Dobbs Davis talks to veteran Volvo Ocean Race skipper and North Sails president Ken Read and VO65 sail programme manager Bruno Dubois

The bold step the Volvo Ocean Race has made to the VO65 one-design format is good for cost saving, for measurement control, closeness in competition and for central control on the design and build so the boats are strong enough to withstand the rigours of the race itself. Plus, provided the engineering is right, the boats can be used for multiple event cycles. That is why the next race will undoubtedly be more accessible than many before it.

Of course, some idealists might observe that the lack of room for creativity is something of a downside, but few of those same purists are likely to be writing the cheques nor working all hours to secure funding for a programme. By contrast, virtually all the feedback received to date more clearly reflects the views of VO70 skipper Ian Walker, who recently committed to a second race under the colours of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing: ‘Frankly, had the next race not gone one-design I would not be doing it. The commercial risk to a sponsor of having a boat that is fundamentally off the pace is simply too great. As is the strain on the crew when doing such a long event…’

The sails, too, all have to be identical this time around. And this is even more restrictive than what most recreational sailors encounter with their own onedesigns, with most classes limiting sails in number, size and perhaps material, but very rarely in design and construction.

Sail design and integration

As a veteran of the race with Puma, but also as a past champion in numerous onedesign classes, a lifelong sailmaker and now president of North Sails, Ken Read is very well positioned to understand the trade-offs necessary to achieve the goals of the new VO65 sail programme.

‘This was very much an integrated approach,’ said Read, ‘between the boat, the sail and the rig designers, so that we made sure we were all on the same page. This is really important: there’s no time or money to go through a prototype phase to make later improvements; this one has to be right the first time around.’

The process began with North’s suite of design software developed by Michael Richelsen and JB Braun being used to provide Farr Yacht Design with the drive force coefficients produced by the sails that they needed for the boat design. This is also translated into load calculations and deformed flying shapes that affect the rig and deck hardware – which in turn relate to hardware and construction choices for the builder.

It is particularly important to find the right compromise of luff sag vs rig load, while also making sure the rig works in harmony across the wind range and in various reefing configurations. This was challenging with the proposed deck-stepped rig, along with the added constraint of not being able to adjust the runner and checkstay relative to each other – a choice made on grounds of simplicity and reliability.

It required several iterations between Southern Spars and North to get the stiffness distribution of the tube and aft rigging positions on the mast right, to ensure the right amount of bend in the right place to achieve the desired mainsail flying shape.

As for the sail designs, here Read defers comment to another principal player from North, Bruno Dubois, whose expertise in offshore sail design comes from not only being part of the sail design group at Groupama Sailing Team, winners of the last Volvo Ocean Race, but also decades of experience on the French offshore multihull and Open class scene. Dubois and his team at North Sails France have also been involved with the MOD 70s, the offshore multihull class launched last year that has been using the same complete one-design approach as the VO65s, including carrying identical sails.

‘The sail designers from all of the Volvo race teams first met as a group at the Miami stopover in the last race to begin our debrief on designs,’ said Dubois.

‘My colleague Gauthier [Sergent], sail designer for Groupama in the last edition, as the sail design co-ordinator for the VO65 within North Sails then began to collate all this input so that work could get started to give some estimates to Farr and Southern Spars for their design work. We all met as a group again in March in Minden, Nevada at the North 3Di facility to finalise the designs for the inventory to be made for each boat.

‘This was a very productive week of sharing a complete range of information from each team,’ said Read. ‘With Dan Neri taking the lead, all the details of design, trim and construction were shared from the eight designers in the last race, and the best of the best was distilled from this to create a new baseline of knowledge that will not only benefit this next generation of VO65 sails, but all other offshore sails in the North product line.’

Dubois says that this input also involved feedback on the details of the rig design, important for sail designers not just for obvious sizing details, but also for how the rig controls can influence sail shaping and the sail-handling techniques of the crews.

‘Southern Spars will supply the carbon EC6 standing rigging and the spar will be fairly simple,’ said Dubois. ‘It will have no jumpers, a topmast backstay that can be reefed to the hounds by a deflector, and a checkstay with a deflector to control midrig bend.’ This set-up has eliminated two aft stays compared to what was used on Camper, Groupama and most other VO70s in the last race, but Dubois feels this should still give good mainsail control across the wide range of conditions encountered over this 40,000-mile course.

The sails

• Mainsail: fully battened, three reefs
•  J1: good for 8-15kt upwind, has hanks and battens
•  J2: good for 13-25kt, on a furler with vertical leech battens
•  J3: good for 22-35kt, also on a furler with vertical leech battens
•  J5: good for 35kt+ as a storm jib, and also as a staysail
•  Fractional Code 0 spinnaker (affectionately dubbed the ‘fro’): used in a broad range of angles, sheets to the outrigger
•  Masthead Code 0: used in 0-6kt upwind, or downwind in more breeze
•  Masthead A3 gennaker: the only dedicated downwind sail, typically used at true wind angles of 120° and above

There is also a J4 jib, good for 35kt+ as a storm jib, but this will be sealed and stored inside the boat and only used with the consent of the race committee.

All sails but one will be built to varying deniers using North’s 3Di process, using laminate tapes made of black Twaron Aramid and clear Dyneema SK75 fibres.

Cost is an issue throughout the VO65 gestation. Dubois explains that there is no carbon in these sails, as ‘there is no reason for this given the brittle nature of carbon and the extreme strength and stability we can achieve already with 3Di’. Interestingly, carbon sail material can also interfere with Satcom communications, something that is unacceptable for the VOR.

The masthead A3 gennaker, however, is built as a panelled sail using Cuben Fibre, a proprietary high-modulus fibre-resin laminate originally developed during Bill Koch’s highly scientific America3 programme for the 1992 America’s Cup.

Top: the carefully protected deck of boat no1 during final fitting out at Green Marine.
Above: illustrations of the use of the VO65’s supplied sheeting strut in its two different locations, midships by the shrouds with a headsail (left) and aft using a gennaker (right)

Dubois said the choice of 3Di materials was based on the experience shared at recent designer debrief sessions, including the freshly arrived Vendée Globe, as well as North’s own knowledge and widespread use of 3Di on similar-sized boats.

The VO65s also feature well-proven furlers from KZ Marine in New Zealand, carbon battens from C-Tech and furling cables by Future Fibres in Valencia.

Inventory management

Each VO65 must get around the world with a very limited inventory of sails compared to what most teams were used to in the past: just eight race sails are allowed onboard, with no (non-repair) recuts and only a very limited number of replacement sails.

There are no inventory options to choose from this time around, no development of new designs, no wishlist of new sails to fit unfilled niches in the sail inventory chart. For each team you get what you get, so you better learn to trim it fast and make it last.

The sail scheme works as follows: once a team commits to the race and takes delivery of their boat, they are given eight practice sails to use to train before the race. Then when the race is about to start the teams are given a new full inventory of eight new sails to use in the race and the choice of four extra sail cards to be decided prior to the racestart which cannot include a mainsail.

For the most competitive offshore sailors this will seem like a radical notion – the idea of not being allowed to tinker and experiment with new designs to find a sweet spot in a performance niche that the competition does not have – but for the next two races they will have to focus on other ways to optimise.

Dubois says that due to the great effort placed on sail designs it is ‘unlikely’ that there will be any significant difference between practice and race sails, except possibly for some improvements in finishing details as a result of ongoing feedback from the teams.

Production and delivery will be carefully controlled, and a practice set of sails will be built and made available as the boats come off the production line every seven weeks. Race sails will also be built in batches, such that the same mould is used for the production of eight sails of one type – several moulds working in parallel on different sail types. Each sail type will then be finished in the same loft by the same team in one go, to ensure exactly the same shape and production quality.

New features

Dubois is sure the lack of sail development will prove tough for some, but there are plenty of variables to play with, even with identical sails. Some of these will no doubt mean the novel trimming techniques that all offshore sailors hook into in the hunt for speed, but others will involve the use of new equipment. One such item is an outrigger that can extend 1.5m outside the hull either midships for the jibs or aft near the stern for the MH0, FR0 and A3. Sheets run through blocks on the outriggers to open up the sheeting angles off the wind.

‘The outriggers will be something new to many teams,’ said Dubois, ‘even though they have been used in Imoca 60s for some time. Not only do they extend the range of the headsails and spinnakers, but out - riggers will also reduce the wear these sails would normally get being bent around the spar and rigging and flogging in the head when eased for deeper angles.’

Other features that may lead teams towards personalised schemes include the ballast tanks – one 1100-litre tank forward on centreline and two 800-litre aft wing tanks – plus the canting keel, of course, which is inclined at an angle by means of an angled pivot to improve foil efficiency.

Predictions

At US$350,000 per inventory, the new scheme for a controlled suit of only 12 sails represents an enormous cost saving compared to past VO70 programmes, where as many as 32 extremely expensive sails would be built in a single race cycle. Considering the boat size, anybody who has recently purchased offshore race sails will quickly work out just what a good deal this represents for the sail wardrobe for an extremely powerful 65-footer with oceanic ambition.

This all contributes to the much lower programme costs this time, targeted at 12.5 million euros against up to 35 million euros in previous races, bringing the VOR within reach of more teams and making for more efficient use of time to focus on training rather than fundraising.

‘I’ve said this so many times: never commit to this race unless you have all the funding upfront,’ says Read. ‘Otherwise you are too focused on fundraising and not on the race. And in a one-design race that focus will become more important than ever.’

Meanwhile, Bruno Dubois has little time for those who suggest that a onedesign lessens the need to start early. ‘Early commitment is as important as it ever was,’ he says. ‘The winning team is likely to be among those who got their VO65s early to learn the boat.

‘Time in a new boat is always invaluable. Clever sailors will always find ways to make a boat faster, and those who have more time to do so will always be a step ahead of those who did not.

‘Regardless, we are very excited to be part of this next race. It will be extremely close and very, very competitive…’

Click here for more information on the Volvo Ocean Race »

Super Series class manager Rob Weiland has built a healthy career through staying in close touch with his customers...

I am trying to fathom the enormous amount of work that ORC has now put into updating their VPP and the services on their website, with its formidable log-in Sailor Services section giving access to a database with some 61,000 measurement records, copies of certificates and the ability to run test certificates at will. Next step will be offering the content in a number of different languages, starting with Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Greek, Portuguese and Brazilian.

There is no doubt that this organisation currently has the most sophisticated tools in place to rate a boat’s performance potential and to score its performance. ORC now offers more access to information on competitors’ boats and options to optimise your own boat by running test certificates than any other rule in the world. Slowly this is starting to be reflected in the growth in interest in what the ORC has on offer. Even their promotion, at least from the outside, now seems to have moved forward from where the product was expected to sell itself, with active user-oriented promotion of the various dishes on the ORC menu.

The ORC also has a long reputation of chasing its VPP tail at the owners’ expense. Their yearly rating tombola is entertaining, but only if you do not own a boat, or design or build them. And 2013 is no exception. Finally the old patchwork VPP, the result of decades of fixing plumbing leaks, has been replaced by a shiny new model. Resulting in major rating changes between different types of boat; possibly for all the right reasons, but leaving little confidence in future rule stability.

No doubt the new VPP is the best in the business, but a) does it promote (typeform towards) a boat that we like to race (the claim that ORC is not typeforming is of course both false and not encouraging if you plan to have a boat built) and b) if it does, do the administrators have the honest intention to balance longterm stability with VPP improvement?

To date this has never been the case at the ORC. The result is that hardly anybody dares to build a racing boat to ‘the best rating rule in the world’. The parentheses will remain in place until confidence is earned.

The ORC developments put the RORC under some pressure. Traditionally closer to the racing owner and stronger in marketing as well as in understanding the market, based on its heritage, longstanding relations with other leading yacht clubs, and organising high level events, the RORC now looks a bit lost when it comes to its handicap rule activities. My personal view is that their flagship product, IRC, is beginning to lose its shine.

For boats like Gaastra Pro and Vesper, if they are to regularly engage in the 52 Super Series, as we hope, this is definitely the way to go. Downwind, in fact, the older, slightly narrower hull shapes are fine, if not quite good. What helps more is practice… Vesper (the 2008 Botín-designed Quantum) in her current trim, rating 1.378 under IRC as against the later TP52s between 1.383 (Rán) and 1.386 (Gladiator), just got better and better throughout the series, her team not having raced together for some months.

From mid-series onwards Vesper’s finish record of 1, 4, 1, 4, 4 was fine indeed, while her overall real-time score for 10 races of 39pt was just 1pt more than her corrected time aggregate.

The product and the way it is administered has not changed for the worse, but possibly it has failed to stay in tune with changing demand or failed to recognise that even the best products need to be regularly refreshed? It seems the clients slowly but increasingly feel the need to move on. The spread of high-level events that sport IRC as their (primary) rating system is still considerable, but to me it now looks to have peaked. Any decline is masked by some events now scoring under two or even more systems, but that in itself shows that things are on the move. But there is still more interest in building new boats to the IRC rule than there is to ORC. Trust is hard to gain.

I feel that in the back of their minds the most connected officers and administrators, at both RORC and ORC, were already picking up on these sentiments a few years ago. An attempt was made to streamline ORC and RORC interests to ultimately perhaps deliver one rating system and ideally to work together at administrating the rules. To combine the best of both worlds. From day one this effort really did not have much of a chance as insufficient internal support was mobilised at both ends. If anything it has led us in the opposite direction to what was intended.

At a technical level there is more ongoing contact. In combination with US Sailing the Universal Measurement Form (UMF) has been developed. This basically is a sum of all the measurements required by IRC, ORR, ORC and PHRF. It is promoted as a breakthrough. To me it seems this development underlines that nobody has a clue any more how to promote yacht racing… Surely the aim cannot be that every boat should have two or three certificates and score for two or three trophies for one start, just because those in charge cannot agree on anything!

UMF only works if you get all the measurements done that are on the form, at great expense and for most boats of little or no use. Besides, some of these measurements are plain silly; they are certainly unrepeatable, like the overhangs in IRC or stability in ORC. Some are hard or even impossible to check, hence open to abuse, certainly in top-level international racing.

Hull shape and geometry, inclination measurement, the tools have improved but there is nothing like the accuracy that is being claimed, nor the control on improper measurement practices… let alone deliberate cheating. Of course the form itself cannot be blamed for impracticability and a false sense of accuracy.

A Universal Measurement System might be a step too far but it should be possible to agree on how to measure the important components, like sails. Right now the formulas for calculating sail area are different under the various rules. And they continue to use their own abbreviations and terms, as if the ISAF Equipment Rules of Sailing (ERS) were not in place. So you race ORC and your jib has a different calculated area than when you are scored under IRC, or a different optimum shape.

Of course you will optimise for each of these rules if you are even half-dedicated… So, at least at the top level, you will race with different sails for ORC and IRC. But, no, we are not typeforming!

I would say that the time for a secret rule for international high-level racing is over. Transparency is the way of the future. Then the misconceptions, mistakes and inaccuracies are there for all to see.

For high-level racing, with custom-built boats to one-off designs, rule stability and trust in both the rule and the regatta management are a must. Rule stability and quality of racing have to be given priority over scientific nitpicking and politics. Strong management has to keep all the players in balance, involved and interested. And that works only if the competitors and organisers feel responsible for the product and have the opportunity to voice opinions in an organised manner. To really merge and break down some of the walls of tradition might require new faces in key places. Who is up for pulling the rabbit out of the hat?

If you feel this all has little to do with the TP52 class and the 52 Super Series, just step into my shoes for a few months and try to discuss with owners how to race, what to race, what to expect for rule and event development, what to buy, what to build…

We have been streamlining the 52s within IRC for five years now. It has saved the owners tons of money and produced better racing at a wider range of events, as well as supporting a relatively healthy secondhand market for boats. With the changing landscape we are now looking into streamlining with ORC and HPR. Because it is silly to waste buckets of money on optimising between races scored under different systems – and we feel that there is not going to be one international rule in the immediate future nor proper streamlining of IRC and ORC.

We continue to improve the 52 on the basis of research and the daily experience of racing and refining what is almost certainly one of the most optimised classes in the history of sailboat racing. At the same time we continue to plead from every available platform to give international yacht racing direction.

The first 52 Super Series event in the Med this year will be the Trofeo Conde de Godó, in co-operation with the Real Club Nautico Barcelona. Perhaps I will see you there?

Rob Weiland, 52 class manager

Click here for more information on the 52 Super Series »

When Romaric Neyhousser was asked by Lalou Roucayrol to design him a new 50-foot trimaran, he drew in his friends Guillaume Verdier and Benjamin Muyl who had had a successful experience with Yves Le Blévec’s Actual. ‘So it’s been a family affair,’ says Neyhousser. Roucayrol’s sharp-looking new tri now has her sights set on classics like the Transat Jacques Vabre and the next Route du Rhum…

I t was a quiet, low-key affair but the sun was out, quite an event in itself this March. Lalou Roucayrol’s new 50ft trimaran was launched in Port-Médoc, where final assembly took place after the main build phase at Thierry Eluere’s facility, in a ‘casual, friendly and pleasant manner’, says designer Guillaume Verdier. ‘It makes such a difference when a build is carried out in a positive atmosphere, without any tension. You feel the boat gets a good start when everyone’s happy to work towards her completion together.’ And when she gets to hit the water on a glorious day in the middle of a notoriously horrid ‘springter’, even the fiercest of rationalists could be tempted to think that good fairies have been at work over that baby’s cradle.

But maybe this strange karmic take on things also has a bit to do with the fact that Roucayrol hasn’t had the smoothest of rides himself. The new boat could then simply be the sign that things are looking up… Both for the man and for a multihull scene that not everyone has finished mourning for quite yet.

When Lalou was appointed skipper of the Lombard-designed Banque Populaire Orma 60, just before the 2000 Europe 1 New Man Star race, one has to remember that he was replacing Francis Joyon, unceremoniously kicked out due to suboptimal results at grand prix events (interestingly, Francis kept the old boat which led to a dispute with his former employer, but nevertheless managed to win the Transat despite a complete absence of both budget and any technical support).

Roucayrol eventually ended up suffering the same fate at the hands of the ‘bankers’, as they are sometimes referred to when a compliment is not on the cards, and so did his successor, Pascal Bidégorry… ousted because he was blamed for the maxi BP5’s slow start. All this is really just to say that Lalou has been ‘beneath the radar’ over the past decade, still managing to race but never quite having stepped back up a ladder that, incidentally, has itself gradually faded away.

We shouldn’t speculate on the next America’s Cup class… Oh, why not? (By Rod Davis)

Depending on who you ask, and their vested interest, the America’s Cup has never been in better shape or is heading for a train wreck. The truth, as usually happens, is stuck somewhere in between the two. In fact, the America’s Cup as an event has been both – in a better state and in a worse state – and all within the past 10 years!

So how did we end up here? By way of a little refresher, let’s flick back the calendar for a moment, to 2007 when the America’s Cup was successfully defended by Alinghi in the closest contest in 30 years. That same afternoon the Alinghi lawyers proceeded to set up the conditions for the next Cup with their chosen Challenger of Record, frequently referred to as Puppet of Record.

Unfortunately their nominated challenging club wasn’t a yacht club at all and so was invalid under the America’s Cup Deed of Gift. Oracle seized on this and submitted a ‘hostile challenge’, relying upon the Deed of Gift which demands the Cup winner acknowledges and accepts the first challenge received from a yacht club… that would be from Uncle Larry and Sir Russell. The law courts went with Oracle’s position. How Alinghi could have messed up on this very basic requirement astonishes me to this very day.

And so the fight went on, back and forth in the courts for years until they finally ordered the races to be sailed in Valencia – both sides dropping serious coin in legal fees along the way. Everybody knows that on the water Oracle won, after which and in spite of what was said leading up to the event about ‘achieving consensus’, Ellison and Coutts immediately set about implementing their personal new vision for the America’s Cup, some might say hallucination. Their sights were set on television and the Facebook generation. Out with the old, in with the new to attract a new and bigger fan base for racing sailboats.