A criticism of sailing from both inside and outside the sport has been the lack of an undisputed World Sailing Champion. You don’t have to delve too deeply into the Star Sailors League to realise that there is finally a solution

The countdown is on for the sixth running of the Star Sailors League Finals in the Bahamas. This event, which aims to decide the best sailor in the world, will again be hosted by the Nassau Yacht Club, with racing taking place on the warm, azure waters of Montagu Bay from 3 to 8 December. As usual there is a prize pot of US$200,000 up for grabs.

Times are changing in the Star Sailors League. For its first four editions the Finals were won exclusively by titans of the Star class: Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih in 2014 and 2016; Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada in 2013; and George Szabo and Edoardo Natucci in 2015. However, the applecart was upturned in 2017 when the British three-time Moth World Champion and Beijing Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison came out on top.

In addition to being a profoundly talented sailor, Goodison’s victory would not have been possible had he not sailed with an experienced crew in Frithjof Kleen. Kleen represented Germany with Robert Stanjek in the Star at the London Olympics, having claimed silver at the 2011 World Championship in Perth. With Goodison he instigated a 10-day training programme going into the Finals. The line-up in Nassau included familiar Star boat heroes like Paul Cayard, Torben and Lars Grael, London 2012 competitors Robert Scheidt, Mark Mendelblatt, Freddy Loof, Jonathan Lobert, Xavier Rohart, Eivind Melleby, Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Hamish Pepper. The line-up also included French offshore legends Franck Cammas and Loïck Peyron, Luna Rossa helmsman Francesco Bruni and some talented youngsters, German Philipp Buhl and British Nacra 17 World Champion Ben Saxton. The work Goodison and Kleen put in was enough to finish ahead of all of them.

The Star Sailors League follows a match racing-style format with full fleet qualifiers (for 25) followed by quarters (for eight), semis (for six) and finals (for four) with the winner of the qualifiers fast tracking to the finals and the runner-up to the semis. Impressively, the two youngsters also put in a good showing. Buhl, sailing with experienced German crew Markus Koy, finished fifth. Saxton, sailing with Iain Percy’s former crewman and 2002 World Champion Steve Mitchell, came eighth. The 27-year-old was slightly dumbstruck to end up just astern of American legends Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter after his first go in the Star boat.

So the class legends are losing their vice-like grip on the Star Sailors League Finals leaderboard and this is set to continue thanks to a new initiative. To help level the playing field for those who haven’t spent time in the former Olympic two-man keelboat, the Star Sailors League is working with partners to set up training centres in four strategic locations – Miami, Stockholm, Valencia and Riva del Garda. All have Star boats made available by the Star Sailors League (SSL) on which finalists or budding Star sailors can train – a move which of course the Star class is also delighted by, as it helps to entice a new generation into their venerable boat.

Miami is a major centre of Star sailing, annually hosting one of the class’ major events and a scoring event in the on-going Star Sailors League Ranking, the Bacardi Cup. SSL operations there run out of the US Sailing centre in Coconut Grove and are handled by Mark Mendleblatt’s London 2012 crew Brian Fatih. They also have a facility north of Miami where the SSL-owned Star boats used in the finals are stored when not in use.

Star boats are also available for the sailors using Luca Devoti’s Dinghy Academy, based out of the Real Club Nautico in Valencia.

The Swedish centre is based in Saltsjöbaden southeast of Stockholm where it has been set up by Leif Carlsson, son of Sonne Carlsson, the builder of Pelle Pettersen’s World Championship winning Star in 1969. Big news in Star circles is that Sune Carlsson Båtvarv now has the moulds to the P-Star and have put it into production, with the first examples due for completion later this year.

Designed by German two-time Star Olympian Marc Pickel in 2002, with CFD work carried out at Kiel University, the P-Star is a maximum waterline length, minimum volume design which Pickel campaigned at Beijing 2008. It subsequently went into production on the opposite side of the Atlantic at Jon VanderMolen’s facility in Richland, Michigan, built in pre-preg unidirection S- and E-glass over a Corecell foam core. It was following Ireland’s Peter O'Leary and German Frithjof Kleen winning the Star class at Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in 2010 aboard a P-Star against all the Star A-listers, that the P-Star became the must-have equipment for London 2012. Not only did the three medallists sail them, but 13 of the 16 Stars competing and 11 of the top 12 were P-Stars.

In addition to putting the P-Star back into production, Carlsson is also setting up an SSL base, with three or four Star boats available for people to sail and train.

The most active Star Sailors League base was set up last year by Frithjof Kleen out of the Fraglia Vela Riva in Riva del Garda, where they regularly have three or four Star boats available and can offer yearround training.

‘The Star Sailors League invites newcomers to the Star for Nassau but it has always been hard for them to compete against the old Star sailors, because they don’t have time to prepare,’ Kleen explains. ‘So we can prepare them in advance and can also train up new Star crews too. A Finn sailor, for example, might be a fantastic sailor, but there are some small things in the Star which can make life way easier if you know them.’ In Riva, sailors can schedule their training with Kleen or can come along and be part of his regular training camps, which include two in November rolling straight into the Star Sailors League Finals. These will roll on into 2019 when Fraglia Vela Riva will feature prominently on the Star map as it will host the Star Europeans in May.

Loïck Peyron used the Riva facility to get some practice in before the 2017 Finals, but unquestionably the best advertisement was Kleen’s own performance with Paul Goodison, winning the event. As to whether Goodison will return to defend his title in December, now he is part of the American Magic challenge for the 36th America’s Cup, remains to be seen. ‘My fingers are crossed, I am also a bit scared we won’t have time to prepare,’ says Kleen.

Below: Slackers need not apply... 1988 Star world champion and 1992 Louis Vuitton Cup winner (along with a few other scores including dominating the 1997 Whitbread Round the World Race), Paul Cayard raced in Nassau in 2017 with his regular Star crew Phil Trinter, the pair finishing a pretty healthy 7th overall... just behind fellow world champion Mateusz Kusnierewicz of Poland... who is also an Olympic gold medallist and Finn Gold Cup winner

Greater use is expected to be made of these training facilities as an increasing number of the latest generation Olympic sailors are expected to be invited to the Finals. At present the only assured entries are those holding top 10 spots in the Star Sailors League Rankings. At the end of August, with the Star Worlds on the Chesapeake still to be held in October, Italian Diego Negri led the rankings from Robert Scheidt and Xavier Rohart. Beyond the top 10, it is at the organisers’ discretion to fill the remaining 15 slots. Following the Hempel Sailing World Championships in Aarhus in August, it seems very likely that the freshly crowned World Champions from Denmark will be on the start in Nassau this December.

Among them is likely to be Croatia’s Sime Fantela, who raced in the Star Sailors League Finals in 2016 shortly after winning Olympic 470 gold in Rio. Fantela has since moved across to the 49er, which he sails with his brother Mihovil, a former RS:X sailor. Incredibly after just 18 months in the Olympic skiff the Fantelas won the recent World Championship. As Sime admits, ‘I wasn’t expecting it. It just opened up – there were good conditions and we just used the opportunity to win it!’ And this was despite the regatta being held in moderate to strong conditions, which are not their favourite.

‘One of our strongest points was consistency,’ Sime continues. We had one 25th, but in that race Miho lost the sheet and we did a bad tack and we couldn’t recover. We were strongest in the Finals which we entered in 12th position, but then all our results were in the top 10 and four in the top five.’

As to the Star Sailors League Finals, Fantela hopes he can come back this year. In 2016 he finished 10th but was learning rapidly and after a slow start getting to know the boat, impressively won three of the last five qualifying races. Unfortunately, he and his crew were 20-25kg underweight and when the breeze got up in the quarter finals they were unable to keep up. Two years on and Fantela is now a heavier 49er sailor and, with whoever he decides will be his crew in Nassau, he wants to ensure they are closer to maximum crew weight. ‘I would love to fight for a medal,”’ he says, meaning that this time he wants to win.

‘I always loved the Star. Looking at it from outside and how it sails, plus it is really technical, which I like, and really tactical so you fight with your brain, not just with your muscles although you have to be strong and hike a lot to get it going. If you win, for sure it is not because of luck.’

Frithjof Kleen also endorses the Star as a great egalitarian test for all sailors, thanks to it being so technical. What young sailors lack in lengthy Star boat experience and on the water wiliness, they make up for through their greater athleticism. And vice versa. The former ‘can trim the boat perfectly because they are such good sailors and smart.’ The latter, the Finn and Laser sailors ‘on the downwinds with the free pumping, they are machines.’

Click here for more information on the Star Sailors League »

Looking back at this year’s Nations Trophy Mediterranean League series, it’s clear that ClubSwan’s big idea of injecting friendly patriotic rivalry into one-design racing is making headway… and there’s more to come

It was a bold move and it seems to be working. Leonardo Ferragamo and Enrico Chieffi’s big idea – to rekindle the Corinthian spirit and the intense, but gentlemanly competition between nations, of classic regattas such as the Admiral’s Cup and Sardinia Cup, in a carefully managed one-design format, propelled by the powerful brand values of Nautor’s Swan – is steadily gathering momentum. The inaugural edition of ClubSwan’s biennial tournament, The Nations Trophy, in Palma last autumn was, by all accounts, a very promising start, with close competition in all three one-design classes, ClubSwan 50, Swan 45 and ClubSwan 42, and a total of 28 yachts representing 11 nations.

This season’s follow-up series, The Nations Trophy Mediterranean League, has built on that success, enabling owners and crew, as Chieffi says, ‘to maintain the intensity of competition and friendly rivalry witnessed last October in Palma’.

The four-part Mediterranean League series kicked off in March with Monaco Swan One Design, where competitive fleets representing eight nations battled it out over four days of inshore windward-leeward racing in a challenging range of conditions that varied from light and fluky to a spanking strong breeze. ‘The race committee was perfectly patient and did an exceptional job dealing with, at times, pretty difficult conditions,’ said Ken Read, tactician on the winning ClubSwan 50 Cuordileone. ‘I give them as much credit as the sailors, because it was a hard job to get that many good races off. There was not one race that turned into complete weirdness. There were big shifts, but if you played them right you’d win and if you did not, you lost. That is all you can ask as a sailboat racer.’

Then it was back to Mallorca in May for PalmaVela, where the three ClubSwan fleets joined 11 other classes. Fickle winds in the Bay of Palma and contradictory predictions from the various weather forecast models provided a complex tactical challenge. The three eventual winners had to work very hard for their podium positions, right through to the last race when Germany topped the leader board.

In the ClubSwan 50 class, Hendrik Brandis’s Earlybird beat the Swiss boat Mathilde by just two points. ‘It was such a challenging way to finish,’ said Jesper Radich, Earlybird’s tactician. ‘We had to sail very safely and not be last, which in this fleet is not that easy. The only way to do that is to attack and sail well. I really had to get that balance between attacking and defending. We sailed quite well in the middle of the fleet. I did the maths and we were OK. The thing is, we saw one boat sail away 300 metres ahead of us in three minutes, it was that kind of day. So we could have ended up last.’

Competition in the Swan 45 class was just as close, even for the experienced team aboard Elena Nova, who eventually emerged victorious. ‘It is the sixth time we have won PalmaVela,’ said ownerdriver Christian Plump, ‘But it is such competitive racing in this class and this was the most difficult time. The difference between the first and the last boat was no more than 10 lengths. It is such fun. I am so relieved to have won.’

Next up for the ClubSwan fleets was the 66th edition of the Giraglia, with three days of inshore racing on windward-leeward courses off the beaches of St- Tropez followed by the classic 241-mile passage race to Genoa via the eponymous Corsican rock. A gentle start to the inshore racing saw close competition in eight to 12-knot winds, followed by a frustrating calm on the second day when the races had to be cancelled, and a blustery 25 knots and big seas to test the crews’ mettle on the last day. Italy emerged as overall winner of the inshore races with a particularly strong performance by Lorenzo Ferragamo’s Cuordileone. The Russian ClubSwan 50 Skorpios, owned by Andrey Konogorov, scored a storming victory in the passage race, winning overall in the ORC fleet and claiming the Nucci Novi Challenge trophy.

Back in Palma again, the final event in The Nations Trophy Mediterranean League was the 37th edition of the Copa Del Rey. A record-breaking entry of 2,500 sailors competed aboard 152 yachts in testing, light sea breezes, including a strong turn-out of 36 Swans, 26 of them in the three one-design classes. There was royal patronage in the ClubSwan 50 fleet, with the Spanish King Felipe VI racing aboard Aifos 500, but Germany dominated the final results, scoring a 1-2-3 with Brandis’s Earlybird, Sönke Maier-Sawatzki’s NiRaMo and Stefan Heidenrich’s One Group on the podium. Earlybird’s win also clinched its class victory in the Mediterranean League 2018, after a hard-fought series. As a whole, the ClubSwan 50 cemented its credentials as a truly competitive one-design class, with 10 boats entered, representing seven countries. Six boats won races and nine of the 10 claimed a podium position at some point during the regatta.

The Spanish Swan 45 Porron IX, cannily skippered by Luis Senis Segarra, had already won its class in the Mediterranean League, but competition was fierce nonetheless at Copa Del Rey, with four of the five boats each winning a race. Jan de Kraker’s Dutch-flagged K Force narrowly won the regatta, with first place separated from fourth by just five points.

Competition was just as tight in the ClubSwan 42 class, where the top three boats were separated by just two points and the final race proved crucial. A strong performance in that last race by Jose Maria Meseguer’s crew on Pez de Abril won not just the regatta, but also their class in the Mediterranean League overall rankings. ‘The League is excellent, with so many boats competing and so equally matched,’ Meseguer said. ‘To win it is something impressive. The community is great, the owners and crews ensure the ambience is fantastic. I don’t think there is anything else like it.’

With all four events completed, Italy proved the most consistent country and won the Mediterranean League 2018, thanks to the strong finishes from the ClubSwan 50 Cuordileone and ClubSwan 42 Selene. Spain took second place, Germany third, Russia fourth and Switzerland fifth. Across the season, 14 countries were scored for the League, with the most of them represented at two or more of the four events.

Below: the ClubSwan 50 fleet enjoyed close-fought racing at this year’s Copa Del Rey with 10 boats on the startline including Aifos 500 helmed by the King of Spain, Felipe VI. Six of the 10 teams won at least one race at the Copa and nine of them stood on podium at some point during the regatta. Germany dominated the final results with Hendrik Brandis’s Earlybird the overall winner, Sönke Maier Sawatzki’s Niramo in second place and Stefan Heidenrich’s One Group in third. Earlybird’s strong finish also clinched her the class victory in the season-long 2018 Nations Trophy Med League

Looking ahead to next year, the 2019 Mediterranean League will once again kick off with Monaco Swan One Design, scheduled slightly later than this year’s event, from 9 to 13 April. Next up is a brand-new regatta in Tuscany, Scarlino Swan One Design, from 30 April to 4 May, followed by the Giraglia from 9 to 15 June and the Copa Del Rey from 30 July to 3 August. The four-part series will feed in to the main biennial event, The Nations Trophy 2019, which will once again be held in Palma de Mallorca from 8 to 12 October.

‘The Real Club Nautico de Palma is a perfect venue for the Swan One Design events,’ said Leonardo Ferragamo, skipper of the ClubSwan 50 Cuordileone and group executive chairman of Nautor’s Swan. ‘The Nations Trophy concept was launched in Palma last October and was a great success because the values of the RCNP perfectly match those of Nautor’s Swan and their organisation is exceptional. For those reasons, we had no hesitation in including both PalmaVela and Copa del Rey in the Med League 2018, and in confirming Palma as the venue for the 2019 edition of The Nations Trophy.’

The ClubSwan 50 fleet will have grown substantially by then. Already, 22 boats are afloat and racing, with more in build and due to join in the action next year. ‘In 2019, the class will reach maturity and the level of competition will have grown dramatically,’ says class president Philippe Oulhen. ‘Only the very best yacht clubs, like the Real Club Nautico de Palma, can deliver the exceptional level of race management we need to handle the aggressive starts, packed mark-rounding and tight finishing.’

To encourage participation in the Mediterranean League 2019, the teams’ performances throughout the season-long League will have an impact on their final results in the Trophy. In a further twist, The Nations Trophy 2019 will also be the World Championships for the ClubSwan 50 and Swan 45 classes and the ClubSwan 42 European Championship.

Joining the three established fleets at The Nations Trophy 2019, a brand new one-design class, the ClubSwan 36, will sail its first major regatta. With a flush deck and chamfered bow, twin rudders and a transverse, sliding C-foil, a highly tweakable carbon rig and a wardrobe of just four sails, no interior accommodation whatsoever and an impressively light displacement of 2.5 tons (2,500kg), this new boat is the logical next step in the new direction of Swan designs that started with the ClubSwan 50. It’s designed to give a crew of six the ride of their lives, and a fleet of 10 boats is expected to show up in Palma next October, with owners at the helm and a 50/50 ratio of amateur and professional sailors on board.

Click here for more information on The Nations Trophy »

Whether in the Ultim, TP52 or America’s Cup classes, next-generation Harken hydraulics are at the very leading edge of efficiency and reliability

The upcoming 40th anniversary Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe will be an amazing race to follow. Included in the record-size fleet of 122 craft will be the Ultime Edmond de Rothschild – the first ever hydrofoiling maxi trimaran. Great reliability is required in the search for great speed and Harken hydraulics will help lift the maxi tri to new heights as it attempts to foil its way into the record books.

Edmond de Rothschild is a beast of a boat in a performance-orientated way. It measures in at 32m (104ft) LOA with a beam of 23m (75ft) and all-up weight of 15.5 tonnes (33,069 lb). The breathtaking feature of this boat is the pair of 5m (16ft 5in) tall hydrofoils that allow it to “fly” in winds as light as 14kts.

The Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe is a singlehanded race measuring 3,540 nautical miles. Skipper Sébastien Josse will be alone in his pursuit of the race record of seven days, 15 hours (set in the 2014 race). He’ll be helming, navigating, trimming sails and raising and lowering the huge foils all by himself. A properly executed tack or gybe on an Ultime can take up to 45 minutes, at least 20 minutes of which is spent grinding hydraulic functions. It’s a workout fit for the best triathletes, while also requiring the concise decision-making ability of Stephen Hawking.

‘There has never been such a big foiling boat,’ says Edmond de Rothschild’s French designer, Guillaume Verdier. ‘There’s a bit of an unknown relationship as to what the environment will provide us with. It’s nothing like the America’s Cup catamarans, where the foil is piercing the water and the boat is fully out of the water. This kind of thing we will discover at a bigger scale.’

Josse will be aided in his handling of the hydrofoils, rig cant and conventional systems such as mainsheet and outhaul by a slew of hydraulics from Harken, a standard bearer in grand-prix hydraulics and hardware. Harken has been developing its custom hydraulics since the early 2000s and thanks to its exclusive association with the Edmond de Rothschild and in the America’s Cup arena over the past eight years, it has set new standards for performance and reliability. ‘Harken has been developing custom hydraulics for quite a while now,’ said mechanical engineer Ben Biddick, Harken’s lead hydraulics engineer, who works directly with Team Gitana. ‘We’ve focused a lot on weight and compatibility and moving the hydraulic oil from A to B as fast as possible. We gained a lot of knowledge from our exclusive development with Oracle Team USA during the 2013 America’s Cup.’

Harken hydraulics are prominent aboard Edmond de Rothschild, which features 15 Harken cylinders:

• Two cylinders control the maxi trimaran’s shroud tension
• Two cylinders provide daggerboard up/down control
• Two cylinders control the pitch/ rake of the daggerboards
• Two cylinders govern rudder up/ down control
• One cylinder controls the mainsheet, one controls the outhaul
• Five cylinders contribute to foil flap activation.

Some stand-out features of the hydraulics include:

• A throw of 1.8m for the rig cant cylinders, which are located in the amas and integrated into the boat’s structure
• The shortest throw is less than 152mm (6in) for the flap activators

Harken’s exclusive agreement with Team Gitana has seen it involved with the project since the boat was conceptualised in 2013. But its involvement grew stronger last winter after the maxi tri had a refit following last autumn’s Transat Jacque Vabre. Edmond de Rothschild pushes many technical boundaries and it suffered a series of setbacks with its daggerfoils and controlling solenoid valves that prevented it from racing at its full potential. A new, more reliable system was needed to replace the original electrical system.

Above: this beast of a boat is sailed singlehanded by Sébastien Josse, who has to trim the foils and rig cant at the same time as managing all the boat’s conventional systems, plus driving, trimming sails, navigating and running a rigorous maintenance programme. It takes about 45 minutes just to tack or gybe this hugely powerful sailboat.
Below: the complex technology needed to manage all of this raw power is built around no less than 15 next generation hydraulic cylinders that were developed by Harken to the Gitana team’s own very detailed specifications

Harken created a rotary hydraulic pump with three speeds in each direction that results in six distinct levels of fluid distribution.

‘We developed a rotary pump for the 2017 America’s Cup that leveraged well into Edmond de Rothschild’s system,’ says Biddick. ‘The system incorporates mechanisms that shift gears when certain pressures are reached. It’s sort of like making the handles on the pedestal longer and longer as the pressure goes up. Seb has to spin more revolutions for longer periods, but the torque on the handles doesn’t go up.’

Harken worked with Josse to determine a handle spin revolution rate that was most comfortable for him while being sustainable for the time required – somewhere in the range of 40 revolutions per minute. The pump is designed to allow for this consistent pace, increasing the system’s mechanical advantage as the force demands increase. For instance, it might take eight minutes to trim Edmond de Rothschild’s mainsail completely. The last several inches might require the most force, so the boat’s hydraulic system adapts accordingly, to provide more mechanical advantage at the same handle revolution rate. In this way the pump helps to shorten the manoeuvre times by making sure that the human power is used as efficiently as possible.

Last winter Josse, project manager Sebastian Sainson and boat captain David Boileau visited Harken’s world headquarters in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, to gain the hands-on skills needed to tear down each piece of hydraulics and repair them, a measure of self-sufficiency that is important for singlehanded sailing. In addition, Josse spent time on Harken’s hydraulic test bench to determine the optimum spin rate of the handles, experiencing first-hand the designed shift points in the pump system and learning how to use the improved board-control system, both up and down and fore and aft.

‘The cylinders controlling the boards are double-acting: they’re responsible for up and down and hold,’ says Biddick, who has been involved with the project from Day One. ‘The cylinders also integrate into the structural components to make sure the load transfer doesn’t split the boat apart.

‘Primarily, the major development was getting the boards up and down faster, Biddick continues. ‘The original system relied on an electric solenoid valve, but there were problems with the speed and reliability of that system. The new system allows more oil to get through the loop quicker and then the attached flow of water across the board does the work. We focused on the bearing technology inside the daggerboard trunk and by removing the hydraulic constrictions, the board moves itself. We’ve cut the manoeuvre time by 25 per cent. That’s a massive saving when you’re sailing singlehanded.’

Biddick says the pump on Edmond de Rothschild is capable of 350 bar/ 5,000 Psi, a practical limitation given the applications involved. Harken has also developed a pump for use in the grand-prix TP52 Class that is capable of 500 bar/7,500 Psi, a maximum set by the TP52 Class. Harken has manufactured a rotary pump for the TP52s that also is a descendant of its work in the America’s Cup arena.

This pump provides pressure to two hydraulic cylinders. One tensions the headstay and the other tensions the backstay deflector. TP52s don’t have a permanent backstay, so the crews use the deflector when sailing upwind to help maintain headstay tension from the hounds, which are approximately three metres below the masthead. At the windward mark, the tension must be strategically released to counteract the loads from the masthead-flown asymmetric sails.

Harken also designed remote string-controlled release valves with adjustable flow controls to manage cylinder extension speeds. This feature comes into play when the deflector cylinder might need to be released quickly at a windward mark before the A-sail fills, but also allows for gradual manipulation of the headstay cylinder in response to increases in wind strength or changes in sea state that mandate smaller adjustments in sag during a windward leg. By controlling the release valve with a string, crews are able to keep their weight on the windward rail rather than having to reach into the cockpit. These features have greatly simplified the system’s plumbing and weight by reducing the number of fittings and, therefore, potential leak points. Serviceability is also improved.

Harken has designed a new Y control valve to direct the hydraulic fluid to the cylinders. The new valve also has a built-in pressure filter to protect the system from any oil contamination that could occur during installation or from simple mechanical wear. Onboard pressure reliefs are included to protect the two circuits from overload.

Harken continues to keep an eye on the next America’s Cup in 2021 and how its hydraulics and other equipment can best be utilised on the new AC75 Class boat, another hydrofoiling machine with predicted extreme speeds. The new Cup class rule mandates a one-design system for rotating the foil arms, so Harken will concentrate its efforts on the hydraulic actuation and manipulation of the foil flap, wing surface controls and ride management.

Click here for more information on Harken »

Swiss-based Carbo-Link has long been one of the quiet giants of high performance sailing… It is only now, many years after they rigged their first America’s Cup winner for Alinghi that word is getting out at last

What do Ariane’s space rockets, Porsche’s racing cars, Liebherr’s largest industrial cranes and some of the world’s most technically advanced suspension bridges have in common with Ultime Trimarans, Maxi 72s and most of the recent contenders in the America’s Cup? They all rely on cutting-edge composite solutions from Carbo-link to solve extremely complex structural engineering challenges and gain a competitive advantage.

Carbo-Link’s roots are in hi-tech civil and industrial engineering – the company is a spin-off from the highly regarded Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) – but while it remains a world leader in these fields, working on large-scale infrastructure projects, its technology has migrated into other industries including aerospace, motor sport and high-performance sailing. Since the turn of the millennium, a major focus for Carbo-Link’s innovation has been the development and refinement of new, often groundbreaking, rigging solutions for high-performance racing and superyachts.

Economy of scale
Carbo-link actively searches for technology transfer between its marine, aerospace, construction, industrial and motorsport divisions, creating an economy of scale.

‘We’re an innovation company first,’ says James Wilkinson, Carbo- Link’s business development manager. ‘Our research and development spans various industries over more than 15 years. The yacht racing industry is a major beneficiary of this research and development investment.’

We tend to assume that highperformance sailing is at the forefront of technological innovation, but that’s not always the case. The durability of Carbo-Link’s cables, for instance, is well proven in applications that reach far beyond the demands of sailing. The marine classification society DNV GL (formerly Germanischer Lloyd) expects yacht rigging to withstand at least 100,000 load cycles, but Carbo-Link has developed cables that can operate safely at more than 18 million load cycles to meet the far more rigorous requirements of large-scale civil engineering projects. On a slightly smaller scale, its pendants for Liebherr cranes routinely handle three million load cycles. In theory at least, one set of solid carbon rigging cables can literally last a lifetime.

CL Ellipse
One of Carbo-Link’s innovations – elliptically profiled solid carbon rigging, developed for the Deed of Gift America’s Cup multihulls back in 2010 – was so far ahead of the curve that most of the highperformance sailing market (with a few notable exceptions) has only recently begun to embrace it, long after it was used in the America’s Cup. So what’s changed? Fleets have become more competitive and the increases in boatspeed of both multihulls and monohulls in the last few years, particularly with the adoption of hydrofoils, have amplified the inherent benefits of profiled rigging. The higher the apparent wind speed, the bigger the advantage. With Maxi 72s such as MOMO and Cannonball leading the way, profiled solid carbon rigging has finally started to gain some real traction. Race-focused superyachts are set to follow suit, starting with a Baltic 142 due to launch in March next year and with more to follow.

CL Hybrid
Solid carbon rigging offers clear advantages for shrouds, forestays and fixed backstays. It gives you the smallest possible cable diameter and can be profiled to further reduce drag; it’s chafe-resistant, light and durable; and unlike flexible cables, it can live on the mast for years without needing to be sent back to the manufacturer. But what about rigging that needs to bend, like runners and topmast backstays? Solid rigging doesn’t like being flexed around sharp corners, so it’s not ideal for these applications. ‘Some of our clients were having to fall back on flexible cables, which are heavier, have a larger-diameter and a braided cover that needs to be replaced every four years at least,’ Wilkinson says.

Now here’s a solution. Carbo-Link has reintroduced another of its America’s Cup innovations, first introduced in 2007: hybrid carbon rigging, designed to offer all the advantages of solid rigging, but with flexible sections in places where the cable needs to flex: where the deflectors sit; and where the boom can bend the cable.

Hybrid rigging is a continuous carbon cable, with no links or joins. For most of their length, these are solid carbon cables without any cover, and they can be elliptically profiled to further reduce drag. In the flexible sections, the cable is cured into a bundle of carbon rods, allowing them to move relative to each other and flex as required.

Tested at sea
These new hybrid cables are already proven on the water following a season of sailing aboard the Maxi 72s MOMO and Cannonball, building on the experience of the V5 Cup boats in 2007. At the time of writing, hybrid rigging’s performance and reliability has been further proven on the Wallycento Galateia and the Maxi 72 Proteus. ‘The hybrid backstays came along as an optimisation of our Carbo-Link profiled lateral rigging package,’ says Cannonball’s project manager, Lorenzo Mazza. ‘It has been a sensible step, reducing the frontal area of our cables’ sections by 4.5mm and changing the section shape from circular to elliptical. There was no doubt of the good value of this project.

‘It has been great to be able to confirm the design objectives: diminish the cable drag and reduce the weight, whilst at the same time making sure of no feathering, no vibrations and good alignment of the section all way up the cable. All well achieved!’ Mazza continues.

Above: the hybrid carbon rigging cables on this Maxi72 rig reduces the total frontal area of the yachtʼs standing rigging by almost a square metre and its elliptically profiled shape further reduces drag. Below: the two-time Americaʼs Cup winning Swiss sailing team Alinghi is a longterm customer of Carbo-Link, having used its cables since 2007. The teamʼs Deed of Gift cat defender Alinghi 5 went one step further with the enormous but very light platform locked in place using a complex array of Carbo-Linkʼs both round and ellipse solid rigging

What’s the difference in drag between a Maxi 72 mast with a full set of aerodynamically profiled solid carbon rigging and the same mast with regular bundled carbon, circularsection rigging? Wilkinson says the frontal area is reduced by 0.8m2, which equates to at least as much drag as a highway stop sign held perpendicular to the wind – and the reduction in drag coefficient will be substantially more than that. For a Wallycento rig, the difference is a reduction in frontal area of 1.5m2, or two stop signs, and for superyacht rigs it’s even more. Carbo-Link is now working with a number of projects to put both profiled rigging and hybrid carbon rigging on several highperformance yachts and superyachts in the near future, including the Baltic 142.

Carbon toggles
What are the heaviest rigging components on the mast of a large racing yacht? It’s usually the toggles – hefty chunks of stainless steel attached to the upper end of the mast. For a 50-metre boat, they can weigh 50kg or more, and that weight is precisely where you don’t want it to be. Carbo-Link’s recent work with Rondal on the rigs of highperformance superyachts such as Ngoni, Pink Gin and Aquarius has led to another invention: the carbon toggle, which has been entered for the DAME Awards 2018.

The technology derives from crane cables, where it’s already proven and quite widely used. Each toggle is laminated as a basket loop from prepreg carbon and cured under tension to ensure the fibres are perfectly aligned. ‘There might be some torque in the forestay due to friction in a swivel or a wrapped halyard, so our toggles are also designed to take torsional loads,’ Wilkinson says. ‘To avoid load mixtures within the toggles, the different loads are absorbed by different parts of the toggle. Tension is taken by the carbon basket loop and torsion by the outer tube of the toggle.’

What’s the advantage? They can be up to half the weight of regular steel toggles. A weight saving of 60kg (20kg per toggle) at the top of a 60- metre mast will substantially increase the yacht’s righting moment. In practical terms, if the yacht has an eight-metre keel with the balance point in the middle, eliminating 60kg at the masthead could save 900kg of weight in the keel.

The other advantage over steel toggles, of course, is that carbon fibre doesn’t suffer from fatigue. The toggles are designed based on the established load ranges and dimensions, allowing for a like-for-like change. This allows substantial weight reductions aloft, with limited impact on sailing schedules. It is also possible to produce custom toggles for bespoke projects.

Carbo-Link will be launching and showcasing two of its new products, carbon toggles and hybrid carbon rigging, at METS (the Marine Equipment Trade Show) in Amsterdam, on 13-15 November, Hall 07, Stand 121.

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