There’s backing yourself and there’s backing yourself to the tune of a flying, foiling, sailing luxury superyacht...

Most developments in yachting are evolution, not revolution but every once in a while a boat is launched that’s a complete game changer, difficult to categorise because it’s distinctly different from anything that’s come before. Thus it is with Baltic Yachts’ 111ft (34m) foil assisted superyacht Raven.

This isn’t a raceboat but it is focused on taking performance to a whole new level. It’s not a blue water cruiser but it is designed to make high-speed, long-distance offshore passages, potentially crossing an ocean with the owner and guests on board. At the time of writing there’s nothing else quite like Raven afloat.

Even for Baltic, which has a long history of innovation (told in Seahorse April 2023), you have to go back 21 years to find a project that pushes the boundaries of technology as much as Raven. That was the Baltic 147 Visione, the first superyacht capable of planing at 30kts. Packed with unique innovations and developed in house at Baltic with almost literally no expense spared, Visione is still a force to be reckoned with on the regatta circuit. The owner’s rep on the Raven project, Garth Brewer of A2B Marine Projects, has also been involved with Visione ever since her inception.

Raven is an equally bold step forward into the unknown. This is a development project rather than a typical custom build and it may take some time for the yacht to reach its full potential. The owner’s team and the yard are quite sensibly unwilling at this stage to make any claims or release any figures about performance. They have, however, shared some key specifications with Seahorse and those numbers make interesting reading.

Raven’s ‘bird’s nest’ guest cockpit structure is composed of load-bearing carbon mullions and acrylic window/lantern panels

Raven’s light ship displacement is 55 tons, with 9,300kg of ballast. The design waterline (DWL) length of 33.1m is just 90cm shy of the 34m overall length (LOA). Comparing those figures with the recently launched Baltic 110 Zemi – a state-of-the art, high-performance superyacht with 95 tons of displacement, 30 per cent ballast ratio, 33.5m LOA and 31.2m DWL – it’s clear that Raven is a very different beast. Only their beam is similar: Zemi’s 7.6m to Raven’s 7.4m. Design and styling are by the Finnish designer and naval architect Jarkko Jämsén, who worked closely with the owner to define and refine the concept. While Jämsén is primarily renowned for designing powerboats and large motor yachts, the key players in the technical design team, Botín Partners and Pure Design & Engineering, both have deep experience at the forefront of current grand prix ocean racing and America’s Cup development.

An almost full-scale mock-up of the entire boat was constructed and comprehensively checked before the build commenced. ‘In the early stages of the project we also built construction mock-ups in many different shapes to ensure that all bonding would be 100 per cent and followed up with NDT scans,’ Baltic Yachts’ project coordinator Mattias Svenlin explains. ‘That’s the only way to do it. Every square centimetre of the hull has been NDTed.’

Like an AC75 or Ultim trimaran, Raven’s hull and deck are intermediate modulus (IM) prepreg carbon laminates with Kevlar Nomex honeycomb core throughout, cured in three stages under vacuum at 85°C. Most composite builds of this nature require teams of expert freelance boatbuilders to be assembled, but Baltic Yachts has all of the necessary expertise in house. Only the construction of foils and foil arms was outsourced to a specialist fabricator.

Raven will sail on her chine but with enormous dynamic righting moment generated by the foils, plus water ballast, she does not need high-volume aft quarters to provide form stability like a typical modern yacht

‘When you want absolutely the most lightweight construction you can’t think about biaxial fibres and rovings and so on,’ Svenlin explains. ‘You have to go for 200gsm unidirectional IM fibre, which is three times as labour intensive. And with the very best quality IM fibre you have to debulk every layer, or at least every second layer. By contrast, with a SPRINT setup you can do it every 10 layers and that’s it, you’re ready to cure. I won’t put any numbers on it but the difference in labour hours is huge.’ The thickness of the hull laminate varies enormously, from very thin in the topsides near the bow to a hundred times thicker or more around the foils. When both of those areas then have to be cured in the same oven ‘it gets pretty tricky,’ Svenlin says.

The structural bulkheads and loadbearing panels inside the hull are made with the same high-end composite materials, using a lamination press, and then CNC-milled for a precise fit. The hull moulds were built in carbon to reduce heat differences and thus distortion during the curing process. This produces a near perfect surface on the hull’s outer skin so there is virtually no need to use fairing compound and the paint coatings effectively do the job of filler. Using this construction technique in a superyacht is unprecedented, according to Baltic.

One of the two simple but stylish and ultra-lightweight guest cabins

Raven isn’t a classed vessel but the hull is constructed in line with the parameters of DNV GL classification. ‘We got them involved at an early stage,’ Svenlin says. ‘There were some areas and some details that they were nervous about so we built full scale sections of the parts of the hull with the most difficult shapes just to confirm that everything is totally bonded and to have an understanding of more or less every single layer – how many layers you can have for each cure and so on. That was a really big part of the project in the beginning.’ A structural plan review has also been certified by World Sailing.

Weight control has of course been a key factor throughout every aspect of the project. ‘To build in the lightest way possible you need to have everyone involved from day one,’ Svenlin says. ‘From the day you start with the hull mould, you should already be taking into account how to avoid using any extra fillers on the hull. And to keep that red line through the whole project is absolutely the key. If you find enough ways to save a hundred grams per square metre by looking closely at every detail – including things which are already lightweight – you end up saving a lot of weight.’

Some of the production techniques that Baltic has developed specifically for Raven will now be used in future builds. ‘We have learned a lot from this project,’ Svenlin says. ‘For example in 3D printing. It’s a good way to make prototypes, next morning you have it and can test it. We even 3D print with titanium, the pop-up deck cleats are one example where we have saved a lot of weight.

Initially at least, when sailing in foiling mode the yacht’s fore-and-aft trim will be controlled by a pair of powerboat-style interceptor trim tabs working independently

‘Another technique we have developed is using projectors to see exactly how much overlap we should have on a bulkhead,’ he says. ‘This has raised the level of quality in the details of our structural bulkheads.’

Raven’s central passenger cockpit – nicknamed the bird’s nest – is also a significant innovation. ‘There is a lot of engineering in that,’ Baltic Yachts’ project manager for the build, Sam Evans, explains. ‘It’s driven from the designer’s idea not to hide anything, to show the structure and the installations. From the cockpit you can see the bulkheads, the systems and you get a lot of light inside the boat.’

The carbon structure of the bird’s nest takes all the loads so the acrylic panels can be very thin. ‘The glazing on this boat was a huge study in itself,’ Evans says. ‘Acrylic is where we ended up. We went down some much more technical avenues but for the weight and longevity we want, this is the best solution right now.’

The entire hull was built with top-quality 200gsm unidirectional IM carbon fibre

For shelter there is a hard spray top, hinged at the midpoint of the cockpit. ‘When retracted it folds aft and is mirrored in the back of the cockpit, so it almost disappears with the canopy matching the mullions in the cockpit structure,’ Evans explains. ‘It’s light enough that two crew can deploy it with a halyard. The boom has to be out of the way so it does need some forethought but when going out sailing for the day you can easily rig it before you leave and pack it away when you’re finished.’

Raven’s sailing systems are fully hydraulic, driven by a diesel-electric serial hybrid setup with two 80kW gensets powering three electric motors. ‘The concept is that she’s not going to be serviced constantly and won’t have a shore team on board every day,’ Evans says. Compared with a grand prix foiling monohull racer, a much higher degree of self-sufficiency is required.

Rattan headlining, acoustic foam finish and tubular prepreg carbon furniture

Ultra-light interior

Raven’s ultra-lightweight interior is highly unusual. The designer Jarkko Jämsén has turned the need for extreme weight saving into an opportunity to showcase the yacht’s complex carbon construction and some of its sophisticated technical systems redefining luxury.

Much of the hull’s inner skin and the load-bearing internal structures are left exposed and uncoated show casing the skilled workmanship so often hidden away. All the usual sound insulation materials have been eliminated, which saves a lot of weight. Lightweight acoustic foam is applied to some bulkheads to slightly soften the noise of sailing at speed. Even the adhesive used to attach the foam was subject to a weight study, saving 6kg.

Carbon tubes and rattan are used extensively in the headlining, panelling and furniture. Every carbon pipe bracket is 100g lighter than normal, using carbon cable trays reduces weight further and steel hydraulic pipework has been replaced with lightweight hosing, saving 160kg.

There is a large saloon with a dining area and galley just forward of the ‘bird’s nest’ passenger cockpit, two cabins for four guests further forward and crew accommodation up front, including a captain’s cabin. The aft part of the yacht is mostly empty except for the owner’s sleeping quarters, where a big double berth on the centreline folds up against a bulkhead and there’s a passage berth to starboard.

The guest heads and shower compartments are a highlight of Raven’s interior. Perspex panels give views of the complex construction of the A-frame that takes the load of the deck-stepped mast and the hydraulic rams that drive some of the yacht’s key sailing systems. While having a shower, the guests can see the upper and lower deflector rams in action or watch the downhaul ram for the 7m long reaching strut as it changes the headsail sheet leads.

The weight of the shower doors has been reduced from a typical 13.5kg/m² to just 2.3kg/m² and further weight saving has been achieved with carbon shower seats that looks just like bamboo, complete with characteristic rings and a realistic painted finish.

The full-beam mainsheet traveller is a crucial piece of kit on a boat like this. The rig itself is relatively conventional

Initially at least, all sailing systems will be manually controlled. ‘There will be a lot of further development and potentially automation,’ Evans says. ‘That is being prepared for but it’s seen as further down the line.’ To begin with, in foil-assisted mode the boat’s fore-and-aft trim will be controlled by a pair of interceptor trim tabs that move independently up and down like a planing powerboat. ‘Regarding rudder elevators it would be fair to say that considering the developmental nature of the project all options will be considered once enough data has been collected,’ Evans says. The sailing team, managed by Klabbe Nylöf, will have a core crew of five including skipper Damien Durchon, who has prior offshore experience. A shore-based technical team will develop the yacht continuously to achieve its full potential. For the training and test phase of Raven's development, additional crew will be drawn on rotation from a team of 20 sailors with solid high-performance experience.

So, what happens next? The commissioning process is expected to continue in Jakobstad for the rest of the 2023 sailing season. Then Raven will sail south on her own keel for the winter – and the innovation is set to continue.

Click here for more information on Baltic Yachts »

We talk to SLAM CEO Enrico Chieffi about how their partnership with Emirates Team New Zealand helps make better products for sailors

Enrico Chieffi, CEO of Italian sailing clothes brand SLAM, and Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, have a relationship that goes way back. Both of them have a long track record as world class sailors and managers. Through decades they have been both rivals and friends. Now they have a joint project: developing the best possible sailing clothes in a partnership that puts ENTZ in a better position to win their fifth America’s Cup title, and SLAM in a position where they can benefit from the feedback of the world’s best sailors.

Even before the deal, Dalton had noticed something happening to SLAM since Chieffi took over two years ago. ‘SLAM has demonstrated its clear, positive strategy in working towards becoming one of the world's best high-performance sailing clothing brands’, says Dalton, ‘and all of us at Emirates Team New Zealand look forward to working alongside them on that mission. We are a team of over 100 people across a diverse range of vital roles from engineering to boatbuilding to sailing and every single one of us is equally important and must work together if we are to win the America’s Cup. This philosophy extends to all our partners, and SLAM has already demonstrated its commitment to building quality apparel.’

Chieffi is a former world champion in the 470 and Star classes, a double Olympic sailor and held the vital role of tactician on Italy's America's Cup challenger Il Moro di Venezia in 1992. After his career in the sport, he went on to be a business leader. After a period as MD of Nautor Swan in Finland, Chieffi moved back to Italy in 2021, into a position as CEO and shareholder of SLAM. This meant a complete reorganisation and a quite radical five-year plan.

‘SLAM is a very well-known brand’, says Chieffi, ‘but before we took over, the company had moved in a more lifestyle oriented direction. And this project failed. So, the new plan was very simple: Move back to what the company was originally – a company made for sailors. I like to say that we are a brand new company with a 40 year history. The first thing we did was to cut drastically down on the number of items we were selling. We wanted to concentrate on the core of the brand, which is clothing for sailors. So, what is needed to go sailing? We started by reducing the number of items from 600 to 125. To have so many products is very inefficient and not very sustainable. The first point of sustainability is not to produce what is not needed. At the same time, we have increased the use of recycled materials.

‘The next step was to restructure and organise SLAM assets to start the repositioning to become the best sailing technical brand – SLAM had very good products for the price but was not known to be among the top premium brands. We have kept that position for our core business, but introduced a top-quality pro line, that had not existed in the past. This was to position ourselves among the very best players in the world. We know this is a small niche market, but we also think it’s crucial to be credible at a certain level. And the partnership with ETNZ is the first example of what this has led to. They did not choose us for the money, we are a small company. They could choose any company in the world but they chose us because they were very positively surprised by the quality of the new collection. I can testify to that myself. Since we took over I have personally tested every single garment, especially the pro line. It’s very simple, use it and you know if it works or not.

Above: the SLAM AC collection does include foul weather gear but that’s for the chase boat crews, not for the AC75 sailors.

‘Now, in partnership with ETNZ we are going deep into the development of high-performance clothing. And not only for the guys on the boat. The first thing Grant said to me was that on his team there were no A and B team members. Everyone, the shore team, the people on the chase boats, the design team, boatbuilders and of course the sailors, all are equally important. That is the strength of the team. As a consequence, we developed clothing for all of these different functions. More specifically, we defined three groups: One was everyone on the water, not only the sailors but also the people helping out at sea. The second was the shore team, people helping with preparing the boats and so forth. And the third was the office group: engineers, designers, people working with all the services needed for the team. All of these people are contributing to the success of the team and it was important to include everyone.

‘Another consideration in the development phase was the fact that Emirates Team New Zealand will only operate in summer seasons during this America’s Cup cycle. They spent the summer this year in Barcelona and for the upcoming winter they will move back to Auckland where they will work in the southern hemisphere summer season. Next year they will come back to Barcelona for another summer. These were the principles upon which we developed the full package of clothing.

‘We have received a lot of positive feedback from the team, they are already using our clothes. Clothing can be quite a complicated issue, there’s design, sizes, fitting, materials, timing. It’s a long process to plan, develop, produce, ship and deliver everything. In this case timing was very important and we are happy to say that everything was delivered as wanted on time. Kiwis are very direct people, it’s a raw culture and you have to gain their trust. But the moment you do that you are their best friend. Italians, we talk a lot but we don’t always deliver what we promise. We did deliver and that was very important.

‘Going back to the substance of the product, foiling has definitely opened a new frontier in sailing. The fast-sailing concept is much better for TV and has different parameters for winning. For me as a sailor, this is not to say that we have abandoned traditional, you could say slow sailing. I’m still active in the Star class, a boat that sails at five knots, maybe six knots. I love this way of racing and consider it the most sophisticated form of the art. And we as a company are not neglecting that. This is still the majority of sailing and probably more than 90 per cent of the market. But clearly, foiling is the new frontier. And it’s really worth exploring – it’s very cool, visually fascinating and there are a lot of new things to learn. This goes also for our clothing and we hope that this is only the beginning. The plan is that this is going to be a long term collaboration and that we can do several Cups together. Emirates Team New Zealand has survived for a very long time, they are good at continuity. And so are we.

‘America’s Cup boats sail inshore races only so the clothing series is not designed for offshore sailing. Protection from sun, wind pressure, rashes and minimum drag are the driving factors. Of course we have developed foul weather gear, SLAM has been working on that area for many years but for ETNZ that is for team members on support boats, not for the sailors. There’s too much volume for the AC75 sailors. Instead we have brought technology from other fields into the maritime sphere. The line of products used on the AC75 is inspired by other sports: high-speed skiing, cycling, situations where aerodynamics play a role. It’s very tight so any drag is reduced as much as possible. Since they use bikes on the boats for power generation we have developed special bike pants for the crew members in those positions.

Above: the apparel designed for the AC75 sailors is skin tight and low drag, inspired by high-speed skiing and cycling gear

‘At the same time the races are very short and sailed in very hot conditions, which is unusual circumstances for sailors like you and me. It’s more like a dinghy environment. So what’s needed is something very breathable to stay fresh and at the same time something that provides protection. Something that dries out in minutes. Actually the sailors hose themselves with fresh water before going out on the water, to lower their body temperature. And within minutes the clothes are dry.

‘The SLAM sailing collection available for customers is an extraction of the package delivered to the AC sailors. Some items are the same, but for some products it would not make sense. We are offering clothes that are useful for the common user, but some items are very advanced and specialised and the numbers would be way too small to justify a production. It would simply be too expensive.

‘To be a partner with the number one Formula One team in sailing is an incredible opportunity to be connected to the pinnacle of the sport. We are partnering with the Italian Olympic Team, so we are also connected to the younger generation, as well as with top offshore sailors. Basically the top people from both sides are all helping us now to develop the best products. This is not only a sponsorship, it is a real partnership because everything we learn during this process will come back to us as a company and contribute to the development of our products,’ Chieffi concludes.

Click here for more information on Slam »

From grand prix raceboats to superyachts, Synapse is taking load sensing to a whole new level and turning America’s Cup style data analysis into a more accessible, easy-to-use solution for a wider range of sailors

The sharp end of sailing is a numbers game and load sensors play a pivotal role. The volume of data can easily become overwhelming and it’s often a challenge to calibrate, manage, store and interpret it effectively. What has been missing in the marketplace, until now, is a fully integrated solution. North Technology Group has created a new division – Synapse, a spin-off from their composite rigging maker, Future Fibres – to fill that gap.

The load-sensing systems that most grand prix sailing teams rely on are complex and highly bespoke. Modern superyachts have broadly similar setups, albeit for different reasons with safety as the main focus. Synapse offers a complete system that logs, displays, distributes, manages and stores all the data that any racing team or superyacht captain is likely to need, along with a tailored suite of user interfaces and software tools to help with analysis.

A stand-out feature of Synapse is that its load cells are built into the terminations of Future Fibres rigging. ‘The unique advantage is that we measure load and strain in line with the load and we don’t have to add any links,’ says Synapse general manager Nick Christensen, formerly head of design at Future Fibres. ‘With a load pin, you’re bending the pin and measuring the strain of bending. That relies on getting the setup for calibration and the setup on the boat exactly the same. As soon as you start pulling in a slightly different direction the pin is no longer calibrated to do that. But if you’re pulling in line with the rig there are no arguments, you can’t possibly pull that in a different way because it just gets pulled in tension. So we know the calibration we do in the lab is exactly transferrable to the setup on the yacht..’

The benefits for riggers and engineers are obvious. ‘When I was at Future Fibres, we encountered challenges with our rigging teams visiting boats equipped with load pins and electronics that were outdated or malfunctioning,’ Christensen recalls. ‘There might be a barrel pin and the mast was raked back in a different direction. So the engineers would have to go through a tedious process of going up and down on the shims, applying different loads and comparing that with the models before they could trust the pins. With these new load cells built into our rigging, it’s out of the box trustworthy and good to go.’ The inherent uncertainty of uncalibrated load pin readings, which can be up to 10 per cent, is thus eliminated.

Above and below: two examples of live display dashboards showing actual, target and maximum loads.

Synapse load cells are built into a wide range of rigging components such as custom turnbuckles for V1 and D1 shrouds, upper or lower end headstay terminations, and various types of lashing eyes for the upper end of running backstays. ‘For backstays it makes more sense to put the load cell in the upper end because it doesn’t move much,’ Christensen explains. ‘When you ease a leeward runner its lower end moves a lot. If you put a load cell there, the cable carrying the signal would have to ease with it, requiring a lot of extra length or use wireless transmission which has its own challenges, frequency and battery life among them.’ Synapse can also replace ram jaws with load cell jaws for any hydraulic ram and integrate sensors into mast base compression shims.

There’s a lot more to Synapse than load cells. The hub of the system is the Nucleus processor which logs all the data locally, distributes it in real time to onboard systems such as Sailmon or B&G, and importantly, also to users’ phones and tablets or laptops via a web browser offering some unique features. The Nucleus unit weights about 1kg and has 64GB of internal storage. For a typical implementation that’s three to six months’ worth of continuous logging at a high frequency and if more storage capacity is needed a USB hard drive can be plugged in.

Nucleus also hosts a range of data-viewing dashboards that are designed specifically for each customer’s needs. After some filtering, it pushes all the data to the Synapse cloud where interactive dashboards help users to analyse their data after a race, or inspect it after an offshore passage.

‘We create a digital product for sailors that works for them and is easy,’ Christensen says. ‘We’re in a unique place to do that because we already do the engineering of the entire rig – everything above the deck. If you’re on a grand prix boat, trying to push the limits without breaking things, we’re giving you a very well-engineered solution for live feedback about where you sit with the current loads versus our engineering. Not just for maximum loads, it can help you achieve target loads on various points of sail.’

‘And if you’re on a superyacht, we’re giving you an easy way to manage the human safety factor as well as protecting the gear. It’s about taking out all the guesswork of are we OK or are we not OK here. We can make that work because we’ve designed the sail or the spar or the rigging in the first place. That’s another big focus for us.’

Early adopters of the complete Synapse solution include the foil-assisted Baltic 111 Raven, TP52 Vesper, ClubSwan 80 My Song and former Maxi72 North Star. Synapse load cells are also integrated into the rigging of the ClubSwan 125 Skorpios, the Baltic 108 Winwin and several Southern Wind yachts. Two more users that can’t be named are a leading America’s Cup team and another large foiling monohull.

‘Raven is a good example of the value we can deliver,’ Christensen says. ‘They have a unique setup so we’ve done dashboards that show – in real time, for whatever sail configuration they’re using – the live load overlaid with the max load, overlaid with the target.’

Above: unlike a load pin, a load cell built into a turnbuckle is only loaded in tension so that calibration that is done in the lab is then exactly transferrable to the yacht

‘This is America’s Cup style data analysis but we’re making it more accessible,’ Christensen says. ‘If we just dumped all the data in the cloud, no one would ever use it because it’s too hard. We have an event system that will flag an overload, or for something routine like a tack or gybe it can create a dashboard so you can see all the loads that were going on without needing to trawl though all your data. For the racing sailor it’s easier access to meaningful data and for the superyacht captain it’s an easy way to review how much they’re stressing the rigging compared to its working load.’

There are potential benefits in after-sales service for customers of North Sails, Southern Spars, Hall Spars and Future Fibres. ‘We can close the loop with our engineering, get real world data and feed it back with some actionable insights, either for safety or performance,’ he explains. ‘For example you might be putting eight tons of load on the headstay and we can say that you should be using 12 tons.’

Another key feature of Synapse is its ability to sample data at a very high rate of up to 100Hz, which makes the data much more reliable. ‘Some years ago I did some load testing on a boat in New Zealand,’ Christensen recalls. ‘We went out and logged at 15Hz on the first day, then reviewed the data. The next day we logged at 50Hz and the data looked completely different. The loads are so dynamic that if you go too slow – the difference between logging at 10 points per second and 50 points or 100 points – you run the risk of cleanly missing the peak. We saw similar average values but when we turned up the frequency we saw that it actually peaked quite a lot higher.’

The snag with logging at 100Hz (or even at 50Hz) is that it creates an enormous volume of data but the Nucleus processing hub is designed to manage it. ‘When you’re logging at such a high rate you don’t want to send all of it to the cloud but you don’t want to drop it either,’ Christensen says. ‘So we have algorithms that can thin the data when it makes sense to do so. When Synapse predicts that the load is going towards a peak it will capture a lot more data and retain it. When the loads are low and not going to peak, the effective sampling frequency can be greatly reduced to much more manageable levels. When you need data it will all be there but you don’t have to store too much in the cloud or clog up your bandwidth.’

When a peak load is predicted it triggers the event system automatically: ‘When something happens, Nucleus will keep all the data around that event, depending on what it is, for let’s say plus or minus 30 seconds. I think that’s a unique feature.’

So what’s next for Synapse now that the first implementations of their end-to-end solution are out on the water logging and compiling data? They’re already looking to leverage the power of Nucleus and the Synapse cloud and incorporate data from other sensing technology. To that end they are partnering with Insensys, a leader in the field of fibre optic strain sensors, which opens the system up to other areas of yachting, measuring hull or foil strains for example. The team is excited about the possibilities that will enable sailors to really get the best from their equipment while staying within the engineering limits.

Click here for more information on Synapse Marine »

Structured luff sails have created fresh challenges for deck and rig hardware designers with working loads going through the roof. This has spurred Rigging Projects to develop some creative solutions

Load-sharing sails have generated a lot of excitement at the cutting edge of sailing – first code sails, then headsails, now mainsails – and with good reason. Their performance boosting potential is significant and their ability to give a huge range of depth and camber to sails is leading a revolution of tech trickling down from the America’s Cup to all boat platforms, even superyachts. The ability of structured luff sails to reduce loads has been grabbing headlines but the load has to go somewhere else. That creates new challenges for designers of deck and rigging hardware. Rising to the challenge, Rigging Projects has developed some creative, forward-thinking solutions.

‘We’ve always looked to push boundaries,’ says Nick Black, a partner and designer at Rigging Projects with a background in naval architecture and grand prix sailing. ‘When there haven’t been solutions in the market to handle emerging technologies, we’ve always gone after it, often starting from scratch as we did with our locking headboard cars. We’ve seen our product range grow exponentially in a short period of time to deal with these challenges. With structured luff sails, the camber control is incredible. You may be reducing the load on your forestay but the load split between sail and forestay has gone from 10 per cent on the sail, up to 40 per cent and Rigging Projects have had to come up with unique products to deal with this.’

‘As a result our auto halyard lock range has seen an extreme jump in loads. This was a driving factor for us integrating load cells into our forward locks. For example Aquarius II, the 212ft ketch that Royal Huisman is building, in partnership with Rondal, would normally have had a 15-ton jib halyard lock. It has now jumped up to 40 tons. It used to be enough to have a load pin on the forestay or rigging terminal but if we’re going to handle such large loads we really need to know where they’re going and thus we designed the first lock with an integrated load cell.’ This new style of lock is already on the 155ft sloop Hyperion, which also needed a new, stronger topmast section to handle the extra strain of a new structured luff code 0.

Halyard locks are just one small part of the Rigging Projects Group. With the recently launched Gunboat 80-01, Rigging Projects Design was instrumental in bringing together the owner’s team, Gunboat, North Sails and Southern Spars to develop one of the most advanced performance cruising cats. ‘We were excited and lucky to have an owner with the vision and belief in all of us as a team to ‘design in’ load-sharing across the whole sail wardrobe including, for the first time, mainsail Helix structured luff technology which was pioneered at the last America’s Cup. As with headsails the cunningham load on new Helix mainsails has jumped threefold,’ Black explains. ‘For 80-01 it’s 6T (compared to 2T for non-structured) and that’s a massive change which amplifies the load on the headboard car. We had to redesign our locking headboard car to work in the same envelope but handle these extra loads, which is quite an engineering challenge.’

Above: Rigging Projects’ new X Car on the mainsheet track of the Mills 68, Pelotari

More and more, Rigging Projects design services are brought in at project initiation by boatyards or private clients to help bring together the design loop and sailing system implementation.

‘We’re tremendously passionate about our role in helping clients realise their dreams with their boats,’ Black says. ‘Our ability to do the turn-key package from initial design concepts to hardware provision, textile manufacturing and servicing means we are unique in the industry. For the GB80 we were brought in from the conception of the project, working alongside VPLP, deciding sail plan parameters and defining all the sailing systems. The owner’s preferred sailmaker was North Sails and with an eye on the owner wanting to create something special we were able to work with North Design Services to make this possible.

‘We help with our back catalogue of knowledge to determine the load case runs for the sail and spar package. The accuracy and speed of the North Sails design suite means that we able to fast-track load results and hardware placement often before the lines plans are finalised. This leads to major acceleration in project decisions and weight saving and ultimately allows more time to design the right custom solutions for the project. The strong collaboration that exists between North Sails and Rigging Projects is a major benefit to our clients.’

‘It’s a new and exciting era of sail design we are developing,’ says JB Braun, head of North Sails Design Development. ‘Being able to bring technology we developed for the America’s Cup and implement it in these projects is a great benefit for all sailors.’

Some of the notable Rigging Projects involvements this year on consultancy and hardware have been the provision for the Gunboat 80, the two new Baltic Yachts launches and the mast hardware for the 152ft Art Explorer catamaran. The new PB72 semi-displacement foiling catamaran and a new 100ft monohull project at Persico are two exciting projects they have been working on together with North Design Services, and these are certain to be two of the most exciting launches in 2024.

Below: Rigging Projects’ jib halyard locks now have integrated load cells

It’s early days for structured luff mainsails but the Gunboat 80 is already showing that the benefits include easier boat handling alongside the boost in performance. ‘With a normal mainsail you’d be able to change the mast curve by about 120mm, with a structured luff we can overbend the mast another 30 per cent by putting six tons on the cunningham,’ Black explains.’ That extra flattening allows for another level of control not seen before which can help with a steadier hull fly or not having to drop that reef in for another couple of knots’.

These gains are significant enough that Southern Spars deemed it worthwhile – as it was for the America’s Cup boats – to go with high-modulus carbon fibre for Gunboat 80-01’s mast instead of ultra-high modulus carbon, which would have been too stiff to withstand the extra 30 per cent bend. ‘It’s worth giving up some of the weight advantage for the improved sail trimming ability and performance gain of the structured luff mainsail,’ Black says. ‘Being able to work with Southern Spars who designed all the AC masts gave us that confidence to push this tech forward in this arena.’

Quinny Houry, head of North Sails Palma, who implemented the sail package, says: ‘The mast properties combined with North Sails Helix technology have pushed the design envelope up to America’s Cup levels. These developments bring smaller and yet more versatile sail wardrobes.’

For cruising boats, the major advantage of Helix structured luff technology is to reduce the inventory of sails on board. ‘The wind range that each sail works in becomes much wider thanks to the ability to change the camber,’ Houry says. On the PB72, as with the Gunboats, we’ve managed to take sails out of an already small inventory and required sail crossovers to achieve the boat’s VPPs. This is a game changer even for a normal cruising boat.’

Above: North Sails’ Design Suite software enabled the Gunboat 80 rig design team to fast-track load results and hardware placement

So what’s next?
‘For us it’s all about friction,’ Black says. ‘To get the full advantage out of these systems we need to reduce friction and that’s where we are concentrating our R&D efforts in all our product ranges such as the recently released X Glide sheaves.

‘The R&D programme we have developed has enabled a new mainsheet traveller car to be launched at the METS trade fair this year. All our boats, not just the foiling ones, are looking for that active edge of trimming and the ability to move the traveller as fast and easily as possible. Again we’ve gone back to the drawing board, starting from scratch and come up with something unique. We are excited to show this off at METS and the spin-offs from this tech will lead us into some other industry improvements, so watch this space,’ Black concludes.

Success has fuelled rapid expansion, with 30-40 per cent growth year on year for the last decade, a bespoke running rigging business established at Zaandam in The Netherlands, new service and support teams in Palma, Mallorca and Rhode Island, USA and a recently set up bespoke manufacturing facility for Rigging Projects hardware. All their hardware is now manufactured at their HQ in Hampshire, UK. But Black is keen to point out that the key to it all stems from close collaboration with other key innovators. ‘The best thing about these projects is all the engineering brains coming together,’ he says. ‘Take PB72, for example, we were working with North Design Services, Southern Spars and Morelli & Melvin. It’s very rewarding for everyone, we each have our role but it’s all a team game and we are very lucky to be involved.’

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