In pursuit of safer offshore structures. JASON SMITHWICK and HASSO HOFFMEISTER

As the world’s governing body, World Sailing (ISAF) believes that ensuring safety is one of our fundamental missions. The structural integrity of an offshore racing yacht is clearly imperative if that boat is to be genuinely self-sufficient and ready to meet any foreseeable emergency without outside assistance.

Formerly, all racing yachts needed to comply with a set of regulations developed by the technical committee of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) – the ABS Guide for Building and Classing Offshore Racing Yachts. In the past the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) implemented these rules and carried out plan approval for race yachts up to 100ft.

Main picture: Brandon Linton’s build team ferret away inside the complex structure of Comanche at Hodgdon Yachts. At 100ft Comanche is the largest race monohull to be built in advanced composites in recent years – though François Gabart’s new G-100 tri Macif required more man-hours. Linton now runs the AC build team at Artemis.
Above: Commanche’s narrow keel spar is CNC-milled

But this was only the case up until 1996. Once European Directive EC95/25 for the CE-certification of pleasure craft was established that year, ABS ceased its activities. Subsequently it was left to yacht designers to confirm compliance with the ABS Rule; third-party review was no longer mandatory and only this designer declaration was required.

In the late noughties World Sailing set up a working group to investigate cases where sailing yachts had lost keels, sometimes with fatal consequences. The working group determined that a thirdparty assessment was indeed needed to inspect a yacht’s structural integrity, especially the keel and its attachment. As a consequence of these studies, Offshore Special Regulations were amended and for Offshore Special Regulations category 0, 1 and 2 events boats constructed, repaired or which underwent a major refit after 1 January 2010 are once again required to be structurally reviewed. Older boats that fulfil the current grandfathering regulations simply require a designer’s declaration.

Accreditation: Germanischer Lloyd (now DNV GL) was the first official body to sign up and assist World Sailing in establishing a framework for such third-party assessments. Since then six accredited bodies have been authorised to conduct mandatory structural plan reviews for the racing yacht sector. DNV GL currently enjoys the highest market share with this service.

Boats<24m: The OSR categorises boats according to size. An already existing structural standard was adopted for boats below 24m (79ft); this is the same standard as is used for the EU RCD directive (Recreational Craft Directive 94/25/EC), the CE-certification of regular pleasure yachts sold in the European market. The three parts of this ISO 12215 series standard that were chosen for compliance by racing yachts are ISO 12215 Part 5 (hull basic scantlings), Part 8 (rudders) and Part 9 (keels only).

Big boats: For boats greater than 24m World Sailing introduced a system where an IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) recognised body may conduct a plan review in accordance with their own rules. In 2009 World Sailing asked DNV GL to help develop a new structural code for larger yachts (>24m), based on DNV GL’s scantling rules. So far the following vessels have been reviewed using this scantling code: the three WallyCentos Hamilton (now Open Season), Magic Carpet³ and Galateia, all of the Volvo 65s, Perpetual Loyal 100, Rambler88, Beau Geste and Comanche – with several more to follow soon. GL DNV is also the designated plan review body for the TP52 and WallyCento class.

Repairs and refit: Newer boats built post-2010 are required to include a review by an accredited body when being repaired or modified. This in turn requires the review office to offer a fast response so that a racing team can quickly secure a new certificate. The team then present this to the race organiser to qualify for participation. The review certificate therefore reflects current structural condition and so must be signed by the builder, who is confirming that the yacht is built, modified or repaired according to the approved documentation.

Components typically included in a structural plan review

• Hull shell, deck shell, primary girders and stiffeners, frames, ring frames, bulkheads, decks, soles, integrated tanks, stern and transom, joining of primary structural components, global and local reinforcements
• Main engine foundations
• Structural details including window mullions, pillars, integral hatch panels, cut-outs, underwater recesses and hull penetrations
• Rudder including shaft, shaft bearings and structural integration
• Propeller bracket, including structural attachment and foundation
• Chainplates and mast step structure
• Keel arrangement, keel bulb, keel fin and its structural attachment to hull; hull structure in way of keel attachment

Typically excluded from plan review

• Lower priority foundations, such as anchor windlass, generators, pumps, safety equipment, mooring equipment
• Lower priority details such as access cover details, railings, mooring cleats, doors and non-integral hatches
• Watertight subdivision, closures and windows
• Strong points such as foundations for running rigging
• Physical proof/testing of composite materials used

Dr Jason Smithwick, Head of Technical & Offshore, World Sailing Hasso Hoffmeister, Senior Approval Engineer, DNV GL

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Did Knut Frostad save the Volvo Race? ‘Almost certainly,’ says Blue Robinson

Seahorse Magazine: What sort of Volvo Race did you inherit as CEO?

Knut Frostad: I guess I was taking on an event that was already starting to see big changes. The race was moving to a threeyear cycle from four years, which was tricky, because in the 2005 race the VO70s had their first edition, so there wasn’t much time for evolution. When you drop from four to three years between events you’ve immediately lost time to tweak the class, optimise development and raise funding; then we had the 2008/9 event which was very intense because Ericsson had this massive project. When I started there weren’t too many boats that were 100% funded; we had five that became fully funded close to the start, which is not unusual, but it does put stress on the programme. That was also the first race we went to Asia, a decision that was taken before I started and that was a big undertaking. So the race I took over wasn’t in a bad shape, but it lacked strict controls.

SH: What were the biggest challenges you faced in that 2008 event?

KF: I sailed on Brasil 1 in 2005 and to say that was a ‘tricky’ edition of the race is an understatement. There is no doubt the designers and engineers didn’t have enough time to work out where they were, so there were massive technical issues. And of course the sponsors are not interested in that side of things at all – they are not sponsoring a Volvo team because they want to develop carbon structures, so their fingers get burnt and they leave, and that is what happened. This wasn’t so much the case for the 2008/9 race which was my first as CEO, but what was happening then was the costs were out of control; the winning team had a lot of infrastructure, two raceboats, plus training boats, spending a huge amount of money. Now we had an arms race and this needed to change. The Volvo 70 was a fantastic boat, fun to race, an optimum size for an offshore boat, but the fact that it was an open class led to big performance benefits from spending more money. And that is a challenge our sport has in general, not just the VOR.

Taking time out from preparing for the 2016 Vendée Globe, round the world skipper and professional routeur Conrad Colman explains why directing a 40kt trimaran around the globe remains a very personal task…

I dec Sport and Spindrift 2’s recent attempts at the Trophée Jules Verne kept many sailors engrossed over the long (interminable – ed) Christmas break, peeking at race trackers through the mistletoe. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away from the firehose spray and cold fingers curled in a death grip on the steering wheels a quieter, but no less intense, challenge played out in the offices of the world’s best weather routers.

Names like Jean-Yves Bernot, Sylvain Mondon, Bill Biewenga and Marcel van Triest make up the elite cadre of mathematicians, meteorologists and former professional navigators who today guide the world’s fastest yachts. Given the small size of this group these meteo mercenaries all know each other’s histories and personal characters from decades of navigating with wet feet and bad food onboard.

The revolving door also applies to their clientele; this winter Jean-Yves Bernot routed Spindrift 2, the old Banque Populaire V routed by Marcel van Triest in 2012 who is now routing Idec Sport which is skippered by Francis Joyon who was routed by Jean-Yves on his own recordbreaking solo circumnavigation in 2008…

Firstly, Jean-Yves wants to clear up one common misconception about offshore routers: they are not playing an elaborate game of Virtual Regatta with radio-controlled 40m offshore trimarans. Despite this, when I had the good fortune to intern with him during last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre I sometimes watched his already wild hair suffer anew when the hourly positions refreshed and he obviously wished that the autopilot controls their wind data back to their router’s office.

A design career that took off with the 1973 world champion Quarter Tonner, evolved through numerous successful Admiral’s Cup and Maxi designs and ultimately led to the creation of some of the world’s most notable superyachts, provides a tidy basis for RON HOLLAND to muse upon ‘how we got here…’

There’s nothing like writing a book about your life to trigger reflections about 50 years of yacht racing and designing. With the working title of All the Oceans, the memoir has reminded me of how lucky I was to grow up in New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s at a special time in sailing, as well as recalling all the milestones that led to my entirely unexpected career. One of my Italian clients likes to remind me that designing yachts isn’t a real job. ‘It’s a toy job,’ he jokes.

And I must say that I never saw designing yachts as a real job. At least not at the outset. As a nation New Zealanders were so enthusiastic about sailing when I was young that just about everybody who knew how to sail also thought they could design a yacht – and many did. While some of the results were spectacularly successful, even at that time, others were pretty awful. But one of the reasons why New Zealand has played way above its weight in sailing in the course of the Olympics, round-the-world racing and world championships is because New Zealanders live and breathe saltwater. For a small population New Zealanders’ influence on international sailing has by common consent been disproportionately high.

How did this happen? Geographic influence counts for a lot. Isolated in the extremities of the Southern Pacific Ocean, it required a pioneering spirit and effort to live in New Zealand and certainly to ply its waters. When I was at school you could see wooden yachts, nearly all of them sailboats, in various stages of construction in many a backyard – for a time there was also a parallel mania for concrete boats.

I would say this was because the Pacific islands beckoned us with the promise of the exotic and many of these yachts would sail to Fiji, New Caledonia, Tahiti and other alluring destinations.