 will be the same cost per boat; it’s quite close to a one-off building technique.’

A key strength of the RM brand is that all of its hull shapes, sailplans and deck plans have been developed and incrementally refined over three and a half decades by the same design team, which just happens to be one of the best in the business. Marc Lombard’s achievements in current ocean racing innovation speak for themselves. And it was Lombard, right at the outset, who suggested epoxy-ply as the optimal building material for RM yachts and designed them accordingly.

True to their focus on offshore voyaging, RM yachts are optimised for downwind performance. ‘We have very precise numbers on wind angles through the Grand Large Yachting group,’ Dohy says. ‘Some Outremer cats went around the world and recorded all of their wind angles. They were sailing upwind not even 10 per cent of the time, because when cruising you have the time to wait. The plan is not sail upwind across the North Atlantic.’

Above and below: Like a good raceboat RM yachts feature strong, stiff internal structures. A steel frame takes keel and rig loads while the plywood frames are epoxy-encapsulated

The Lombard design office has put a lot of R&D into a new generation of twin keels, designed specifically for RM yachts. Twin (or bilge) keels have been out of favour in yacht design since the 1980s when they were notorious for poor windward performance. Lombard’s short-chord, highaspect twins are a huge improvement on the traditional type with a lot more righting moment and much better hydrodynamic efficiency. RM also offers fin and lifting keel options, but Lombard’s twin keels have narrowed the gap in performance.

‘They are still slower than the single keel versions but the difference is marginal, like 0.2kts when sailing upwind,’ Dohy explains. ‘When reaching or sailing VMG downwind you see no difference in boatspeed. The twin keels’ surface area is almost the same as a single fin keel, the ballast weight is the same and the stability curve is similar. There is a little bit less righting moment but you will not feel it. Comparing STIX numbers, it’s a difference of one or two out of 35, so almost negligible.’

The great advantage of twin keels, of course, is that you can dry out upright in tidal harbours and anchorages. It’s one reason why RMs are popular in Brittany where many of the smaller and nicer havens are off-limits to fin-keel yachts. ‘It’s part of the specification and part of the brand,’ Dohy says. ‘The centre of gravity is around the keels, which take nearly all of the load. For stability you also have a reinforced rudder that acts as a leg, with a grounding plate at the tip so it can’t dig into the mud.’ For blue water cruising the ability to dry out, and to stand on the hard without needing a cradle, can greatly simplify repairs and maintenance in remote areas. By contrast, many GRP cruisers simply aren’t built strongly enough to stand on their keels without additional support.

Whatever keel type is chosen, when going upwind RM yachts are designed to sail fast and free. ‘Our advice is not to sail at 40°, that’s much too high,’ Dohy says. ‘Obviously there is a difference between the keel options. With the lifting keel you have a 3m draught which is huge so you can sail a bit higher but that is not the point. Like offshore racing boats we’re trying to sail quite low – at 55 to 60° – but fast. It’s a French thing, we call it offshore upwind.’ This makes sense because when sailing close-hauled in short chop or large waves, even a boat that can point high on the wind will generally make better VMG by pointing lower and sailing faster.

Above: The cockpit layout is unusual with primary winches next to the companionway – not on the coamings

Another key difference from most other cruisers is the cockpit layout and deck plan. ‘It’s all race inspired,’ Dohy says. ‘We don’t have genoa tracks any more. And there are no primary winches mounted on the coamings because I think it’s quite dangerous – it puts you in an insecure position on the leeward side.’

Dohy’s own offshore experience in events like the Fastnet or the Transat Jacques Vabres and 15 years designing sails for the grand prix sailmaker Incidence Sails have begun to inform the cockpit design of the RM range. ‘I’ve been racing for years and I can tell you that it’s actually much easier to manoeuvre an Imoca 60 than a large family cruiser,’ he says. ‘That’s incredible to me. So we’ve tried with RM Yachts to have this facility, to be able to manoeuvre the boat singlehanded with as little load as possible. That’s why we have only four winches around the companionway, where you can sail the boat efficiently in the shelter of the sprayhood. That’s also race inspired. On an Imoca 60 these days you don’t need to wear your foul weather gear most of the time because you have so much shelter in the cockpit; our boats are similar with the sprayhood up. And we fit very powerful autopilots with remote control so you can steer with the pilot at all times.’ One thing in common with a normal cruising layout is that the cockpit seating area is safely free of ropes and winches.

The current RM range has five models from 8.9m to 13.3m (29ft to 44ft) LOA, all of which have huge interior living space for their size. They could easily produce much larger yachts and may do so in future ‘but we are not keen on following the general trend of making bigger and bigger boats,’ Dohy says. ‘We do like our small boats. And even a nine-metre RM is not a small boat. Families cruise around the Atlantic and the Med in our RM 970, which has everything you need to go offshore.’

Click here for more information on RM Yachts »

In 2020 a group of brave organisers were determined that it would be business as usual in one of the industry’s most difficult years to date. Today, the Genoa International Boat Show is reaping the rewards

In the top tier of international boat shows, one show in particular is thriving and growing steadily in terms of its reach, scope and influence. The Genoa International Boat Show, staged every September right in the heart of the ancient maritime city, is effectively five different shows in one, it boasts more than 200,000 square metres of exhibition space in total and showcases about a thousand different brands, with large separate areas devoted specifically to sailing boats, superyachts, motorboats, next-generation marine technology and nautical tourism (which includes sailing schools, clubs and class associations). There’s plenty of interest on offer for any sort of boating enthusiast, with a grand total of a thousand boats on display in 2022, a number that will increase next year thanks to the creation of 200 new berths to satisfy a growing demand that saw exhibitor spaces sold out for the 2022 edition as early as June.

The only European boat show that managed to avoid being cancelled in 2020, thanks to its organisers’ ability to put on a Covid-safe event, Genoa always sells out of exhibitor space months in advance of its gates opening to the public. Last year it also came quite close to selling out of visitor tickets and reaching its maximum threshold of 115,000 people, with almost 104,000 attendees – up about 11 per cent on 2021.

‘We were delighted with the 2022 edition of the Genoa International Boat Show, both in terms of attendance and in terms of the quality of the clients who came to visit our boats,’ says Veronica Bottasini from the Cantiere del Pardo shipyard. ‘This year we changed location, moving to the most central section, which allowed us to bring together our three brands, Grand Soleil, Pardo Yachts and Van Dutch, all around a single stand. It was a dream come true and we were thrilled with the location, especially in view of the Waterfront project that we will finally see come to fruition next year.’

These days the Genoa Boat Show is a lot more than a showcase for the ‘Made In Italy’ brand, although it does that very effectively indeed with almost every Italian boatbuilder, shipyard and equipment manufacturer represented and the show itself run directly by the Italian Marine Industry Association – essentially by the exhibitors themselves. If you’re a fan of the quintessentially Italian style of sleek, high-performance monohull sailing yachts then this is most definitely the show for you.

But Genoa now also draws a large proportion of the major sailing, yachting and boating brands – multihulls included – from all across Europe and beyond. Indeed it has become one of the key shows where large numbers of new models make their début. Last year alone, for example, exhibitors came from 35 countries and 168 new boats were launched at Genoa. As a result the show attracts a lot of media attention with last year’s tally including 11 hours of TV coverage, 42 hours of live streaming and a social media reach of more than a million people.

Genoa is also heavily invested in promoting sustainable innovation and its pioneers, dedicating exhibition space and events each year to promote start-ups selected from the Italian Start-up initiative, thanks to the organisers’ partnership with the Italian Trade Agency. The show also holds the Design Innovation Award, a ceremony that awards the most innovative designs among those showcased by the show’s exhibitors, selected by an independent jury made up of national and international experts, to highlight designers’ and manufacturers' ability to conceive and implement ground-breaking design choices, research and sustainable innovation.

A fundamental redevelopment of the show’s location is currently under way, with one major change already delivered in 2022. This was the removal of the high central wall that used to divide the on-water part of the show into two separate halves. With the wall gone, the flow of visitors strolling around the pontoons and docks was vastly improved and the view from the onshore parts of the show was transformed into an unobstructed, panoramic seascape.

…The 2022 show went very well and we are increasingly happy with the outcome,’ says Roy Capasso of Nautor’s Swan. ‘We offered both sail and motor this year and with the demolition of the central wall, we were able to give our line-up a greater sense of continuity. The construction may have been an inconvenience but it represents great potential for the near future.’

Below: the Blue Pavilion provides shade and shelter for some of the yacht berths as well as a major hub for indoor exhibitors. Next year it will become virtually an island with a new 200- berth yacht basin on its landward side.

The big news for next year’s show is that the city’s ambitious €300 million plan to renovate and redevelop the entire eastern waterfront in a scheme designed by the maestro architect Renzo Piano is now coming to fruition, the impressive scale of which could already be felt in 2022. With only a year or so left until completion, the renewed Genoa International Boat Show will soon have all the cards to become one of the top shows in the world.

The 63rd edition of the Genoa International Boat Show, due to be held from 16 to 21 September 2023, will see the whole showground transformed. The enormous multi-storey Blue Pavilion, the main indoor hub of the event, is effectively becoming an island with a new yacht basin created on what used to be its landward side, facing the city centre, offering a further 200 berths for exhibitors’ boats during the show.

Beyond the boundaries of the current showground, the Eastern Waterfront scheme continues. It is set to further enlarge the boat show from 2024 onwards with the addition of a second large indoor exhibition space, the circular Pavilion South. The scheme also includes new business and residential buildings, sporting facilities, a large new expanse of parkland and areas of bars and restaurants.

One of Genoa’s great strengths is that unlike most other large boat shows, nearly all of the boats can easily get in and out of their berths at all times, through the well sheltered outer harbour and then, weather and sea state permitting, straight out into the open water of the Mediterranean in a matter of minutes. Serious buyers can therefore be taken out for a sea trial during the show rather than having to book one several weeks later in a different location that could be thousands of miles away.

This facility alone gives a substantial boost to the number of boats actually sold at the show and adds a huge amount of value for visitors and exhibitors alike. For boat buyers, it’s a unique opportunity to arrange sea trials aboard their entire shortlist of boats in the course of a single visit, experiencing each boat in the same wind and sea conditions on the same day and thus being able to compare them objectively. Which yacht has the best helm feedback and which one has the most comfortable motion at sea? Which cockpit layout works best for your family crew or racing team? It’s a very efficient way to make an informed decision.

Another unique aspect of the Genoa Boat Show is the vast amount of sheltered outside space. While other shows are held hostage by the whims of the weather, be it scorching sunshine or heavy rain, Genoa has a huge tensile canopy over a large part of its outdoor exhibition area and the Blue Pavilion’s roof extends over some of the floating pontoons, providing shade and shelter. ‘There were lots of visitors this year even on the day when we had bad weather,’ says Piero Napolitano of Jeanneau Yachts. ‘Visitors were eager to get on the boats and explore. We also achieved a decent number of sales. At the moment we can say we are indeed quite satisfied.’

Below: Genoa’s strongest suit is the wide availability of sea trials during the show. In just a few minutes you’re out of the harbour and straight into the deep blue sea

The show’s proximity to the historic city centre (which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List) also boosts its appeal and Genoa as a whole pulls out all the stops during the boat show to ensure that visitors thoroughly enjoy the experience, with big free-to-view spectacles staged in various locations in the city. 'I have to tell you I was super impressed by the light, music and firework display in the main square,’ said one visitor after the 2022 boat show. ‘There must have been thousands of us there with cameras raised trying to capture some sense of it.’

The unique programme of events in the city centre during the show, aimed at promoting the millennial history of maritime culture in Genoa, makes for a grander experience, allowing visitors and exhibitors to enjoy a city that is already a historic tourist attraction in and of itself.

‘Building on the experience of sixty-two editions, the Genoa International Boat Show can count on a unique heritage, capable of uniting history, knowledge, knowhow, design, technology, innovation, sustainability and business,’ says Saverio Cecchi, president of the Italian Marine Industry Association. ‘The true value of this event was acknowledged once again this year by both exhibitors and audience. The 63rd edition of the Genoa International Boat Show will be held from 16 to 21 September 2023.’

Click here for more information on the Genoa International Boat Show »

No different to the service they offer their most demanding grand prix clients, Offshore Spars now offers all racing customers the opportunity to precisely match mast bend characteristics to sail design... as standard

After almost 50 years building masts for everything from cruisers to America’s Cup winners, Offshore Spars and its new owners are combining decades of experience with the latest innovations from the aerospace and automotive industries. The result is “bespoke” rigs, masts that perfectly match each boat’s righting moment and sails.

‘Back in the early days with aluminium, you’d just pick a mast section that matched your specs,’ chief technology officer (CTO) Trent Justice explains. ‘Now we're customising the entire carbon laminate so that at a particular wind load, the bend matches the mainsail’s luff curve.’

The best example of this innovative process is the new mast Offshore Spars built for Black Pearl, a Botín 56. ‘They lost their rig in the RORC Transatlantic Race so they approached us,’ Justice says. ‘It was quite a tight timeline, which always makes a bit of extra challenge. But we delivered in the timeframe we set out, without sacrificing our threeand- a half-month design period.’

Sailpack software models how a boat will sail through different wind ranges with different sail configurations. One huge benefit, currently unique to Sailpack, is that it can calculate the stretch on multiple cables through multiple wind ranges whilst changing sails. Offshore Spars can provide a sailing tune instead of just the dock tune, which takes the guesswork out of setting up the rig for a particular day's racing.

Perfecting a mast’s specification details requires collaboration, a massive change from what Justice calls the traditional approach: ‘First the customer finds a boatbuilder and a designer, then they choose their mast builder and lastly they figure out the sailmaker,’ he explains. ‘But the interaction between us and the sailmaker is really important, because we need to understand how they want the sail to perform. For Black Pearl, the design process kicked off straight away, with countless calls to get a spec together.’ Like a growing number of industry players, Offshore Spars uses Sailpack to coordinate mast design with Carbo-Link and Doyle Sails.

Once they’ve agreed on the maximum load and a factor of safety, the most important characteristic is stiffness. ‘That determines how the mainsail’s luff curve will change through the wind range.’ Justice says the Black Pearl team is truly professional and terrific to work with, but there was a special challenge for this project. ‘They were keen to save weight but, more importantly, they did not want to lose another rig! So, a strong, robust rig was the primary focus.’

After consultations with their project partners, Offshore produced a rig that is more durable but still lighter than the original. ‘We reduced the overall weight by 11kg (4 per cent) and lowered the COG by 300mm,’ Justice explains. ‘And we removed one of the deflectors, which helped with their ORC rating.’

They came up with these specs thanks to input from Pure Engineering. ‘Pure Engineering works with Team New Zealand, Botín and numerous other designers worldwide,’ Justice says. ‘At Offshore Spars we use them for finite element analysis (FEA). Pure Engineering’s computer power is a massive investment and there's no mast company in the world that could justify it. So, for us to have access to that is huge. They modelled our carbon laminate, then refined it to get it as light as possible – still with safety factors of course but adding carbon only where it's required.’

The significant modifications that Pure Engineering suggested were discussed in detail with the boat’s owner, the team and their rigging supplier, Carbo-Link. ‘Thanks to all the improvements in structured luff sail technology, we were able to reduce loads but keep the same sag per cent of the forestay,’ says Justice. ‘This mast is custom, bespoke to fit Black Pearl,’ he adds, before admitting that they’ve had to learn the hard way not to push weight boundaries too far. ‘We could have gone lighter still, but we stayed on the conservative, safe side of the weight-saving curve for Black Pearl.’

Once the design specs were finalised, the next challenge was procuring the highest quality carbon fibre. ‘Ultra-high modulus carbon is a little rare these days,’ Justice points out, adding that Offshore only uses Mitsubishi composites because they are the best on the market. ‘They make the fibre, and then one of their sister companies impregnates it with resin for us. So it’s a complete Mitsubishi product. There are a lot of cheap alternatives now. As an owner, that would be the first question I'd ask any potential mast builder: what composite materials are you using?’

Construction of the Black Pearl rig began in July. In late August, the finished spar was shipped from the Offshore factory in Michigan to the Mediterranean. ‘Offshore Spars already had the tools to make a good laminate,’ Justice says, ‘so the build process was very similar to what the company has been doing for 30 years. What was needed was an update to the design process.’

Below: the design process for the new ultra-high modulus carbon mast involved intensive modelling in Sailpack software and FEA input from Pure Engineering.

The new collaborative approach to designing custom masts was immediately embraced by Eric Graczyk, the new owner of Offshore Spars, when he took over in January 2022. Graczyk brought with him two decades of experience in the aerospace and automotive industries, which he’s now applying to help modernise and improve the manufacturing facility. ‘We're documenting our process so that new folks can get up to speed quickly as we grow,’ he says. ‘We're also investing heavily in new tooling, which will result in fewer errors and a better-finished product. Some of our workers have been here for a really long time; by adding crossfunctional training we can make better use of our entire team across multiple departments and skill sets.’

Graczyk has already increased the build team’s quality standards. ‘We’re adding checkpoints to each project to ensure nothing is missed. We’re also creating clean rooms that meet high ISO standards and installing better air-handling equipment in our fabrication department to cut down on debris that can work its way into the product. We’re constantly looking to improve how we’re currently doing things, with better tooling and software. And yes, we’re hiring!’ he adds with a chuckle. ‘I’m a Michigan native, so I’m really excited to use my expertise to help a local business grow and improve.’

‘We are not a private equity conglomerate, we are a family-run company,’ vice president Ellen Bloom says. ‘If someone calls us, they get a human on the phone. And if we can't talk right then, we'll call you back. Eric prides himself on being very available to our vendors and our clients and whoever needs to get in contact with us. And he’s the glue between the fathers and sons working for us locally and the engineers and other experts around the world; all are very, very committed to our team. They’re the people who actually get our great products out the door, and they are craftsmen. We don’t talk about them nearly enough.’

Below: they narrowly missed the podium in the Rolex Middle Sea Race, after finding a parking lot towards the end of the race and had to settle for 4th place in the ORC

Offshore Spars’ America’s Cup credentials include a win in 1992, when they built the sections for America³. They also built both of the American Magic rigs for the 2021 Cup.

Like all Offshore masts, Black Pearl’s spar was built in a custom male mould as a seamless section, with no joints or glue joins. ‘That has a decent weight saving,’ Justice explains, adding that many of the lessons learned on previous projects were incorporated into the rig that— on its maiden voyage—helped Black Pearl to be placed in the 2022 Rolex Middle Sea Race. ‘When you're designing, you're always looking at the build tools. Now that we're developing custom tooling for each project, we can build the exact shape we need to match a mast perfectly to that boat.’

‘The Offshore team is used to building at a very high level of quality,’ Justice confirms. ‘Now, thanks to Eric’s expertise, we’re improving our quality assurance. But the only thing that’s really changed significantly is the design process. And that’s been really quite amazing, because the spreadsheet Offshore Spars developed over the last 40 years is now validating a brand new, fully integrated software package!’ He smiles. ‘Apparently the old school methods are pretty good still. But the software does improve that last few per cent, which is exactly what we need to take Offshore Spars to the next level.’

‘And Grand Prix sailors are already familiar with the Offshore Spars name,’ Justice adds proudly. ‘At a recent regatta in Europe, I was quite surprised to realise that everybody knew exactly what we're doing. There's a lot of dock talk about Offshore Spars and our bespoke rigs and the fact that we can work with any rigging manufacturer or sailmaker. Quite nice, since it's all positive stuff.’

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