The performance sailing magazine
£4.30 Issue #1687 July 2015 yachtsandyachting.co.uk M E D I A PA R T N E R
WIN ACWS TICKETS PLUS HENRI LLOYD TEAM BAR KIT EXPERTS’ GUIDE
Solent strategies For 2015’s biggest events EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Ben Ainslie’s Cup campaign
NEW TO SAILING
Start racing Tips and inspiration DESIGN INSIGHT
Quarter Tonners
Thriving under rating changes
PLUS Behind the scenes with Team BAR
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DRONE PHOTOS
D-ZERO ON TEST
IT TAKES TWO
WINDWARD MARK
New technology putting our sport in the frame
Our verdict on the latest singlehander from Devoti
Olympian Luke Patience’s two-boat tuning techniques
Step-by-step advice for port tack approaches
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
THIS MONTH JULY 2015
LLOYD IMAGES
26
Behind the scenes at BAR
OPINION
to win: Windward mark 62 How Mark Rushall turns his attention
6 Hot topics from the racing scene News
to the port tack approach
spotlight 10 News Team Vestas Wind returns to the water
insight 68 Design COVER STORY: Rupert Holmes
13 Time for an America’s Cup Commission?
EQUIPMENT & TRAVEL
on the Quarter Tonner’s re-birth
Bob Fisher
Robertson 14 Andi Calls for an Admiral’s Cup revival
17 Goes virtual racing with SailX Andy Rice
INSIGHT & ANALYSIS in the Solent 18 Winning COVER STORY: Get to grips with the UK’s most famous racing area
26 COVER STORY: Y&Y gets unique
RS Eurocup 34 Georgie Corlett-Pitt gets the inside scoop
test: D-Zero 74 Boat We take to the water in Devoti’s
40 Brazil With sailing set to shine in Rio 2016,
news 78 Boat New boats, updates and
on the annual RS pilgrimage to Europe
we speak to top Brazilian sailors and discover what it means for the country
access to Ben Ainslie’s campaign to win the oldest trophy in sporting history
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the best of brokerage
Solitaire du Figaro
day gift guide 80 Father’s Top gifts for nautical dads
top Brits hoping to lead the way into the UK stopover
guide 82 Buyers’ What to look for in the latest
44 Ed Gorman takes a look at the
BAR behind the scenes
latest singlehanded dinghy
WIN! ACWS Tickets
Plus Henri Lloyd BAR official kit
raft of lifejacket designs
ESSENTIALS
Eye in the sky 48 All you need to know about the
Star Awards 87 Gold The first of our new Gold
Two-boat tuning 54 Luke Patience gives his top tips
& Classes 88 Clubs This month’s round-up from all
latest must-have drone images
56 COVER STORY: How to fast-track Ready, set, race
your skills to the race course
Star winners announced
the top early season events
98 Position The wet cat July 2015 Yachts & Yachting
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EDITORIAL Editor Georgie Corlett-Pitt Deputy Editor Toby Heppell Art Editor Geoff Barton Senior Sub Editor Henry Giles Clubs & Classes Editor Paula Irish club@yachtsandyachting.co.uk Contributors Bob Fisher, Helen Fretter, Ed Gorman, Rupert Holmes, Louay Habib, Luke Patience, Andy Rice, Andi Robertson, Mark Rushall
The performance sailing magazine
£4.30 Issue #1687 July 2015 yachtsandyachting.co.uk M E D I A PA R T N E R
WIN ACWS TICKETS PLUS HENRI LLOYD TEAM BAR KIT
I
Future perspectives
n our December 2013 issue, Y&Y predicted the ‘dream team’ that would be chosen for Sir Ben Ainslie’s 35th Cup campaign. It seems we were right (for the most part!) and, as our recent trip to BAR’s sailing base revealed, Ainslie’s team is shaping up nicely, with just weeks left to go until the America’s Cup World Series 2015-16 opens in front of the crowds on home waters in Portsmouth. Y&Y is delighted to be a media partner for this exciting event – more on that next month. But more often than not, when it comes to sailing, making predictions is no straightforward task. Now more than ever before it seems the pace of change in our sport has a real momentum. Turn the clock back even 10 years, and who would have foreseen that not only was the flagship event – the America’s Cup – being raced for in giant foiling multihulls, but that a plethora of new cats would be finding their feet – or should I say foils – in the market place. Likewise, it would be difficult a decade ago to imagine drone photography becoming de rigueur, not just in high profile yacht racing like the Volvo Ocean Race, but increasingly in ordinary dinghy and keelboat events. Or that there would be a sailing virtual world championship. Or even that there would be calls for an Admiral’s Cup comeback to be hosted – in the Caribbean!
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But let’s not forget that sailing also has some great constants, which are in themselves a huge part of the attraction; not least amongst them iconic regattas such as Cowes Week and Round the Island Race, which encourage thousands of people to take part every year. There’s also the tactical challenges that competitive sailing brings, and no matter how fast the boats get, mastering the elements will always be part of the game. You’ll find plenty of great reports on all this and more packed into this issue, complete with a fresh new look! There’s also bonus content available in our 2015 Solent Special digimag, which is free to download now at yachtsandyachting.co.uk. Whether you like your sailing fast-paced and future-facing, or prefer a more traditional challenge, I look forward to seeing you on the water this summer.
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Yachts & Yachting July 2015
Solent strategies
NEW TO SAILING
Start racing Tips and inspiration DESIGN INSIGHT
Quarter Tonners
For 2015’s biggest events EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Ben Ainslie’s Cup campaign
Thriving under rating changes
PLUS Behind the scenes with Team BAR
YACHTS YACHTING
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
07
9 770044 000205
DRONE PHOTOS
D-ZERO ON TEST
IT TAKES TWO
WINDWARD MARK
New technology putting our sport in the frame
Our verdict on the latest singlehander from Devoti
Olympian Luke Patience’s two-boat tuning techniques
Step-by-step advice for port tack approaches
YY1687_001_Cover.indd 1
YACHTS YACHTING CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
02/06/2015 18:40
Cover Image Paul Wyeth Quarter Tonners racing in the Solent ADVERTISING Advertising Manager Freddy Halliday freddy.halliday@chelseamagazines.com +44 (0)207 349 3744 Advertising Sales Executive Greg Goulding greg.goulding@chelseamagazines.com +44 (0)207 349 3746 Advertising Sales Executive Jodie Green jodie.green@chelseamagazines.com PUBLISHING Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Publishing Consultant Martin Nott WEBSITE yachtsandyachting.co.uk SMALL PRINT Printed in England by William Gibbons. Ad Production: All Points Media www.allpointsmedia.co.uk Distribution: News Trade (UK and Rest of World), Seymour International Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PT. Tel: 020 7429 4000 Fax: 020 7429 4001 Email: info@seymour.co.uk
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND BACK ISSUE ENQUIRIES Yachts & Yachting, Subscriptions Department, 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU Tel: +44 (0)1795 419843 Email: yachts@servicehelpline.co.uk http://yachts.subscribeonline.co.uk Yachts & Yachting is published by The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ Tel: +44 (0)20 7349 3700 © The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd 2015. All rights reserved. ISSN 0044-000
Georgie Corlett-Pitt, Editor
Follow us on Twitter: @YandYMagazine
WRITERS THIS MONTH INCLUDE… Ed Gorman is a former sailing correspondent for The Times and has long been a passionate supporter of solo ocean racing
C/O LPB AERIAL IMAGERY
EXPERTS’ GUIDE
Luke Patience is one of the world’s top sailors, taking silver in the 470 at the London Olympics. He’s now campaigning for 2016
No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission in writing. Every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information in Yachts & Yachting, but no responsibility can be accepted for the consequences of actions based on the advice portrayed herein. The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd makes every effort to ensure that the advertising contained in this magazine is derived from responsible sources. We cannot, however, accept responsibility for transactions between readers and advertisers. Yachts & Yachting welcomes letters. Also part of the Chelsea Marine Magazines family:
Rupert Holmes has more than 70,000 miles of experience at sea. He has raced extensively including navigating Farr 45s and TP52s
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The Bembridge Redwing class competing at Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week
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RACING IN THE SOLENT The Solent is busy, tidal and tricky – and home to many of the UK’s most prestigious regattas. We pick out the highlights of 2015’s exciting event line-up, and get winning advice from top sailors
Read more Solent strategies at yachtsandyachting.co.uk Special digimag download FREE!
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BAR BEHIND THE SCENES Georgie Corlett-Pitt and Toby Heppell speak to Team BAR about the ultimate British campaign to bring the America’s Cup home
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FEATURE
houses team briefing areas and further kit storage. With T1 – the team’s first test boat – out on the water when we arrive, there’s nothing in particular to set this site aside from any other boat yard, and the prominent BAR logo framing the doorway of each boatshed is the one tiny concession to the glaring corporate grandeur usually associated with the Cup world; everything else on-site is bare bones, perfunctory; all concrete and high-vis. As the giant catamaran accompanied by two Scorpion chase boats ghosts into the dock after a breezy training session on Southampton Water, the site suddenly bristles with activity, with the shore crew preparing for the 45-minute task of craning out T1. It’s a well-practised routine, with sailors and shore team alike pitching in to retrieve, wash down and examine every inch of the hull and foils; the
towering solid wing structure is then dismounted and given similar scrutiny. For the sailing team, it’s straight into a debrief to discuss the learnings from the day, analyse video footage, tally that with data taken off the boat, and give their feedback to the design team, shore crew and fitness coaches. Later this summer, when BAR’s shiny new £15 million state-of-the-art base at The Camber in Portsmouth opens, things may well look a little different; design team, sailors and support crew will be united under one purposebuilt roof (currently the design and operations office is located several miles away in Whiteley), bringing greater operational efficiency and providing the team with a true home from which to build their future ambitions. But for now, every minute counts in the race to be the team to bring home the Cup for Britain.
BAR/HARRY KENNEY-HERBERT
T
ucked behind several sets of security gates beyond Dock Gate 4 at Southampton’s ABP Port, is Ben Ainslie Racing’s T1 site – the team’s temporary sailing base. Thanks to its discreet location, there would be few able to pinpoint the exact spot that is currently the hub of BAR’s campaign; despite regularly training on the open waters of the Solent, as with all America’s Cup teams, there’s a sense of secrecy shrouding the ins and outs of the operation – and until now the doors have remained closed. For nine months the T1 site has provided the operational hub for BAR, as the team meticulously constructs the all-important foundations of its Cup campaign. Dominating the quayside are two giant structures functioning as temporary boat sheds; behind that, a warren of portacabins
BEN AINSLIE RACING
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6 ISSUES FROM JUST
LASER VORTEX UPDATED
The Laser Vortex has been undergoing a number of changes to help improve the half-mono-half-catamaran and broaden the class appeal to new sailors. The idea here is that following the destruction of the moulds by Laser when they stopped building a new version of the boat some 10 years ago, new moulds have been created and the design tweaked. So now, for the first time in over a decade, new Vortexes may be purchased. As is always the difficulty with an existing class undergoing redevelopment, the class association spent a significant amount of time
NEW
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and effort trying to work out just how much to improve the boat to increase appeal but also avoid killing the class by making all of the original boats uncompetitive in one fell swoop. Changes are broadly based around fixing known problems within the hulls, such as weak bulkheads but there have also been some deck and layout changes and the boat is now 10kg lighter. On the final point,
sailors will be asked to sail with corrector weights that will reduce in amount every year in order to maintain competition. Finally the carbon masts have been designed to take the loads of the asymmetric spinnaker, which was introduced in 2005 and to take the loads that would be added through a self-tacking jib – should the class wish to go down this route in the future.
DIGITAL E
MINI 650
The Classe Mini 650 (the class used for the Mini Transat) comes in two different flavours, the production and Proto (prototype), and it is in the latter that we often see an array of exciting designs. Most recently we have seen scow-bowed style Protos taking the fleet by storm – one in particular winning the event in 2011 and coming second in 2013 – and this new Proto is clearly a development of those. Although the Mini Transat course is a largely downwind affair, the scow-bowed concepts have proved to be remarkably speedy upwind too, or at least not as slow as one might imagine!
FOR SALE
DITION
This design offers a slightly lower profile bow than those that have gone before and features a very odd boxy cockpit. It will certainly be interesting to see how she goes in the next Mini Transat. But one thing is for sure, to our eyes she looks more slipper than racing boat.
HUNTER SONATA ARGO
Race-ready with a decent record. Goacher mainsail, Westaway no. 1, 2 spinakers, serviceable 2 & 3 plus others. Milanes Foils rudder 2014, long-shaft mariner outboard, sundry gear in date for scrutineering. Cradle, storage paid and can deliver. Make: Hunter Boats Model: Sonata Mk 1 Year: 1980 Length overall: 7m Price: £3,750 Location: Devon, UK Contact: Richard Spreckley 07811 178 751
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