July 2018
FEATURES
Chimney
Seems that Armel Le C’léac’h had been finding new ways to make his Imoca 60s go faster…
First steps (always) are exciting
Close and intriguing start to the TP52 year. Less tight for the Fast40s… ROB WEILAND
The calm before the hurricane
Reefable wing sails are getting there – and now there is the substantial boost coming from the new AC75 programmes. JOCELYN BLERIOT, MARC VAN PETEGHEM, BRUNO BELMONT, EDOUARD KESSI, ROMARIC NEYHOUSSER
Delivery
It’s 1926 and Jolie Brise owner – and Ocean Racing Club co-founder – George Martin wants to do the Bermuda Race… CLARE MCCOMB
The game of drones
Emirates Team New Zealand’s magic ingredient. NICK BOWERS and ROB KOTHE
A busy year
1983 and at the new San Diego design ‘office’ of Reichel/Pugh life is about to change. JIM PUGH and DOBBS DAVIS
A foot in both camps
When not fettling their fleet of classic boats one famous New Zealand yard is restoring Whitbread maxis and building superyachts. IVOR WILKINS
TECH STREET
When trial and error is no longer enough
REGULARS
Commodore’s letter
STEVEN ANDERSON
Editorial
ANDREW HURST - And did anyone else understand any of that?
Update
Tricky (Cup) details, another (eventually) happy customer, very strange decisions arrived at very strangely. GARY JOBSON, JOE LACEY, DOBBS DAVIS, DAVE HUGHES, STEVE BENJAMIN, JACK GRIFFIN, DON STREET
World news
The unstoppable Class40, the (new) Aussie dirt-bike king, a very tough leg. Plus… the Italians are coming? GLENN ASHBY, PATRICE CARPENTIER, BLUE ROBINSON, IVOR WILKINS, GIULIANO LUZZATTO
Paul Cayard – Even the longest journey
The perfect storm… or rather bottleneck
IRC – Passion and common sense
The big four… well, really three plus an ambitious new boy. And why course selection is everything
Seahorse build table – Tidy package?
Bruised but back… FRANÇOIS LANGE
RORC news – A grand venue
EDDIE WARDEN-OWEN
Seahorse regatta calendar
Sailor of the Month
Olympic champions in the game of putting back
When trial and error is no longer enough

The potential risks and consequences of high-speed foiling are an accelerating topic of debate that is finally making its way into the sport’s wider consciousness. Now speculation needs to be replaced with fact…
Over the past decade high performance boats have become much faster. The pace of development has been meteoric, particularly with the widespread uptake of hydrofoiling. While the popularity of the International Moth took off in the mid-noughties, it took the flying exploits of the AC72 catamarans in the 2013 America’s Cup to really capture the attention of the wider sailing world.
Since then the number of foiling craft has proliferated, from dinghies and small cats up to the likes of Wild Oats XI, which has also dabbled with foils at the Maxi level. Now foils have become de rigueur on the latest generation of Imoca 60s, and so it goes on.
Speed up, reliability down
Breakage is an almost inevitable part of development. As legendary America’s Cup designer Ben Lexcen once said, ‘If it doesn’t break it’s too heavy.’ However, this trial and error approach doesn’t cut much ice with the insurance industry.
Simon Tonks, deputy head of marine at Hiscox, has been insuring raceboats for more than 20 years. ‘At Hiscox we’re passionate about the sport of sailing and we love to support the latest developments,’ he says. ‘But with these increased speeds come increased risks, not only to the boats, but to the people sailing them and those in the vicinity. When you’ve got MOD70s and other kinds of high-performance boats flying around confined spaces like the Solent, these have safety – and insurance – implications.’
Standard of crews
One aspect that concerns Tonks is the standard of sailing ability. ‘There aren’t that many experienced helmsmen for foiling cats and we get asked for quotes from people who want to buy, say, a highperformance 30ft foiling multihull, and they’ve done some racing on a J/24 or J/122. So they want to go from a boat that does barely 10kt to a foiling multihull capable of 35kt, and with no qualifications or relevant experience.’
To race an M32 catamaran the class requires the sailors to have undergone a licensing course where helmsman and crew learn the basics of handling the boat, the manoeuvres, how to get the mainsail on and off its halyard lock, and so on. While the licensing doesn’t come without a cost, the safety benefits are obvious and it may well end up saving the owner money too, because of the basic, but vital, lessons learnt before they even start racing the boat. Tonks would like to see other classes adopt a similar approach. ‘You wouldn’t expect to see Formula One cars being raced by weekend enthusiasts,’ he says. ‘But that’s effectively what we’re seeing in some parts of the sailing world.’
20 per cent breakage
Aside from risk to crew there’s the reliability of equipment. Tonks says that, in one of the popular offshore racing classes insured by Hiscox, around 20 per cent have broken a mast through carbon failure. It has now reached the point where many insurers won’t even insure the rig. Hiscox still does, but only provided a 100 per cent non-destructive test (NDT) is carried out on the rig. ‘If you’re spending £400-500k on a fully set up offshore racer why wouldn’t you want to go that extra step to get a full history on the rig, with a comprehensive NDT test? But the main reason we ask for NDT is we want to eliminate build fault. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?’
The answer, of course, is money, although as Tonks points out, ‘The cost of an NDT test is generally only 0.5 per cent of the price of the boat. The average price of a full NDT test on a Class40 mast is around £2k plus costs which does not seem much when you balance this against safety considerations and the fact you know that what’s going into the boat is fit for purpose and isn’t going to break mid-ocean.’
One of the specialists Hiscox use for NDT testing is the MTD Group, a Cardiff-based company with a strong background in aerospace. Working in an industry where even the smallest level of failure can’t be tolerated [otherwise aeroplanes would fall out of the sky more regularly], MTD’s business development manager Michelle Clapham tries to find a word that describes the marine industry’s attitude to NDT testing and settles on ‘agricultural’ as a not-too-harsh description. One senses her frustration that the marine industry doesn’t aspire to higher standards.
Despite the proliferation of composite construction, composite craft are more or less unregulated compared with metal hulls, which have to pass certification with one of the classification bodies. MTD’s technical director Colin Thomas says, ‘We’ve been working in aerospace for a long time, especially at the forefront of testing composites. We have tried – and are trying – to apply it to the marine industry, but it has been met with a lot of resistance.

Above: NDT testing on a superyacht mast reveals a potential flaw in the laminate which will need careful monitoring and/or some form of remedial work to ensure it does not develop further. With rigs costing in excess of $1-2million apiece and the risks to the crews onboard, insurers are working hard to ensure that proper testing is no longer regarded as a luxury reserved mainly for grand prix campaigns. Nowhere was constant NDT monitoring more central to operations than at the America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017 (below)

It was catastrophic accidents in the aviation industry that led to the creation of such a tight regulatory framework today, and it’s likely that it will require a few high-profile fatalities before things change in sailing. The death of four sailors after the keel fell off the 40-footer Cheeki Rafiki caused a few ripples, but whether it will create lasting change remains to be seen, according to MTD’s division director Chris Minton: ‘There was a recommendation from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) after the incident, but it's still not been fully adopted. They put out flyers suggesting regular inspection of critical areas using appropriate NDT and that those carrying out the inspection be suitably competent/qualified.’
Some NDT testing comes down to little more than banging a carbon structure with a hammer and, unsurprisingly, the experts at MTD don’t think that’s good enough. Then again proper NDT testing doesn’t come cheap. Assessing the tube section of a mast costs £800-£2,000, says Clapham. ‘Size, construction, history, access, all have a bearing. A clean structure, ie one with few indications (which are found, mapped and then interrogated for type of “defect”), is much faster than one with many indications. Many indications don’t necessarily mean a bad structure; it comes down to additional factors.’
More deaths needed first?
It took the death of Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson for the America’s Cup community to start taking NDT seriously, and it was the same in F1 24 years ago. Mike Gascoyne, a keen Class40 sailor who has raced doublehanded in events like the Transat Jacques Vabre and Rolex Fastnet Race alongside the likes of Brian Thompson and Josh Hall, has spent his career in F1 engineering. He has worked at the top of many of the big teams in F1 including McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan and Renault, as well as founding the Caterham F1 Team.
Gascoyne says it wasn’t until that fateful weekend at Imola in 1994, with the death of Roland Ratzenberger in qualifying followed by the death of Ayrton Senna during the race, that the F1 community started to ask hard questions. Gascoyne, who now offers his engineering expertise to the marine and motor racing worlds through his business MGI Consultancy, says the Imola double disaster brought about a change in how the motor racing world learns from every accident and incorporates those findings back into developing the next generation of cars, with safety always at the top of the agenda.
Don’t let the sailors decide
Could we see a similar change in the marine world? Gascoyne is sceptical. ‘We had a very strong governing body in the FIA and that rule change [after Imola] on the grounds of safety was absolutely key to making F1 team do what they should. In Imoca a skipper is always going to go for the thing that will make the boat go faster and hope disaster doesn't happen.
‘In F1 you have very professional teams where the drivers are effectively employees of the teams. In sailing it’s a very different model, where the sailors are the heads of their teams. With all due respect to them, great sailors and athletes as they are, they’re probably not the only people who should be making those decisions [about safety], as they are also driven by performance as a priority. It requires a governing body to create the framework for these changes to happen.
‘World Sailing or some other body should be providing the oversight and this regulatory framework. There should be a technical delegate, someone like Charlie Whiting who's the guy we had in Formula One. He would come into the technical working group and say, “Look, we've got this problem, we've had this accident. And on the grounds of safety I'm going to impose this regulation on you [the teams], unless you all agree to something else.” That forced the teams to do agree on something.
‘In sailing you see masts falling down on a regular basis. So let’s say 40 per cent come down in the Vendée Globe. You could go in and say, “That's unsafe so I'm going to impose a mast load test on every boat before every race – we'll pull it this way with x tonnes of load, sideways with y tonnes.” Should the teams object on the grounds that their rigs would fail, you’d get them to come up with a better regulation that means the rigs would pass.
‘Of course it is not always as simple as that in practice,’ says Gascoyne. But the example of Formula One certainly offers a way forwards for the marine world. Will it happen? Or will it continue to be left to the insurers to be the arbiters of what is and isn’t safe in high-performance sailing?
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Best of the best

In a very few years the Star Sailors League is well on its way to being the pre-eminent forum for identifying who is the ‘best’ sailor of them all...
Annually The Star Sailors League seeks to determine who is the most talented sailor in the world. Is it an Olympic legend like Robert Scheidt or Torben Grael? Or a contemporary Olympian like Ben Saxton or Šime Fantela? Is it an America’s Cup legend like Paul Cayard? A Volvo Ocean Race/Route du Rhum winner like Franck Cammas? Or the Moth world champion?
The question has been answered in December each year since 2013 at the Star Sailors League Finals. In 2017 it was turn of British Beijing 2008 Olympic Laser gold medallist and reigning Moth world champion Paul Goodison to come out on top, sailing with German former Olympic Star crew Frithjof ‘Frida’ Kleen.
Of course the major hurdle in determining the world’s best sailor is that sailing is one of the most diverse of all sports, requiring a wide array of fundamentally differing skills, whether it’s the Vendée Globe, the America’s Cup or the Laser class at the Olympic Games. For example, it is unlikely Goodison- Kleen would have won last year if the Star Sailors League Finals had been held in 60ft trimarans. Our money would have been on Franck Cammas or Loïck Peyron.
So in creating a playing field not too slanted towards any specialists’ choice of boat is vital. A fully crewed boat would place too much emphasis on the crew rather than an individual sailor. Equally a singlehander would overly favour the sailors experienced in these kinds of boats. Thus a two-handed boat was felt ideal to test the skills of the helm while creating a level playing field, and a keelboat preferable to a dinghy since it was more representative of the bulk of our sport.
One of the reasons for deciding upon the Star boat as the chosen vessel of the Star Sailors League was due to its refined crew weight optimisation system, catering for helms of different weights. To prevent the inevitable drive towards ever smaller helms and larger crews the Star class has a sliding scale of permitted crew weights: a 64kg 470 helm can sail with a man mountain crew weighing 124kg; a 100kg helm can sail with a 100kg crew; a 140kg man mountain helm can have a tiny 73.3kg crew. You will notice that the heavier the helm, the higher the combined crew weight but the lighter the weight of the hiking crew.
In December’s finals it meant lighter sailors like Franck Cammas and Ben Saxton could team up with the heaviest crew – Mark Strube and Steve Mitchell respectively – and be competitive with the likes of Xavier Rohart, who was heavier than his crew Pierre-Alexis Ponsot.

With each edition of the SLL the range of talent and background widens as a carefully developed plan to identify a true ‘Sailing Champion of the World’ evolves. Past Star World Champion Paul Cayard is seen (below) competing in Nassau with Phil Trinter, while ocean racing ‘god’ Franck Cammas (above) has been neatly paired up with the hugely experienced Star frontman Mark Strube

Paul Cayard explains why the former Olympic keelboat is the ideal choice of boat for the Star Sailors League: ‘It is uniquely qualified for this purpose: a Laser sailor at 78kg can compete on an even footing with a Finn or Star sailor at 100kg due to the total crew weight limit. The Star is a very technical boat but still sails like a dinghy. With no rule 42 limits on rocking and pumping of the sails it provides a strenuous workout a 100 per cent of the time.’
One of the lightest at the Star Sailors League recently was Croatia’s Šime Fantela. He competed in the finals in 2016, fresh from winning 470 Olympic gold in Rio. At that point he was a spindly 68kg and was racing with former Star Olympic crew Antonio Arapovic. As Fantela recalls, ‘He was around 105kg but we needed him to be 130!’
But in the Star boat the crew does substantially more than having a large derriere and hiking. Newbie Star sailors must rely on their crews to make up for their knowledge deficit.
Goodison describes the value of his crew, Frithjof Kleen: ‘Star sailors for sure have a big advantage. They know the boat a lot better and are very hard to beat. I am very fortunate that I have a very good crew who has been to the Games and who knows the boat very well. Frida has a good feel for the numbers, which makes a big difference. Good helms do a lot from the back, but beginners like me have to rely on the crew: if I feel a bit helmed up he decides how much we drop the rake back. You give him input and then he makes the decisions about the rig.’
With the hiking and technical aspects of the former Olympic keelboat in the hands of the crew, Goodison says helming the Star is very much like other boats to which he’s more used. ‘Downwind it is very much like sailing a Laser was in the old days, just the rocking and steering. I am simply not quite as strong as some of the big guys like Xavier Rohart, who is 110kg and can pump harder than a 79kg little guy like me, who doesn’t have the training.’
In fact, Goodison’s victory in Nassau was the first occasion the finals were won by someone other than one of the class’s many Olympic legends. Torben Grael explained why: ‘Star sailors do have some advantage but it would be very different if the class was still Olympic, because then the level would be much higher. But as people are sailing at a different level now it is not so difficult to get up to speed and race well.’
Ben Saxton was new to the Star, having come from representing Britain at Rio 2016 in the Nacra 16 in which he is current world champion. He was sailing with experienced Star crew Steve Mitchell. Of the challenges sailing the Star the 27-year-old flying Nacra sailor explains: ‘Boat handling was hardest. The most surprising thing was how to get the mainsail in at the leeward mark, because there was so much mainsheet, and how to gybe – again manoeuvring the main because it was so loaded. Upwind the boat was fantastic, because it was so tweaky. It gave you so much feedback that after a day or so we were almost up to pace. We were excited to be up with absolute heroes of the sport.’
Yes, there are a number of more modern two-man keelboats. Some even have a spinnaker. But even though the Star is no longer Olympic it remains a prolific international class with a formidable fan base that includes a lot of the world’s yacht racing elite. Experienced crews can eliminate all-up weight differences plus any disparity in technical understanding of the set-up, the ultimate tweakable rig, the unique sailing techniques and handling quirks of a boat with such a dramatic chine – leaving the helm free to have all the right qualities tested.
At the Bacardi Cup this spring Iain Percy stepped back into the Star for the first time since London 2012 and for the first time since the death of his Star crew and best friend Andrew Simpson. He is still a great fan of the boat – luckily, as he owns three… ‘I think the Star epitomises everything that is good in sailing. The fact that the Star Sailors League is in the Star is important because it is such a levelling boat.
‘It tests you in so many different ways. It hits all of the aspects of the sport that I find interesting. It is a hard boat to sail – you have to be fit and strong and work hard. The technique of steering is huge and the tactics of the racing are so close because everyone can be fast. It is such a complex boat it engrosses your brain and really pulls you in to the extent that sometimes the new guy can come along and win first time – as we saw with Paul and Frithjof in the finals. It has really caught the imagination of the top sailors. It is the one boat that can bring “the stars of our sport” together, which is important. The Star Sailors League has been a breath of fresh air in sailing.’
Getting Paul Goodison up to speed
– Frithjof Kleen
As a crew if you sail with a VIP you have to make sure that the boat is always set up very well and he just has to helm and trim the main. He has the feel and can communicate if there is too much load or not enough load and then you can power it up or depower it. If you sail with your normal helm as a crew you are more laidback with the trimming and tuning and normally that is the helmsman’s job. Here it is the other way around. On Lake Garda we prepared with the manoeuvres so we were sure they were OK. Then it was just coming here and getting the boat set up.
Big shock to the system… Nacra 17 to ‘ancient’ Star boat?
– Ben Saxton
The Star was completely different from my Nacra 17… pretty obvious really! But I loved it and I thrive on the challenge of sailing something new because I had never set foot on a Star until I was in the Bahamas. After the last race, when we were sailing in Steve [Mitchell] was saying, ‘This is your one-week anniversary in a Star.’ That made me smile because it felt like we had come a long way. I tried to approach it as learning fast. I definitely had a good coach and crew in Steve. It was just amazing. I approached it with the belief that we could do well but the awareness that we could be lacking in certain areas.
Click here for more information on the Star Sailors League »
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Full house

Nine new TP52s launched in 2018 with nine new Southern Spars rigs, but each of them carefully tailored to individual crew requirements…
With nine new yachts on the startline for the 2018 TP52 Super Series, it’s a testament to the health of the class and the commitment of owners and teams who continue competing at the highest level. Adding to the excitement is the fact that teams gearing up for the 2021 America’s Cup will be using the TP52 circuit to hone their skills in preparation for the new class of Cup monohulls.
Sir Ben Ainslie’s British syndicate has partnered with Tony Langley’s British Gladiator Sailing team, while Challenger of Record Luna Rossa have a new build for the series. Quantum Racing, with their connections to the New York Yacht Club challenge, are also a leading contender in the fleet.
First of the new boats launched was Sled, built in New Zealand for Japanese owner Takashi Okura. Sled has a number of Kiwi sailors onboard, including senior Emirates Team New Zealand member Ray Davies as tactician. Commenting on the evolution of the class, Davies notes: ‘Most teams have made changes to the positions of the appendages and the masts have been changed, the evolution being the stiffness of the mast and the position of the deflectors. Most of the new boats seem to be heading in the same direction. Everything is stiffer and more locked in.’
The single common factor across all nine new boats in this super-competitive environment is the selection of Southern Spars and associated Future Fibres as the rigs of choice. Southern Spars have been closely involved in the circuit from the outset and this across-the-board confidence in the brand reflects the results achieved on the racetrack.
Keeping pace with the evolution of the class has involved a relentless programme of rig development, which has delivered improvements in all areas. Looking at the numbers tells a story of precision engineering producing masts that are lighter, stiffer and more aerodynamic through each generation, while at the same time accommodating constantly increasing load demands.
Forestay loads, for example, have doubled from 4-4.5 tons to 8 tons; square-top mainsail areas jumped to 93.5m2 in 2010 and then to 98m2 in 2014; righting moments have increased to 12 tonne-metres. Meanwhile, mast stiffness has increased by 10-20 per cent, despite a weight reduction of up to 60kg in the overall rig with the addition of backstay deflectors and carbon rigging. The use of custom highmodulus carbon fibre and application of thin-ply technology combined with continual detailed refinement applied to every component have improved aerodynamic efficiency and weight.
Refinement of fittings and attachments has been a constant theme through the evolution of Southern Spar’s TP52 rigs. Early versions featured two spreaders, cathedral jumpers and clamp tang rigging attachments.
In succeeding generations the tube section was refined, jumpers were ditched and three spreaders of improved design adopted. Internal tangs, integrated mainsail luff tracks and halyard locks were introduced, reducing drag.
Under the 2010 rule changes carbon internal tangs replaced metal and Southern Spars introduced their thin-ply technology. Using ultra-thin layers of carbon, down to 50 microns, represents a significant improvement in the accuracy and precision of the structure.
‘It means our designers can add or shave fibre in tiny increments, so a mast is only as heavy as it needs to be,’ says Southern Spars director Mark Hauser. ‘Weight and strength are optimised down to microscopic levels to create very specific bend and load profiles for every mast. At grand prix level that measure of accuracy translates to performance on the track.’

Above: runner deflectors are now de rigueur in every one of today’s grand prix fleets. Composite work as art form (left)… the plug-in headstay socket on one of Southern’s new 2018 TP52 rigs.
Below: as thin and light as you (currently) dare; after a cautious introduction in 2016 Future Fibres’ solid carbon RAZR rigging system is being used by all of the nine new builds…

Through every iteration of these masts designers and engineers engage in a drive for aerodynamic efficiency. Anything that could interrupt airflow is hunted down and reduced to the smallest possible factor. Weight and drag reduction is pursued with obsessive attention.
One example is the development of Future Fibres’ RAZR rigging, the company’s new solid carbon rigging system produced for grand prix inshore competitions – the logical evolution for a fleet that is constantly chasing that one per cent performance gain, at the expense of everything else.
Commenting on this evolution, Jonathan Duval, research and development manager at Future Fibres, explains: ‘We started testing RAZR with just two boats in the TP52 fleet in the 2016 season. We wanted to create a new product that would push their rigging to the limit, giving the TP52 teams everything possible to reach their optimum level. After gathering data and working closely with the teams to refine the product a further third boat was equipped with RAZR in the 2017 season.’
This year, Future Fibres are supplying all nine new builds with the RAZR product. This is a great testament to the company’s dedication to innovation and the high-performance levels that the rigging has already shown during the past two series. ‘We wanted to create a rigging with the smallest diameter, great stiffness and lowest possible weight, as well as delivering a great mast tune,’ Jonathan concludes.
All of this has been achieved by Future Fibres with the development of RAZR, after a continuous process of research and development, where incremental improvements are chased relentlessly.
In producing the rig, the design process begins with a global analysis. Using two primary software packages, RigCalc and MemBrain, Southern Spars work directly with the sailmakers, applying their respective data sets of the loads and forces generated by the sails and how they deform throughout the wind range to simulate every possible load case.
‘A lot of effort goes into modelling for all these cases,’ says Jarrad Wallace, sales engineer at Southern Spars. ‘Our biggest challenge in the design process is matching the exact bend characteristics for the specific sailplan and stripping the weight right down to its minimum. This lets us make the mast laminate as heavy as possible, giving the mast its characteristic stiffness. We put a lot of work into that and we have to get the final weight very accurate.’
Despite the fairly narrow parameters of the rule, there is no one size fits all solution. ‘A lot of customisation goes into every rig. All the teams have different ideas about how they want to set up their rig and sail programmes. Some may want to optimise for light-air performance, others to focus on mid-range; some put a higher premium on upwind speed. Within the raw weight restrictions some want the weight distribution to be different, or to place the centre of gravity slightly differently. That all goes into the discussion.
‘There are a lot of variables and they all have a bearing on how the mast will be designed and built,’ explains Jarrad.
Once the design is agreed the engineering design and laminate architecture are calculated in conjunction with rigorous finite element analysis of major components. Physical testing of built components is also conducted to verify and refine the FEA process on an ongoing basis.
With the TP52 rigs the process from design discussion to finished product is approximately 16 weeks, with three weeks for design, two weeks for laminating and autoclave curing and 11 weeks for component production and assembly.
Given the highly competitive nature of the series – which may well ramp up as America’s Cup teams come into the picture – how does a single supplier like Southern Spars guard their secrets?
‘Different project managers are assigned to each team,’ says Hauser, who is very familiar with the need for confidentiality from long years of supplying rigs to rival America’s Cup, Volvo and other grand prix teams. ‘The project managers ensure any confidential issues are very well guarded right through the process.’
The TP52 Super Series represents the pinnacle of professional keelboat circuit racing, with a growing schedule of events around the Mediterranean and Adriatic coasts. It attracts a dedicated and highly competitive group of owners and sailors and every expectation is that the injection of America’s Cup interest will only raise the intensity levels as they hone their skills for 2021.
As each new generation of TP52 yachts comes on stream great attention is paid to what the various teams and their designers have produced to gain advantage. The pressure to perform ramps up across the board, from the sailors to the sailmakers and equipment suppliers.
‘It never ceases to amaze me how the sport at this level manages to keep evolving,’ says Hauser. ‘Every year we put the best possible rigs out there and it is hard to imagine how they could be better. Then through the season we work with the teams and review everything we have learnt. We apply all of that information, plus any technological advances that have arisen with materials or techniques, and pour it into the next generation of masts. The performance jumps are measurable.
‘Who knows where the limits are, but that is the fascination of technical sports like yachting. You never stop pushing the limits.’
Click here for more information on Southern Spars »
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Stick to your last

Technical footwear specialists Dubarry now offer a wide range of other garments – but they are not allowing themselves to get distracted…
‘What we’ve found over the years has been that it’s easier for a footwear manufacturer to diversify to become a clothing manufacturer than for a clothing manufacturer to start making footwear!’ So says Dubarry’s marketing director Michael Walsh, who has worked at the Irish technical footwear specialist for more than 20 years, and claims that designing, engineering and making a reliable and comfortable sea boot is much harder than it appears.
Dubarry started out making boots for the marine market and have since branched out into the much bigger and more lucrative markets such as equestrian and country lifestyle. Rugby is also an important target market, not on the rugby pitch but on the sidelines which in Dubarry’s native Ireland can be a cold and damp place to stand for two hours. Warm, comfortable boots are a prerequisite for enjoying a Six Nations match in the depths of an Irish winter or when watching the kids from the sidelines at Saturday practice.
Whatever other markets Dubarry may have unlocked, sailing is where the brand began and it remains central to the company’s DNA. For more than 30 years it has been the boot of choice for the world’s best offshore sailors. Walsh can recall when Lawrie Smith asked if Dubarry could make a boot that would match the purple of Silk Cut, the cigarette packet that propelled Smith around the planet in the 1997-98 edition of the Whitbread Round the World Race. It’s perhaps the first and only time Dubarry will ever make a purple sea boot.
Not that this company is averse to innovation. The Dubarry boot has a classic look but beneath that traditional exterior is some very advanced technology. Walsh highlights four key ingredients that contribute to the ongoing demand for their boots.
1. The NonSlip-NonMarking outsole
‘The first and very important ingredient is the NonSlip- NonMarking outsole,’ says Walsh. ‘That’s something that's been around for a long time, and in almost every independent test our boots invariably come out as best brand in terms of non-slip performance on a variety of different surfaces.’
2. Quick-drying leather
‘The second key ingredient for us is the leather that we use is DryFast- DrySoft leather. Not only do our boots dry out very quickly, when they do dry out they don’t become hard and brittle because of the quality of leather we use.’
3. GORE-TEX
‘The third key ingredient for us is GORE-TEX and, yes, there are other brands out there that have GORE-TEX as well, and that’s because it is the best waterproof breathable membrane available on the market.’
4. Design and engineering
‘GORE-TEX by itself is not the answer,’ says Walsh. ‘It’s about the whole design and engineering that have gone into the boots in terms of how well they fit. Now that might sound obvious and straightforward, but it’s an area the clothing manufacturers have really struggled to get right. Footwear used in this environment has to be a precise fit to do its job properly.’
These four ingredients have helped keep Dubarry at the top of their game, despite the number of clothing brands moving into this market. ‘If when you buy a jacket or a pair of trousers they're a little bit longer, a little bit short, a little bit loose, a little bit tight, you can get away with it some of the time,’ says Walsh. ‘With a pair of boots it needs to be absolutely spot on. So the whole issue of engineering is really important.’

Above: grip is everything, even on a bone-dry deck, but do try not to step on those slidy slidy sails… And then of course there is keeping the water out

Listening to the sailors
No one knows better than a sailor what a sailor wants to wear, and some of Dubarry’s best innovations have come from the ocean-going professionals. While professional sailors are often obliged to wear the boots from an official clothing supplier, Dubarry often sneak into onboard footage sent back from yachts in big races like the Volvo. ‘When they’re in the Southern Ocean a lot of the crew choose to wear a rubber boot,’says Walsh. ‘And the reason is they know they’re going to get absolutely saturated. Because it’s a rubber boot, it’s easy – it dries out very, very quickly.’
However, the Dubarry solution and boot many sailors are now wearing is called the Crosshaven, which comes with an integral gaiter. ‘That boot came about as a result of Ian Walker and the guys on Green Dragon [in the 2008-09 Volvo Race] because when they were at the Galway stopover we had a sit-down with our design team and engineers and met all the guys. They had taken one of our boots and concocted a kind of homemade gaiter. So we probed on that idea and out of it the Crosshaven boot has evolved into the product we have today, with the integral gaiter that is so valued by sailors.’ Dubarry are the official supplier to both Team Brunel and SHK Scallywag in the latest Volvo Race.
The Goodyear inspiration
Some of the best ideas come from completely different and unexpected places. Michael Walsh recalls the genius of one of their engineers back in the day, Frank Hession. ‘Frank was one of those lateral thinkers with a strong sense of good engineering. When he was presented with a problem he would go away and think about it, then come back with something sketched out for us and would say, “Look, this is the direction I think we should go.”’
Dubarry’s patented NonSlip- NonMarking outer sole was a case in point. ‘On your typical deck shoe or sailing boot there’s a kind of ridge design that goes from right to left, a whole series of lines going laterally across the sole. But Frank had an interest in rally driving and motor racing generally. One of the challenges for us at the time was to produce a rubber outsole that offered the best non-slip performance; Frank equated that requirement to his experience in rally driving and indeed in Formula One racing, where clearly they spend a lot of R&D time trying to produce the best possible grip.
‘So he modelled the outsole pattern on the Goodyear car tyre. And you’ll see that a Dubarry outer sole has all these interconnecting channels, so it's moulded in a maze-type shape. The advantage of that is when somebody applies their body weight to the deck the water gets dispersed in six different directions, as opposed to a typical ridge sole where it will either go left or right. And invariably what happens is the water will be forced to flow into the next channel of the ridge sole. And that's when you start to get aquaplaning.’
Frank Hession’s Goodyear solution helped address the aquaplaning problem, which is why Dubarry boots are among the grippiest in the market.
Extra-light is key to Dubarry’s spring-summer footwear
Aside from the hardcore sea boots for which Dubarry are best known, earlier this year the brand’s latest spring/summer footwear range was launched. Even here technology plays a strong part in the Dubarry range. For example, the new Sailmaker men’s deck shoe boasts a sole that’s three times lighter than normal, thanks to Dubarry’s Extralight technology.
‘Most deck shoes have a straight rubber sole which makes it quite hard underfoot,’ says Walsh. ‘That might be OK for periods onboard, but it becomes uncomfortable if you’re wearing it all day as a leisure shoe. So we’ve taken the concept of a dual-compound sole from our boots, where you have a rubber outsole and a midsole (which might be made of polyurethane for a boot, or in the case of the Extralight it’s made of EVA which is a really lightweight material). So it has the advantage of giving you that nice underfoot comfort and shock absorbency, but it actually looks very smart as well because it doesn't look too chunky.’
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