Happy chappy… Ian Lipinski dominated the Class40 for two years with his first scow, Crédit Mutuel 1, then once the performance of his ‘novel’ design became obvious the rest of the fleet rushed to follow designer David Raison’s lead and eventually improve on it; remarkably, following the launch of No 158, every single Class40 launched has been a scow. No157 now - and probably for ever - holding the distinction of being the last ever ‘pointy-nose’ Class40.

Winner of the Globe40 that concluded in April, the latest David Raison-designed Crédit Mutuel 2 Class40 proved as reliable as it was obviously fast in the expert hands of Ian Lipinski, Amélie Grassi and Antoine Carpentier.

A clear evolution of Lipinski’s previous boat, No 158, which had first introduced a then rather daring scow bow to the Class40, the current racer (No 202) has been conceived with a focus on medium conditions, while her predecessor excelled in stronger winds. Talking to Gurit engineers Paolo Manganelli and Nicolas Poidevin reveals just how big a step has also been made in terms of structural engineering for this latest Raison machine.

As skipper Ian Lipinski puts it, ‘The hull shape has changed and offers more power, with notably more beam towards the bow. What is also obvious are the tall side panels protecting the cockpit. But it is inside that we have developed the most important feature: an all new longitudinal structural layout to enhance global rigidity.’

Collaboration between scow pioneer David Raison and Gurit had already started, albeit with a lighter touch, for Crédit Mutuel 1; now there was a deliberate intention to deepen the relationship for the second boat. ‘We were already super happy with the first collaboration, working for Ian Lipinski,’ says Manganelli.

‘When he decided to build CM2, Ian had a bit more budget and asked us if we would consider being more involved in the design, working more closely with David.’

The brief was ‘push hard in all areas’. Much new work has been done on the rig and CM2 also has more advanced lifting rudders. In development terms the team were going to leave no stone unturned.

Gurit’s biggest contribution to this was to table the idea of a novel longitudinal structure: ‘It may not sound like much to write home about,’ says Manganelli, ‘but examining the solution in detail reveals critical nuances and significant gains.’

The team started from the observation that Class40s are getting wider towards the front as well as flatter. Added to this, one of David Raison’s signature features is coachroofs that tend to extend further and further towards the bow. ‘And this set us thinking…’ continues Manganelli.

‘As Class40 rules forbid carbon we’re always fighting to gain longitudinal stiffness, key to keeping sufficient forestay tension. Our idea was to make greater use of that distinctive coachroof by turning it into an integral part of the structure, to end up with a “thicker” boat essentially.’

To really grasp the idea, one has to do two things: first, picture the boat’s profile, looking at it side on. Second, consider the boat as a beam whose stiffness is directly dependent on its thickness (ie its depth from coachroof top to hull bottom).

Now allow me to add another image: the hull is essentially like a crossbow, flexing at its extremities under the tension of forestay and backstay, the top of the mast figuratively being the finger of the bowman. Now, on a boat whose coachroof is not integral to the structure but rather added to it, the effective thickness is measured (still looking at the boat’s profile) from the hull bottom to the side deck. But in the case of Crédit Mutuel 2, it goes from the hull bottom to the top of the coachroof - this is why Manganelli talks about a “thicker” boat.

Going back to the beam analogy… things become obvious: the thicker, the stiffer. Now the roof connects to the internal structure below, extending all the way aft to the runner anchors (Figure 1).

‘This is where we then needed to look at the adoption of longitudinal bulkheads,’ continues Manganelli. ‘Theoretically the wider you go at deck level the stiffer the boat… yet, due to shear lag (the non-uniform distribution of stress in the flange of a beam), the further you move from the topsides the less efficient the added material becomes. One solution would then be to go heavier on the exterior contours of the “box” (hull shell) and maybe also add material to the side deck…’

‘At the same time,’ chimes in Nicolas Poidevin, ‘the coachroof is usually considered non-effective and so is ignored when calculating a yacht’s overall stiffness.

‘That’s where the new Crédit Mutuel is quite different, since the coachroof’s longitudinal elements extend under the deck to connect to full height longitudinal bulkheads. So now we’re moving the side panels (the outer portions of the box, the “shear webs” in structural jargon) in towards the centre of the boat (Figure 2).

‘This brings another advantage, which is to provide a more efficient support for the hull bottom structure - all the more important because these boats are now so wide and so more prone to slamming.’

‘In a traditional structure,’ says Manganelli, ‘ringframes and bulkheads will span laterally from topside to topside.

‘But by introducing deep longitudinal bulkheads you drastically reduce the unsupported span of the ringframes which can therefore be lighter. The gain is most notable around the keel box area, as well as where you are resolving mast compression: instead of unsupported transverse elements that span the width of the boat, we now have a strong x-shaped structure.’

In terms of weight, the added mass of the longitudinals is offset by gains in the ringframes, which allows CM2 to still hit Class40 minimum weight (4,500kg). ‘And today this is less and less easy to achieve,’ adds Manganelli, ‘because as the boats become wider the surface area increases, which means more weight of material.

‘The temptation is to reduce grammes per square metre but then you pay a price in stiffness - a problem we avoided by rethinking our structure. Of course it wasn’t that straightforward, because now David had to adapt his roof design which brought additional complexity!

‘We also needed to make sure Ian was onside too, since freedom of movement below is clearly reduced.’

Both parties were enthusiastic about the idea, but first a full-scale mock-up was created as a precautionary step. This soon validated the idea as it immediately felt ‘liveable’.

The first sea trials also revealed another unexpected advantage to the longitudinal structure, for life onboard, Ian finding it rather reassuring to have something to lean against or limit a fall, bearing in mind these boats operate at greater heel angles than, say, the Imocas with their canting keels (forbidden in the Class40); heel angles of around 30° being common for a modern Class40.

Next the openings in the shell were factored in and dimensioned according to the size of the sails, to ensure stacking remains as trouble-free as possible. ‘We’re talking today about all these innovations, but they are all driven by Ian’s enormous experience of winning big races,’ explains Manganelli, ‘which is different from presenting untested concepts - now we can honestly say these are not theoretical gains.

‘During the Globe40 Ian felt he could really push the boat hard and remain confident, and he partially attributes his victory to this peace of mind.’ While other contestants suffered structural damage no major issues were reported on Crédit Mutuel 2. David Raison, for his part, has already said that, should there be another boat at some point, he’d embrace this new structural approach from the outset.

However, both Manganelli and Poidevin are very open about the fact that the principle behind this approach is really nothing new, and already widely understood. The reason its application remains limited is primarily because it is only fully relevant for these very wide boat types.

But the design evolution, towards flatter and beamier forward sections, makes it so logical that we will certainly see more longitudinal bulkheads in the future. ‘We have considered applying the idea to Imocas, but the benefits are not as obvious; the Imoca coachroof is set back aft and proportionally smaller compared with a Class40, plus the skippers we approached did not seem very keen…’ says Poidevin.

‘We could gain a bit in terms of shear lag, by adding structure in the middle, but not in terms of overall “thickness”, since the Imoca coachroofs are not only small but they also do not extend forward.

‘When it comes to ergonomics, our solution also constrains movements in the cockpit somewhat, since the sides of the coachroof are quite high where they meet the deck and go through to connect with the “inside walls”. The sides also had to be extended aft for the runner attachments, which changes the circulation for the skipper in and out of the cockpit.’

But on CM2 that aft extension contributes to giving the boat, viewed sideways, a nice convex shape on the top, precisely what is needed for optimal flex resistance - where the maximum ‘beam’ thickness needs to be close to amidships.

To return to the crude construction beam, if one was to design it optimally instead of sticking to the off-the-shelf rectangular section, a typical beam would end up tapered towards the ends. (This doubletaper shape is often seen on bridges.) ‘And the double taper is a staple of structural engineering vernacular,’ says Manganelli.

CHRISTOPHE BRESCHI
The interior of Crédit Mutuel 1 may be more spacious without CM2’s full-height longitudinals, but this boat cannot carry the headstay loads of its successor.

For the boat’s builders, compared to a traditional structure, the team at Gepeto (who built the hull) had to deal with quite complex intersections between transverse and longitudinal elements - an unusual set-up. Poidevin notes that the longitudinal bulkheads were placed first, and the crossbeams were then built in three parts to fit between and on either side of these.

The deck and coachroof combo was crafted by MerConcept, who did a textbook job in terms of resin infusion, much to the Gurit team’s pleasure. ‘The overall build quality of the whole boat is superb,’ says Manganelli. ‘All involved delivered a level of quality that is superior to anything I’ve seen before on a Class40.’

But 158 still did to the Class40 what Raison’s Mini Transat winner TeamWork previously did to the Mini class. Truly an extraordinarily influential designer.

An interesting lesson, again perhaps unexpected, is that the extra global stiffness is enough to require more delicate tuning of the standing rigging; it initially proved difficult to generate forestay sag in light conditions because the hull cannot be counted on to provide flexibility. ‘But perhaps this is actually a good outcome in so far as it encourages us to put less tension in the rig to begin with?’ muses Poidevin.

These new questions are interesting for designers and engineers alike, as new possibilities emerge to make gains where it previously wasn’t an option. ‘Due to this unusual arrangement,’ interjects Manganelli, ‘we also found ourselves able to suggest subtracting material from other zones including the keel and mast areas…

‘However, that led to raised eyebrows from both David and Ian - these are sacrosanct zones considered paramount for reliability and safety. So in the end, crossing that psychological red line was never an option. Still…’

But the point remains that having the possibility to go lighter forces us to think creatively (but still inside the box - not metaphorically): what can be saved somewhere can either be done away with completely, or reinvested as reinforcement somewhere else.

‘Certainly, as part of the initial brief, we also set ourselves the task of addressing slamming, which was becoming a real concern with the previous generation of boats, hitting the limits of their robustness due to higher speeds, fiercer impacts and the flatter bow sections. So some of the weight gains were deliberately reinvested to increase volume and density of core material,’ Manganelli explains.

‘We already touched upon the trust that Ian had in the boat, but for us it’s a great source of pride… and also of peace of mind, as we can’t help but worry when our boats are at sea. Ian sent us a nice message just after finishing the Globe40, saying “Not the tiniest of worries after all these miles in some difficult sea states, the boat really inspires confidence”.’

Arguably the best compliment the engineering team could get, together with a level of high performance that speaks for itself.

Jocelyn Blériot

More on Gurit

In this interview (2,000 words):

• Why Scott quietly backed a top-four finish in Naples, and why the team sold itself as the underdog

• His verdict on Naples as an America’s Cup venue, and why he expects the locals to go “absolutely bonkers”

• What he discovered about the ex-American Magic AC75, and why “the grass is greener” is a trap

• How different the relaunched boat will be, inside and out, ahead of its early November launch

• The winter testing priorities: recommissioning, a new control system, and sails

• How many sailing days a month a team can realistically manage, and why more isn’t always better

• Managing expectations with first-time owners Karel Komárek and Chris Welch after a strong debut

• How he’s balancing the America’s Cup with skippering Canada’s NorthStar SailGP team

JC: Prior to the event in Naples, what expectations had you tried to set for the team in terms of performance?

GS: We didn’t really put a number on it as a group. We were in that kind of privileged position of being underdogs, and I suppose that’s how we sold it to ourselves and outwardly.

I think where my head was at before the regatta was that a top four would be a good result. The team has not done a lot of AC40 sailing by any means – and not nearly as much as some of those other teams – but we had had three camps in Pensacola and we felt like those had been quite efficient. That said, they weren’t necessarily perfectly structured around a good result at that Naples AC40 regatta. But I thought a top four was on the cards, and we came fourth, and that was an awesome result.

JC: That was a pretty awesome prediction, then?

GS: Well, I didn’t really say it to anyone other than a few conversations I had with some of the other members of the team, but yes I think we were all reasonably aligned that if we got into the top four it would be a really good showing – and that’s what we managed.

Read more

The new Swan 80 is a pivotal yacht in several ways. It’s positioned as both the flagship of the Classic Swan range and the entry-level Maxi Swan model. It’s a brand new hull, developed from the Swan 78, but takes its styling cues and deck design from the recently launched Maxi Swan 108.

In practical terms the new Swan 80 looks, feels and functions like a maxi in all ways but one. The hull length is barely a centimetre below 24 metres, avoiding the constraints of EC superyacht regulations, and thus allowed to anchor close to shore in the Mediterranean.

It’s also a pivotal yacht in the sense that this model completes a remarkably long running and successful evolution of Swan yachts designed by Germán Frers, which has been ongoing since 1981. The Nautor shipyard has a wealth of experience, both historic and recent, of building sailing yachts in this size and style.

Heritage

The early Swans of around 80ft LOA were maxi ocean racers, which differed from most of their rivals by having exceptionally well-designed and built living quarters for both owners and crew. Over the next three decades they gradually evolved into racer-cruisers, then cruiser-racers, while managing to steadily improve their sailing performance even as the levels of onboard comfort, luxury and refinement increased. The new generation of both Classic Swans and Maxi Swans are conceived, designed and built primarily as performance cruisers but the racing aspect of their heritage is still apparent in their hull shapes and sail area : displacement ratios. Big Swans are still keenly raced and competitive in major regattas, square-top sail plans and race-spec sailing hardware are popular options, and the cockpit furniture can be removable to allow a transition between cruising and racing modes.

Design

The conceptual phase of creating the new Swan 80 began in 2023, when Germán Frers was commissioned to design a replacement for the Swan 78. That was a notably successful model with 10 built since 2016, all of which are true sister ships – it says a lot about the quality of the design that none of the owners requested any modifications.

The new 80 has a significantly different hull shape from her forebears, with maximum beam carried further aft and a wider transom. Powerful aft sections provide a lot more form stability when immersed at a moderate heel angle, as well as giving a more spacious interior. A narrow waterplane when the boat is upright ensures low wetted area and thus good boatspeed in the lightest of winds.

That much is in line with current design trends for both racing and performance cruising yachts.

The bow profile, however, is different. ‘We wanted to preserve the boat’s gentle motion at sea,’ Nautor’s Swan 80 project manager Kim Sundkvist explains. ‘To avoid it slamming when sailing upwind like an outright racer, the forward sections are rounder and softer in shape.’

The deck design makes it clear that the new Swan 80 is part of the Maxi Swan range. The shape, styling and ergonomics of the deck and cockpit are by Lucio Micheletti, who designed cars for Zagato before moving into yacht design. The technical and functional aspects of the deck plan are by Germán Frers.

Below decks, the general arrangement is developed from the layout of the Swan 78, which has proven to be excellent in 10 years of use on the water by owners, crews and charter guests. Significant improvements were made possible by, among other things, the extra hull volume in the aft quarters of the new hull. Styling is by Nautor Swan’s go-to interior designer, Misa Poggi.

Construction

Frers delivered the hull lines to Nautor in April 2024. The structural engineering was done in house before the build team started work on the plug, then made the female mould.

The foam-cored composite hull is a glassfibre, epoxy and Corecell laminate reinforced and stiffened with generous, strategic use of unidirectional carbon fibre. This is the largest new-generation Swan with an e-glass hull, its larger sisters having full carbon hulls. The Swan 80’s deck and most of its load-bearing internal structures are full carbon composite, further strengthened with wide bands of unidirectional carbon.

On a boat of this size decisions about the use of carbon fibre or glassfibre are a balancing act, Sundqkist explains, and here Nautor’s great depth of experience comes into play. ‘As with all areas of the boat, attention to detail is something we take a lot of pride in,’ he says, ‘because that’s where quality is perceived in the end. Carbon is of course very light, very stiff but also transmits noise more easily. When we use carbon we also need to add more sound insulation, for example.’

Several keel options are offered. The standard one, with 4m draught, is a lead bulb on a fixed, high-aspect steel fin, bolted to an internal matrix that’s bonded into the hull for strength and stiffness. A 3.5m shoal draught keel is available, or alternatively a telescopic lifting keel can be fitted. This reduces the boat’s draught from 4.3m to 2.5m without any intrusion into the living space of the interior. The lifting keel mechanism retracts into the engine room, beneath the sole of the saloon, and Sundkvist says it doesn’t impose any constraints on an owner’s choice of engine or equipment options.

The Swan 80 has twin rudders, like the rest of Nautor’s current fleet. Here, two Swan signature design features hint at the overall quality of design, engineering and build. The rudder blades have sacrificial tips, designed to leave the boat with adequate steerage if they break off in a collision with an underwater obstruction like a shipping container. And their stocks are housed aft of a watertight bulkhead that prevents any ingress of water even in the event of serious damage.

On Deck

Micheletti’s sculpted curves give the Swan 80 a fresh, contemporary look that hints at her performance potential and works well with the subtle sheer that is a distinctive hallmark of hull lines drawn by Germán Frers. The foredeck is flush and the rise of the cabin top is neatly concealed with a teak finish, which matches the decks, on the lower half of the cockpit coamings as well as the coachroof.

The cockpit flares out at the transition from passenger seating to sail-trimming area, where two large Harken winches on each coaming handle the halyards and the sheets of headsails and offwind sails. Another big Harken drum on the centreline takes the mainsheet. The sail handling systems are all hydraulic, not electric, with oil pressure running at 250 bar. The deck layout and sailing systems are designed for routine operation by a professional crew of two, ‘but it’s a size of boat where the owners often like to participate,’ Sundkvist says. ‘So it’s designed for that too.’

Note the flared working cockpit, the outboard helm positions for a clear view forward, and the discreet crew companionway between the wheels

Further aft, it’s a step down to the twin helm pedestals, which are set quite far outboard to give an excellent view of sail trim and an unobstructed view forward outside the passenger cockpit. ‘It’s definitely more comfortable at the helm,’ Sundkvist says. ‘We have managed to get the coamings at a very good seating height.’

Between the twin wheels on the aft deck is an almost invisible crew companionway, and the general impression on deck is made neater and cleaner by mounting some of the fine-tuning sail and rig control systems below deck. The hydraulic backstay tensioners are in the lazarette, for example and the headsail car pullers are driven by cylinders under the side decks. The sprayhood and its frame are also out of sight in an almost invisible coachroof hatch until they’re deployed.

The design of the transom garage and stern platform derives from the Maxi Swan 88. ‘A 3.6m tender fits inside and stows athwartships,’ Sundkvist says. ‘We have an improved system for rotating the tender as you bring it in.’ A key Maxi Swan feature is the option for a double-folding transom that creates a large, sea-level beach club area when the yacht is anchored.

Down below

The electrically operated sliding glass of the yacht’s main companionway is a signature feature of the new generation Maxi Swan range. It’s a grand entrance to the saloon, with the practical benefit of also being a very large skylight. With another skylight hatch in the coachroof and large windows at two levels on both sides, the saloon is impressively bright.

Misa Poggi’s design concepts for the Swan 80’s interior have evolved towards softer, more organic lines, creating living spaces that feel warmer and more fluid while preserving the refined elegance that defines Maxi Swan’s distinctive style

Misa Poggi has developed four interior design concepts and there’s a wide range of layout options. In this latest project, her design language evolves towards softer, more organic lines, creating interiors that feel warmer and more fluid while preserving the refined elegance that defines the Maxi Swan aesthetic.

‘As this is a maxi, we’re very open to owners’ requests for customisation,’ says Sundkvist. ‘One improvement made possible by the new hull shape is the option of fitting one of the aft cabins with a double bed. On our previous yachts of this size, the aft cabins were configured exclusively with twin beds.’

Two standard layout arrangements have already been designed, one with four guest cabins, the other with three. Both of these have the master suite in the bow, and each cabin has its own private en suite heads and shower. In the threecabin version, the starboard-side forward guest cabin becomes a study or lower saloon. The crew area is aft, including the nav station and galley. One of the aft guest cabins is designed as a flex cabin which allows up to five crew to be carried separately from the owner and guests.

One stand-out feature of Nautor’s hotel system design, which isn’t yet widely known, is forced ventilation throughout the interior. ‘It works very well and keeps our boats much fresher inside,’ Sundkvist says. ‘The smaller yachts have forced extraction, the bigger ones and especially maxis also have forced ventilation with fans strategically located and fresh air coming in through concealed grilles and vents.’

The first Swan 80 is due for delivery around the time this issue of Seahorse hits the newsstands. She will make her boat show début at the Cannes Yachting Festival before joining the rest of the Swan fleet on the Costa Smeralda for Nautor shipyard’s 60th Anniversary celebrations at the Rolex Swan Cup, from 13 to 19 September.

More on Nautor Swan

The latest expression of Balance Catamarans’ thinking is the new 14.2m (46.6ft) Balance 464. Exactly where that balance lies depends on the owner.

‘Some of our customers are more performance-skewed and some lean more towards comfort,’ says CEO and founder Phil Berman. ‘But we’re always trying to provide a boat with good payload, comfort and storage while achieving the best performance possible.’

On yachts of 50ft and above, improved performance often comes naturally through longer waterlines and greater sail area. Designing a genuinely high-performance cruising catamaran in the 45ft range, however, presents a different challenge.

‘It becomes difficult because everybody wants the same equipment they’d expect on a 50ft or 54ft boat,’ Berman explains. ‘Two fridges, two freezers, a watermaker, solar panels – all of it adds weight.’

Balance has been systematically redesigning its 13.5-23.2m (44-76ft) range, drawing on in-house experience, input from du Toit Yacht Design and feedback from its owner community. When it came to replacing the 13.5m (44.3ft) Balance 442 – the company’s entry-level model, which has sold 30 examples since 2021 – the objectives were clear.

‘We knew we could improve in a lot of areas,’ says Berman. ‘If we made the boat a little longer, built it lighter and increased the sail area, we could move closer to a true high-performance cruiser without sacrificing the comfort our owners expect. That was the fundamental design brief.’

The longer platform would also carry the new Integrel E drives – hybrid motoralternators that attach to the back of the Yanmar engines – which add weight aft.

‘So we needed a boat that was a little longer, a bit wider and could carry more payload in the back,’ Berman says.

Balance had already experimented with increasing the amount of carbon used in its boats, alongside full glassfibre and vinylester resin construction.

‘We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of weight we could remove,’ Berman recalls. ‘So Mark said, “Why don’t we do the entire boat with a carbon substructure?”’

‘There is substantially more carbon in the 464 than even some of the larger models originally had,’ says Mark Delany, owner and director of the Cape Town yard. ‘With the additional length, the hybrid propulsion system and a larger lithium battery system – 36kW at 48V – we wanted to pull as much weight out of the boat as we could.’

Previous custom-build experience had shown Balance that carbon hulls brought drawbacks. They tended to be noisier at sea and raised concerns around conductivity and corrosion.

‘So the exterior shell of the boat is made from E-glass and full vinylester,’ Delany explains. ‘The interior structure, saloon tray, bulkheads, floorboards, daggerboards, trunks and appendages are all carbon. You get a substantial weight saving in the 464, probably 750-800kg. It delivers the stiffness benefits of carbon construction without the negatives that can come with carbon hulls.’

For performance-minded owners, the advantages are obvious. ‘The more performance-oriented people ask, “What can you do to make my boat faster? How much will it cost to make it faster?”’ says Berman. ‘The carbon structure, although expensive, is the best way to save a substantial amount of weight’.

Balance has also increased sail area on the 464, from 112m² on the 442 to 124m². ‘The forebeam sits below the longeron, and there are stays that come down from it, so the pelican striker is less than a foot tall,’ Berman explains. ‘That allowed us to push the forestay forward by about a foot. We’ve significantly increased the area of the selftacking jib and enlarged the mainsail slightly, so she’s lighter than the 442, longer and carrying more sail area. In every respect, her performance has been enhanced.’

What does that mean on the water? The 464’s polars indicate speeds of 6-8kts upwind at 40° TWA in 10-14kts TWS, increasing to 8.5-12kts on a beam reach in the same conditions. Off the wind, the yacht is capable of reaching 20kts at 120-130° TWA in 25kts TWS.

Those numbers aren’t simply about excitement; they’re tailored to the way Balance owners actually cruise.

‘Some people use their boats in the Caribbean for six or seven months a year and haul them out for hurricane season,’ says Berman.’ Those living aboard are either sailing in the Mediterranean or spending summers in New England or Chesapeake Bay. They want a boat that can comfortably handle a 1,200-mile trip to the Caribbean and back and still make respectable progress to windward.

‘On a typical production catamaran with keels, once the wind moves forward of the beam, you’re often not sailing much better than 60 degrees to the true wind. When your VMG drops to three knots or less, people start motoring. Balance Catamaran owners don’t want to motor – they want to sail.’ With the performance box ticked, Balance has also introduced a number of practical refinements. The hull windows have been slightly recessed to add visual interest and the cockpit benefits from having a wider helm seat.

Like all Balance Cats, this yacht has the VersaHelm system: a wheel that flips up or down to allow steering either from the cockpit or from the elevated helm position where the sail controls are located. But the 464 also debuts the VersaStern, which eliminates the need to find storage space for washboards. When not secured in place to keep following seas out and crew in, it folds neatly onto the engine access hatch, sitting flush with the deck. ‘The side benefit,’ Berman notes, ‘is that when the door is down, it really muffles the sound of the engines.’

The interior receives the same upgrades seen across the wider Balance range, including Italian-style frameless cabinetry built using cored panels and offered with a choice of five real-wood veneer and fabric combinations.

‘We think our boats are more luxurious in finish than our competitors’, says Berman. ‘They’re every bit the quality of the finest monohulls. The furniture is handmade and the materials and finishes are very upscale.’

‘It’s one of the things we’re proudest of at Balance,’ Delany adds.

Recognising that most owners prefer to dine outdoors, the saloon has also been reconfigured. Lower-profile settees and a coffee table replace the traditional dining arrangement. ‘You’re sitting in a living room to watch TV or read a book,’ says Berman. ‘Aesthetically, it feels more relaxed and elegant.’

As ever with catamarans, ventilation remains a priority and two developments being rolled out across the Balance range give the 464 a notable advantage. For the forward cabins, Balance has introduced ports that open into draining lockers located just aft of the trampoline.

‘At anchor, those hatches can be locked open’ says Delany. ‘That feeds air into the cabin, even in the rain, giving you fresh airflow even when you’re not running the air conditioning.’

The saloon of the new Balance 464 benefits from similarly thoughtful design. ‘We’ve gone for much larger opening flush hatches on the forward windows,’ Delany explains, ‘as well as in the coachroof, so we’ve almost doubled the available openings to bring more fresh air into the saloon.’

Accommodating the largest central hatch required a substantial structural redesign.

‘We had to redesign all the mullions,’ Delany says. ‘Quite a lot of structure goes into keeping that opening possible but, even with the mast in place, the whole saloon area feels much more open.’

The changes in the saloon have also delivered improvements in visibility – a longstanding priority for Balance.

‘We brought the windows down as far as we could towards deck level because visibility has always been central to the Balance philosophy,’ says Berman. ‘You’re piloting these boats through the windows in inclement weather, so we’re always trying to improve sight lines. From inside, I think the visibility on this boat is the best I’ve ever seen on any catamaran.”

Another first for the Balance 464 is the inclusion of hybrid propulsion as standard. The Integrel E drives, which are disc-like alternator motors mounted between the 45hp Yanmar engines and their gearboxes, enable fossil-fuel-free close-quarters manoeuvring while also delivering substantial charging capability.

‘If you’re at anchor and charging at 1,500rpm, you’re getting 15kW from one engine,’ Berman says. ‘With E Power, Integrel’s belt-driven alternator, you’re getting about 7-7.5kW. If you’ve got two E Drives running at 1,500rpm, each charging at 15kW, it doesn’t take very long to top off these batteries. That’s the fastest charging rate I know of in the industry.’

‘If you start your engines and you’re moving off from an anchorage, within an hour you’ve got a full battery bank,’ Delany adds. ‘Combined with 3kW of solar, if you’re using the boat efficiently, you’ve got a vessel that’s semi-off-grid.’

Following a complete coachroof redesign, up to five glass solar panels now sit recessed and flush with the surrounding surfaces, with an air gap beneath them to improve their cooling efficiency.

Buyers seeking a lower entry price can opt for Integrel’s E Power system instead of the standard E Drive setup, reducing the high-spec base price of $1,391,358 by approximately $55,000.

Accommodation is arranged across three cabins. The owner’s hull to starboard features a forward double berth with heads and shower aft, while the port hull contains two double cabins sharing a bathroom.

There are currently no plans for a four-cabin version. ‘To be honest, we’re seeing more interest in having fewer cabins,’ says Delany. ‘In fact, we’ve just completed a port hull that is configured as a second owner’s suite.’

‘The convertible office in the aft port cabin is a very popular option,’ adds Berman. ‘You have a queen size berth, but you can slide it away and create a really useful workspace.’

Prospective owners won’t have to wait long to see the new model on the water. ‘We already have 10 of them in build,’ says Delany. ‘The North American boats will appear at spring boat shows such as Miami, while in the Mediterranean there should be one at La Grande Motte early next year.’

For many Balance owners, however, the experience begins long before delivery.

‘I’d say 90 per cent of our customers really enjoy the build process,’ Delany concludes. ‘They come to South Africa, go on safari, drink good wine, and then there’s the bucket-list experience of crossing an ocean on your maiden voyage – something most of them have never done before. That’s a big part of what makes owning a Balance Cat special.’

More on Balance Catamarans

In this story (2,250 words):

• Ben Cornish on what went wrong for GB1 in Naples

• The decision that left the British sailors on the back foot

• A practice-day drama ahead of racing

• Cornish answers the critics of the British AC40

• What the team is learning from recon footage of the other teams

• Inside the relaunch of the British AC75

• Why AC38 could be the closest Cup yet

• How GB1 plans to catch up with the front-runners

• First impressions of the Naples racecourse

By anyone’s standards – and especially by their own exacting ones – the British squad underperformed for the majority of the Naples regatta to finish eighth overall in the nine-boat fleet.

As Cornish explained to me, the result was all the more frustrating after the team’s poor showing at the previous preliminary regatta in Cagliari, Sardinia, when technical issues with the British AC40 saw them complete only the third, seventh, and eighth races – albeit turning in a 2,1,3 scoreline in those.

“In that first prelim event we were riddled with issues with the boat,” he said. “But, in the racing we managed to take part in, we showed really good promise. We were competing at the front of the fleet, and I guess that naturally set a bit of an expectation as to where we felt we were [in relation to the other teams].”

On the back foot

After the Sardinian regatta, however, the GB1 team made the decision to focus resources on getting the British AC75 ready to relaunch. That, Cornish said, meant having to watch other teams training in their AC40s in Naples, while the British sailors remained ashore.

“The priority was getting the race boat ready. We are not a million miles away from the America’s Cup itself, so focussing on the big boat was something that we as sailors and the whole team bought into. But it meant we had a difficult run-in to the PR2 event, having done far less hours than everyone we ended up lining up against.”

As well as lacking AC40 time, the British sailors were also unfamiliar with the characteristics of the Naples racecourse. This was in stark contrast to the Cagliari event, before which GB1 had spent several weeks at the venue sparring with their opposite numbers in the Cobham-Ultra GB2 British Women and Youth crew.

“Naples is a very different venue to where we raced in Sardinia,” Cornish said. “We had spent a lot of time there [in Cagliari] and had a good handle on the shift phases across a variety of wind directions, and where the breeze would trend throughout the day, and which side of the racecourse generally won.

“Whereas, I’d almost say we had the opposite understanding of Naples, where we were straight into the deep end, and we would experience a new wind direction for the first time when we had to race in it.”

As well as being put on the back foot strategically, Cornish said the sailors also felt very rusty in terms of their AC40 boat handling skills.

“When you combine everything together, it forms the perfect picture for how you wouldn’t expect to perform very well at a regatta.”

All that, and then throw in a practice-day collision with the Tudor Team Alinghi chase boat that resulted in the British shore crew having to work around the clock to replace a foil arm with one borrowed from the Swiss.

“Yes, we started racing properly on the back foot,” Cornish summed up.

No blaming the boat

There has been plenty of negative comment about the integrity of the British AC40 – nicknamed ‘Crispy’ after suffering a battery fire while training in Barcelona prior to AC37 – but Cornish was quick to dispel any negativity around the boat.

“We have to give credit to the shore team,” he said. “They had a hard run of it in Sardinia and I really felt for them. Other than an issue with a cover plate coming off one of the foils, from a hydraulic point of view and in terms of the boat’s reliability, we didn’t have a problem during this last event. The shore crew fixed all of the gremlins which haunted us in Sardinia.”

The cover plate issue – which happened on the first day of racing in Naples – destroyed the flow over that foil and proved costly in terms of performance.

Even when it doesn’t count, the result still matters

When all is said and done, in the bigger picture of the 38th America’s Cup, the British team’s lowly rankings in the two preliminary regattas count for nothing points-wise. But when you are dealing with highly-competitive elite athletes who are performing on a global stage, back-to-back bottom-of-the-table finishes must surely have an impact?

“It’s easy to say that it doesn’t matter that much, but when you are on the start line everyone wants it as much as everyone else. You certainly don’t turn up there with the attitude that it doesn’t matter. Every time you get in the boat on a race day you are out to win races and to try to put the best series you can together – and this one was no different for us.”

Cornish told me that, although the British sailors may have taken some consolation from a 4,4,4 scoreline in the final three races in Naples, a full debrief of the event has, nevertheless, been conducted.

“We have certainly done our due diligence on what we would say was a bad weekend in the office. There has been a lot of work gone into identifying why Luna Rossa are getting around the racecourse faster than everyone else. What is special about their technique? What can we learn from boats that are doing a better job than we are? Then, there is so much to learn about the venue. I know we were racing at a different time of year to when the Cup will be held, but there are still geographic features that we need to get a handle on.

“So we are certainly not coming away from that event and thinking: ‘Oh, glad that’s done with, let’s forget about it.’ There is so much value in everyone picking themselves up and being able to think – big picture-wise – where can we improve and what do we need to learn going into next year? That is certainly the attitude of the sailing team and the wider team.”

So is that it now in terms of AC40 sailing for the British team, I asked?

“Well, the Youth and Women’s team are carrying on,” Cornish told me. “They are down in Naples this week and they are still hard at it. Their campaigns are obviously going to run all the way through to next year, so they will continue to do a lot of AC40 sailing.

“We will keep our AC40 as an option if we want to sail two boats. Like if we wanted to do some on-the-water match race prestart practice, maybe, it’s great to have that platform available. Right now, it’s – hopefully – not going to be coming out of the shed any time soon, but it is certainly going to be an option for next year.”

Back to the AC75

I had deliberately kept our conversation away from the thorny subject of the dispute between the British team and previous sponsor INEOS over the ownership of the team’s AC75. News on that subject could be imminent, as I understand it, and for Cornish and the rest of the sailing team, there is building excitement ahead of the boat’s anticipated relaunch sometime in November.

“It’s really exciting,” he told me. “It feels like it has been a long time in the pipeline. It’s not far away now, but it is also not long until the America’s Cup. We are in quite a unique situation in this cycle, in that the package is going to come together quite late in the piece. But, for sure, once the boat launches we are going to be straight into the thick of it in terms of developing everything on board. We will be using every day we can – because we don’t have many days between now and the first race day.”

The expectation is that the fleet of modified AC75s will not look much different from the outside than when we last saw them race in Barcelona in AC37. But how different will the British boat be in terms of the complex systems inside the boat?

“Like you say, visually you won’t see a huge amount of difference in the boats until people put their race foils on. There will be some subtle visual changes – the cyclors have gone and the cockpits will obviously look different.

“It’s hard to give you much of an answer without telling you what’s going on. But inside the brains of the boat it will certainly be quite different. Much of that will be impossible to see from the outside. Even for us, looking with a trained eye at the recon footage, it’s hard to be sure. You think you know what people are up to but it’s very hard to be sure what’s driving different things.”

Closer racing in prospect?

Although we might not be able to discern much from footage of the teams in training, when racing starts Cornish believes the individual teams’ performance will be much closer than we have seen before in AC75s.

“From a race point of view and in terms of the closeness of the competitors, I think things will step forward and start to arrowhead towards a really exciting and a less predictable summer,” he said.

Might we see more similarity in the foil designs across the campaigns, I wondered?

“I think naturally it has to,” Cornish replied. “As the iterations move on, peoples’ tools have been working for however many years now and things are getting more and more defined. You learn from your mistakes in previous campaigns. And you learn from what other teams did, because people move between campaigns and you start to gain that knowledge – I think a lot of that has gone on during this campaign.

“All of which means that, with us now being in generation three of the AC75, there’s not going to be a lot in it. I hope so anyway.”

Can sailing fans expect to see any new manoeuvres from the teams when racing begins? In the prestart, perhaps?

Cornish believes the crews might have some new tricks up their sleeves, particularly given that human power generation has been replaced by batteries this time around.

“What we are seeing from the other teams [that are sailing AC75s already – so Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna Rossa (ITA), and La Roche-Posay Racing Team (FRA)] is the ability to throw the boat around a bit. We have seen Team New Zealand doing a lot of circles in their practice pre-starts, and I think we will see that all the boats will be more capable in the prestart.”

Back under one roof

The preparations for the relaunch of the GB1 AC75 have also triggered a coming together of the British team at its AC38 base in Bagnoli. Previously the staff had been split between a main base in Portsmouth on the English south coast – where the designers worked – and a sailing team training base in Cagliari.

“It’s really exciting to have everyone under one roof for the first time,” Cornish confirmed. “Up to now, you could go a few weeks without seeing certain people in the team. There’s much more of a team feeling once we all are together in the same place.”

GB1 are expected to be the fourth team to relaunch their AC75 and the second team (after the French) to sail an AC75 in Naples. With the Kiwis and the Italians in particular having racked up a lot of training days, how do the British plan to catch up?

“The simulator is a big tool for that – just as it was last time,” Cornish answered. “So much of sailing these boats is repetition, and I think something that we did a good job of in the last campaign was having preplanned responses to certain moves in the prestart and having really strong set plays. That’s something we need to maintain.

“It’s also a difficult one to practice out on the water, because even when you do have the big boat out you are so restricted under the rules, in that you can’t rack up against another boat. So you need to have the system in place to be able to figure out all your timings and your routines: if A does this, B does that etc.”

Naples v Barcelona racecourses

Despite his relatively limited experience of the 38th America’s Cup racecourse in the Bay of Naples, what does Cornish make of the venue from a racing point of view?

“It’s a very cool natural amphitheatre – that was my first impression the first day we got round there. I think when we get the typical sea breeze direction, it will be a really good racecourse. It was pretty challenging when we had the offshore breeze – there was quite a lot going on. But, if we get the more typical sea breeze, then it’s going to be a really good spot for racing.

“From a sea state point of view, there is quite a lot of traffic in terms of ferries going between the islands – and obviously the chase boats with us and the spectator fleet. That all seems to recycle a bit around the harbour so you can get a pretty confused sea state that is rarely aligned to the wind. Plus, if you do get a swell outside the bay, it does tend to make its way in. So it’s certainly not a pan-flat venue – but it is also not going to be the challenge of Barcelona, where some days we raced in 1.5-metre seas.”

High-octane chases, aggressive close-quarters manoeuvres and long days exposed to relentless sun, wind and waves: the modern chase boat has become one of the hardest-working assets in a race team’s inventory.

For more than 30 years, Protector Boats has been designing and building high-performance support craft for some of the world’s most demanding marine operations. Today, its boats are widely used throughout elite yacht racing, including the America’s Cup, AC40 and SailGP fleets, where reliability, adaptability and performance are critical.

With yachts racing at ever-faster pace and in an increasingly technical sphere, the demands placed on support craft are evolving just as rapidly. Whether providing an operations centre for coaches and analysts, a platform for media teams capturing content, a hospitality vessel for sponsors and guests, a safety boat, or a transport solution for crew, sails and spares, modern chase boats are expected to fulfil multiple roles simultaneously.

For race teams competing at the highest level, having a reliable, adaptable and efficient chase boat is no longer a luxury; it is fundamental to enabling support crews to perform at their best and, ultimately, to enhancing overall team performance.

Protector Boats has used its decades of experience to shape a new era of support boat design. Through its Targa and Chase series, the New Zealand manufacturer offers two fully customisable ranges of hard- and soft-top 25-41ft RIBs, available in Europe through PB Europe, a subsidiary of the Ancasta Group.

Throughout the range, performance is a given. Equipped with twin or triple engines producing up to 1,350hp, Protector RIBs are capable of matching the pace of the world’s fastest racing yachts. Yet outright speed is only part of the equation. What distinguishes an effective chase boat from a merely fast one is its ability to operate safely and comfortably over long periods, while being easy to handle in demanding conditions. Engineered for stability with robust deep-V hulls, Protector RIBs are designed to excel wherever race support is required.

According to Ian ‘Andy’ Andrews, brand manager for PB Europe, these qualities, combined with the ability to tailor each vessel to a team’s precise requirements, are what set Protector apart.

Drawing on more than two decades in the Royal Navy, alongside extensive experience managing marine operations and equipment projects across Africa and the Middle East, Andrews brings a practical understanding of what professional teams need from a working platform.

Race teams account for the majority of Protector’s Targa and Chase customer base, and Andrews estimates that around 80 per cent of his time is spent on the water working directly with clients, identifying opportunities for bespoke design innovation.

‘The chase boat is really an extension of the race yacht,’ Andrews explains. ‘The more seamlessly it integrates into the team’s operation, the more effective that team can be.’

Working closely with race teams’ support crews allows Andrews to understand how each team operates and where bespoke design solutions can improve workflow, safety and usability.

Liaising with Protector’s design and engineering teams in New Zealand, he helps tailor each vessel to its intended role. Regular discussions with clients, often supported by hand-drawn sketches and visual concepts, allow new ideas to be explored and refined before production begins. Once a finished boat arrives in Europe, Andrews personally oversees its commissioning to ensure every detail performs exactly as intended. The result is a support boat designed around functionality rather than compromise.

As chase boats are increasingly expected to perform multiple roles, the ability to reconfigure quickly between functions has become central to Protector’s design philosophy. Modular layouts, moveable consoles, removable seating systems and flexible deck arrangements allow teams to adapt their boats to changing requirements without sacrificing comfort or practicality.

Large fore and aft deck spaces can be configured to carry equipment, sails or specialist gear. Deck structures can be reinforced where necessary, while upgraded tow posts and strategically positioned, flush-mounted tie-down points allow teams to tailor each boat to the specific demands of their campaign.

For hospitality-focused operations, removable sunbeds, bar facilities, fresh water systems, galleys and onboard toilets can be incorporated. Extended bimini arrangements provide shade for guests, while enclosed cockpit configurations available within the Targa range offer protection for coaches, analysts and media teams working with sensitive electronic equipment.

Enhanced communications and electronics packages can also be specified to support data gathering, live broadcasting and team coordination. Commercial coding requirements can be accommodated, while specialist features such as dive tank racks, extended swim platforms and expedition equipment can broaden a vessel’s capabilities far beyond race support.

Despite the extensive range of options available, Andrews often advocates a minimalist approach wherever possible. Soft storage solutions, for example, can replace fixed cabinetry, reducing maintenance requirements and improving long-term reliability. For professional teams operating within tightly scheduled international programmes, minimising service demands reduces both cost and downtime. This is a particularly important consideration for charter fleets and centrally managed racing circuits such as SailGP.

That reliability begins at Rayglass Boats’ state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Auckland, New Zealand, where every Protector RIB is built by hand.

Durability is central to every Protector build. Heavy-duty Hypalon tubes provide buoyancy and impact resistance, while solid fibreglass deep-V hulls deliver rigidity, stability and a comfortable ride in challenging sea states. Hull thicknesses ranging from 19-35mm exceed typical industry standards, contributing to both longevity and performance.

These qualities have also earned Protector the trust of military, coastguard and law enforcement organisations around the world, including the New Zealand Coastguard, customs agencies and the Norwegian Police, all of whom depend on reliability, transportability and multi-role capability.

The same characteristics align closely with the demands of elite yacht racing.

For teams competing on international circuits, transport logistics can have a significant impact on both budgets and preparation schedules. The Chase 330 has become particularly popular because it can be packed into a standard 40ft shipping container while still offering one of the largest working deck areas available in a RIB of its size.

‘The Protector Chase 330 can be packed down in just a couple of hours,’ Andrews explains. ‘Once the boat is placed on a cradle, the tubes deflated and the bimini removed, it slides straight into a standard 40ft container. It can then be reassembled just as quickly at the next venue and back on the water ready for action.’

The ability to simplify transport logistics delivers significant advantages in both cost and operational efficiency.

Of course, boats operating regularly in dynamic, close-quarters environments will inevitably require maintenance from time to time. Through PB Europe and Ancasta’s network of 22 offices across Europe, race teams have access to rapid technical support whenever it is needed. Understanding the time pressures of a race campaign, the team works to minimise disruption and keep boats operating at peak performance.

Testament to the durability of the boats themselves is the fact that vessels originally commissioned for the 2007 America’s Cup remain operational today. Strong residual values achieved through Ancasta’s brokerage network further reflect that longevity.

While annual engine servicing remains recommended, propulsion technology continues to evolve. Protector is closely monitoring developments in hybrid and electric systems as part of its wider commitment to sustainability. For now, however, Andrews says conventional propulsion remains the preferred choice for most professional race programmes due to its proven range, reliability and performance.

Ultimately, Protector’s goal is simple: to provide support craft that allow race teams to focus entirely on the task at hand. ‘When a team knows their chase boat is completely fit for purpose, that’s when they can focus 100 per cent on racing,’ says Andrews. ‘That’s what makes the difference.’

More on Protector Boats

The work of Doyle Sails’ small team of superyacht and grand prix project managers calls to mind those circus juggling acts where performers race about to keep dozens of plates spinning precariously atop slender rods. Their project management roles demand similar levels of concentration, constant attention to detail, instant responses to urgent requests and ability to remain calm under pressure.

They are constantly multitasking between new yachts under construction, servicing the requirements of existing large yachts and managing sail inventories across far-flung locations and time zones for a client base that includes some of the world’s most renowned sailors. Every Doyle sail is subject to the closest imaginable scrutiny.

Across the global Doyle Sails network, eight grand prix and superyacht project managers – five in Auckland, two in Newport, Rhode Island and one in Palma, Mallorca – are in perpetual motion.

Having just flown 36 hours to New Zealand after long days of inventory checks and maintenance of superyacht Aquarius’s racing sails at the Doyle Sails loft in Palma, project manager Chris Blunden, for example, is straight back to his desk in Auckland to focus on other superyacht build projects and sail programmes on his worksheet.

These include an 85m yacht in build at Royal Huisman, which will be the largest sailing sloop in the world, a 35m catamaran new build in Turkey and a 54m sloop being built in Greece. He also looks after the sails for the sloop M5 (formerly Mirabella V), which sports an 89m mast.

‘I generally manage four projects at a time. At any one time, there are 20 or so sails at various stages of production in our system that I am looking after. The current schedule includes a 900m² blade for M5.’

In March, Blunden was trimming the downwind mizzen staysail and gennaker aboard the 65m ketch Aquarius at the St Barth’s Bucket Regatta. Aquarius acquitted herself well, finishing third behind Hetairos* and Maximus in the Gazelles des Mers superyacht racing division. All three of the podium yachts were carrying Doyle Sails inventories.

Other successes with Doyle Sails were Whisper, (1st, Les Mademoiselles des Mers division), Perseus* and Rosehearty (1st and 2nd in Les Grandes Dames des Mers), M5 and Gitana (1st and 3rd in L’Esprit de la Mers-2) and Symmetry (3rd L’Esprit de la Mers-1). The Doyle Sails brand was well represented throughout the 31-boat fleet.

*_{Denotes Doyle Sails is part of a mixed inventory of brands}

Following the Bucket, Aquarius’s racing sails were shipped back to Palma where Blunden was on hand to supervise the service and maintenance checks on five massive downwind sails and a specialist racing jib.

‘It is a major undertaking involving a large group of people at the loft in Palma,’ he explains. ‘It takes up a lot of floor space and many people to unpack a 1,000m² mizzen staysail, or a 2,000m² gennaker and go over it centimetre by centimetre looking for signs of wear.

‘We attended to any maintenance requirements, did some small alterations and then packed everything away for storage until the next event, where everything comes out of the container to be ready to race again.’

At times the Palma facility looks like a racing pit lane, with multiple containers bearing the names of professional racing programmes: Leopard 3, Galateia, Hetairos, the two Aquarius ketches, superyachts, maxis, TP52s … The list goes on, with similar line-ups at Newport.

As soon as the sails have been checked and serviced and their hours of use logged, the containers ship out again, following the yachts from regatta to regatta on the international racing circuits.

Across the Doyle Sails network, the criteria for project managers to be assigned to an order come down to size and complexity. ‘The two main criteria are superyachts and grand prix yachts,’ says Alan Turner, who also works out of the Auckland facility.

‘For superyachts, the theoretical minimum size is 80ft, but mostly it applies to yachts around 120ft and bigger. Grand prix applies to the ultimate high performance racing fleets like TP52s, maxis, SailGP, generally up to 100ft.’ Many of these are racing virtually full time.

Turner’s current worklist includes 88 sails across 12 programmes, including 28 one-design SailGP jibs. ‘Much of what I do involves repeat orders, which really means you are constantly engaged. You basically never stop.

‘With the various race programmes, you are continuously dealing with recuts or maintenance, or working on what they are going to be ordering for upcoming regattas and campaigns.’

Turner’s current schedule does include one major new-build: the 69m ketch known as Project Zero, still under construction at the Vitters yard in Holland. The name relates to the ambitious goal of building a zero-fossil-fuel superyacht.

The sailing implications are significant in that the sailplan needs to deliver sufficient power to maintain decent cruising speeds, despite the drag of two large underwater hydro-generators charging the battery banks. It also means the yacht has to be under sail 80-85 per cent of the time at sea, much more than most superyachts.

The Project Zero sailplan is similar to Aquarius, which was built at Royal Huisman. They are both ketches with almost identical sail areas, but Project Zero’s rigs are shorter in order to pass under the Bridge of the Americas at Panama, while Aquarius has no such restriction.

‘The big thing about Project Zero was to make the sails as powerful as possible to cope with the hydro generators,’ says Turner. In addition, the sail-handling systems had to be designed to operate with the least possible electrical power consumption, while the requirement to sail rather than power through all weather demands ultimate durability.

‘The sail technology is all the same as Aquarius, but with more fibre and a higher dpi content. With the additional hours, the sail replacement rate will be higher,’ says Turner.

Blunden’s connection with the Aquarius programme began with the earlier 56m ketch and continues with the 65m, both as Doyle Sails project manager and as a member of the yachts’ racing crew. Most of his work tends to be on new-builds.

‘I generally come into the picture once a build contract has been signed,’ he says. ‘Before that signature, however, a lot of concept work goes on.’

Highly sophisticated computer modelling lies at the heart of these projects, informing performance and load calculations from the keel to the masthead. ‘To model anything, you need a concept sailplan with baseline areas and specifications,’ Blunden explains.

‘Ideally, all the supplier groups – from the shipyard through to sailmakers, sparmakers, riggers, custom hardware, winches etc – are appointed at the beginning of the planning and design stage. That helps ensure the project runs smoothly, as all aspects can be fully integrated throughout the process,’ he notes.

The Doyle Sails sail designers will mostly lead that preliminary work, which can sometimes go on for years before a final build contract is on the table.

A significant part of those multi-party design conversations is about ensuring that the integration of every aspect of the project takes full advantage of all Doyle Sails’ technology, but in particular Structured Luff technology.

Structured Luff sails can reduce rig loads in the order of 30 per cent, which allows a reduction in displacement and an improvement in righting moment, the benefits of which ripple across the entire supplier chain and into the handling of the yacht. As the overall design package evolves, it is crucial that all parties are looped into changes in displacement, rig geometries, loads, deck layouts, hardware decisions, sail areas. Behind the scenes, the project managers are often involved in chasing these details and ensuring that the relevant information flows to all the parties in a timely way.

‘We also sometimes get involved in the quoting process,’ adds Blunden, ‘just in the sense of making sure that we can actually produce what is being sold.’

With a great deal of custom hardware involved, there is constant cross-party communication. ‘We work very closely with the major spar-makers, for example,’ Blunden continues. ‘They are good about sharing designs with us before they start machining parts, so we can figure out how they will integrate with the sail. We might suggest a few adjustments and redraw it. That way you don’t have a surprise fitting landing on your desk with no idea how we are supposed to make it work.

‘Structured Luff is still a relatively new technology to some suppliers, who might struggle to get their heads around how much of the load is being carried by the luff of the headsail – which has a huge bearing on what they need to produce.

‘For example, it is very important that the connections between the sail and the rig are designed appropriately for the loads. It is not necessarily in our remit to forecast those things, but after doing multiple projects, the knowledge we can share is critical, so we pass that information on in a collaborative way.’

Occasionally, the sail designers also consult the project managers about sail construction details. ‘When it comes to the practicalities and finer details of actually building the sail, we might be called upon to step in with suggestions,’ Turner adds.

Eventually, all the design packages are settled and a build contract is signed. At this point, the sailmakers finalise their planning and scheduling details, but hold off on actually building sails.

‘We only sign off on the final sail designs and start building sails once the boatyard has surveyed the completed hull and deck structures to confirm that what they have built precisely matches the plans, including the chainplate positions and hardware locations,’ says Turner.

As experienced sailmakers, the project managers share a common language and knowledge with their colleagues on the loft floor as they oversee the construction of the inventory and ensure scheduling milestones are met.

‘When it comes to building the sails, our job is to have all the information the sailmakers need, when they need it. Likewise with all the hardware and parts, they have to be on hand exactly when they are required to be incorporated into the construction process,’ says Turner. ‘And then, most importantly, when the sail is delivered halfway around the world, whoever opens the bag at the other end needs to see exactly what they are expecting to see. No surprises.’

Extrapolate that out across the entire project and it amounts to a highly complex organisational ecosystem, spread across multiple locations, specialist skills and time zones, every part of it working to the highest levels of precision and accuracy, to meet strict milestones and deadlines.

‘If just one part of it is delayed, or changes, it ripples all the way through the system,’ says Blunden. Think about those spinning plates crashing down one by one. The fine line between success and disaster depends on a high degree of expertise, trust and constant communication between all parties.

It is all part of being a global multi-disciplinary team working towards a shared objective to bring a highly sophisticated and technically challenging objective to fruition in a way that will live up to – or preferably exceed – the client’s most demanding expectations.

More on Doyle Sails

But for a couple of capsizes during the fleet race series, Quentin Delapierre’s crew – which features co-helm Diego Botín, along with trimmers Jason Saunders and Florian Trittel – could well have been the ones that faced the Italians in the match race final.

Kandler declared himself and the team ‘happy’ with the result, but also admitted they were genuinely disappointed not to have made it into the final.

“We were close to getting there,” he said. “Some unforced errors got in the way. On the whole, though, from my point of view it was a strong performance – and a great message for the whole team and to our fellow competitors.”

Read more

For serious race programmes, the season isn’t built race by race. It’s built months in advance, with every decision shaped by what comes next. The boats may compete fiercely on the water, but success often depends on logistics planned long before the first start gun fires.

That is why many teams work with Sevenstar Yacht Transport well ahead of the racing calendar, securing both outbound and return crossings in a single strategy. For campaigns moving between Europe and the Caribbean, round-trip planning has become less of a convenience and more of a competitive advantage. It creates certainty around schedules, protects valuable preparation time, and allows teams to focus on performance rather than logistics.

On the dock in St. Thomas, just after the Caribbean racing circuit, that dynamic is easy to see. Boats including Bella Mente, Hummingbird and Galateia remain in place, but the atmosphere has shifted. Sails are stowed, rigs are quiet and crews are already preparing for the next phase of the season. Slings are laid out, cradles positioned and containers assembled along the quay.

What appears to be downtime is anything but. The race season never really stops. The moment one campaign ends, the next one begins.

Racing may be about performance, but performance depends on what happens beyond the racecourse. The yacht has to move again, the crew has to reset, and the entire campaign must be repositioned efficiently, without delay or uncertainty. The visible results on the water are only possible because the invisible structure supporting them is already in place.

A return leg can quietly decide the rest of the season
For Hummingbird, the key decision was made long before the first race. ‘We got in contact with Sevenstar Yacht Transport about a year in advance,’ says captain Josh Hill. ‘We knew we had a busy race season coming up, so we decided to book the return journey as well.’

The yacht departed Palma de Mallorca in January following a period of upgrades before arriving in the Caribbean for a demanding programme that included Antigua, St Barths and the BVI Spring Regatta. The preparation paid off, with the team securing three second-place finishes.

But a successful campaign isn’t judged by results alone. It’s defined by what happens afterwards.

‘The most critical thing about the round trip is the trip back,’ Hill explains.

Once the yacht returns to Europe, the schedule tightens immediately. Yard periods, crew rotations, training blocks and race entries are all fixed. There is little room for delay.

‘It’s tight to get back to the Med, and the most reliable way to do so is to come with Sevenstar and get there on time.’

The next destination for Hummingbird is already set. ‘Next stop for us is Sorrento,’ Hill says. ‘As soon as we come off the ship in Palma, we are straight back into it. A bit of training in midsummer and then off to the Swan Worlds.’

That immediacy is exactly why uncertainty on the return leg is not an option. Without secured transport back to Europe, the entire second half of the season becomes conditional. Round-trip thinking naturally becomes part of the campaign itself.

Build the season with Sevenstar, then sail it
The principle is simple, but it requires discipline. ‘We try to plan about a year in advance,’ Hill continues. ‘And we are already talking with Sevenstar about the return journey next year to match it with the race calendar.’

The process begins with the immovable dates: when the yacht needs to race and when the crew needs to be in place. Everything else is planned backwards from there.

Race schedules determine arrival dates. Arrival dates determine loading windows. Those windows influence yard planning and crew logistics. Without a secured return journey, the sequence begins to unravel. With it, the campaign remains intact.

‘There are many stages of planning for these events, especially when you have a busy race calendar,’ Hill says. ‘In the long term, knowing that you are going on a ship allows you to rest your crew and hit the ground running, starting at full speed again.’

Transport, in other words, isn’t an afterthought. It has to be one of the foundations of the campaign.‘We all love to do transatlantic delivery sailing; it’s one of the highlights of the year for a lot of sailors,’ Hill adds. ‘But when you are in a busy race programme, you just have to get the yacht from A to B as quickly and safely as possible. Loading her onto a Sevenstar ship removes the risk and the breakage that can happen during an ocean crossing.’

Not just a yacht, but a moving system of multiple parts
What moves between continents is far more than a hull. Hummingbird for example travels with two 20ft containers and a 40ft high cube. ‘We have a workshop, a sail container, and another container with equipment,’ Hill explains. Inside are sails, rigging, spare parts and tools – everything required to keep the yacht competitive.

‘With these kinds of boats, we really rely on our containers,’ he says. ‘Turning up without the full inventory means you don’t have the best opportunity to fix the boat when things go wrong.’

Racing yachts are systems operating under constant pressure. Performance depends on how quickly teams can respond to issues, and the yacht itself is only one part of that equation. The support infrastructure travels with it, and it all has to arrive together.

The plan versus what happens on the day
Behind what appears to be a straightforward operation lies weeks of preparation. ‘A lot of planning goes into it before the port call,’ says Sevenstar loadmaster Scott Aubinger. ‘From the stow plans to making sure all the lifting gear is correct and available.’

Yet no operation is entirely predictable. ‘During the actual operation things change,’ he says. ‘That’s why we are there, thinking on our feet and working with the crew and the captain.’

The positioning of each yacht on the ship, the alignment of lifting points and rig clearances have to be managed in real time. ‘It’s a lot of teamwork,’ Aubinger adds. The process is highly controlled, but never static.

Keeping the fleet together
For the captain of Galateia, the value of that structure extends beyond a single crossing. ‘We’ve been coming out here the last few winters with the same group of boats,’ he says. ‘It’s important that we race together and stay racing together.’

That continuity depends on transport. ‘Our boats can’t sail across the Atlantic. If we don’t go on a ship, we don’t come here,’ he explains.

Like Hummingbird, Galateia booked transport as a round trip. That certainty allows teams to schedule refits, organise crew and commit to European racing programmes without guesswork.

‘Transport makes our season much longer,’ he says. ‘It allows us to be here and then go straight back into racing in Europe.’

Looking across the ship’s deck, he describes the operation as a coordinated whole. ‘Everything is packed in – yachts, containers, support boats. It’s pretty impressive how it all fits together.’

Never a routine experience
Even so, the experience never becomes routine. ‘It’s nerve-wracking,’ says Peter Henderson, captain of Bella Mente. ‘You’re putting your baby on a crane and watching her swing in the air.’

Familiarity helps. ‘We’ve loaded with the same loadmaster a few times,’ he says. ‘You build a good working relationship.’

However, even the best plans require flexibility. ‘You look at the drawings and the stow plans beforehand, but when you’re on deck, things might be slightly different. You have to be flexible and if necessary find a way to make it work.’

As Henderson notes, ‘the logistics allow us to do all of that.’ Modern race campaigns depend on logistics not simply as a support function, but as an enabler of performance. Round-trip planning is where that reality becomes most visible.

Transport involves a commitment on both sides
Round-trip planning works because it represents a firm commitment from everyone involved. Yacht owners who secure transport early can build their campaigns around fixed sailing schedules. In return, Sevenstar commits to capacity and delivery.

‘We are already setting up the next racing season,’ says Sevenstar’s Sander Speet. Outbound sailings in January and return sailings in late March or early April are structured around the rhythm of the racing calendar.

Being part of the Spliethoff Group, Sevenstar’s access to a large fleet of company-owned vessels enables capacity to be secured well in advance. For race campaigns operating on fixed timelines, that reliability is essential.

A round trip provides certainty in both directions. The yacht has a guaranteed return. The schedule is set. The teams responsible for delivering that movement are committed to making it happen.

The race starts long before the start and ends after the finish
‘I think transport planning is a critical part of the whole racing operation,’ Hill says.

That is the underlying principle. Racing success depends quite heavily on what happens before the start and after the finish. It depends on aligning every part of the campaign and removing uncertainty wherever possible.

Round-trip planning does exactly that. It allows teams to focus on performance, knowing that the logistics have already been secured. And in a sport defined by timing, that certainty becomes part of the result.

More on Sevenstar Yacht Transport

For all its facets, guises, categories and genres, the broad, varied and beautiful world of yacht racing has one common denominator: yacht owners are the backbone of our sport. These dedicated sailing enthusiasts, with the commitment and resources to pursue their passion, make it possible for so many of us to compete at the level we aspire to. Even at the very highest echelons of yacht racing, with star sailors, sophisticated marketing operations and major sponsorship agreements, competitions such as the America’s Cup and SailGP would remain little more than ambitious concepts without the vision and investment of owners.

Recognising the pivotal role that owners play, Matt Cornwell and Cornwell Race Management have launched a bespoke service designed to support a select number of owners in achieving their racing ambitions. Drawing on decades of experience at the pinnacle of the sport, Cornwell Race Management provides highly tailored programme management, helping owners navigate the increasingly complex world of elite yacht racing while ensuring their goals, expectations and enjoyment remain at the centre of every campaign.

How, then, do we ensure owners continue returning to yacht racing year after year, decade after decade? Class managers, yacht clubs and event organisers all contribute by creating the global playground in which owners can compete. Yet it is equally important that the sport responds to owners on an individual level, understanding their motivations and helping them realise their ambitions. This becomes especially critical when owners progress from club and domestic competition to the international stage, where effective race programme management is essential to delivering both success and satisfaction.

Having spent his career operating at the highest levels of yacht racing, from four America’s Cup campaigns to some of the world’s premier regattas for privately owned yachts and superyachts, Matt Cornwell has shaped Cornwell Race Management around the lessons learned from elite competition.

‘It is often said that the America’s Cup is as much a design challenge as a sailing challenge, and there is no question that the fastest boat tends to win sailing’s most coveted prize,’ says Cornwell. ‘But when you compete in the Cup, you quickly realise that it is also, first and foremost, a management challenge. Although when supporting an owner in their campaign, the focus must align with their individual vision of what they hope to achieve from the sport, the management principles that underpin success in the America’s Cup are equally valuable in helping turn an owner’s ambitions into reality.’

Cornwell Race Management believes that these principles can be distilled into three key areas:

Recruitment – identifying not only the most talented sailors, coaches and shore support personnel, but the people who will complement the team and help drive it forward. Success depends on securing the right leadership, technical expertise and analytical capability, all of whom must be able to maintain the flexibility to evolve and adapt when circumstances demand it.

Culture – fostering leadership, accountability, mutual respect and strong teamwork, underpinned by a shared commitment to delivering long-term success for both the owner and the wider team.

Process – continuously refining the structures and systems that allow sporting, technical and support functions to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, whilst staying ahead of the development curve.

Whether in Grand Prix classes where the emphasis may be overwhelmingly on performance, or in superyacht racing where safety, hospitality and unforgettable experiences take on greater significance, effective programme management plays a vital role.

‘This was the very premise that gave birth to Cornwell Race Management,’ Cornwell explains. ‘Too often I saw owners and teams searching for the person who could bring all the moving parts together, and sometimes receiving poor advice after finding the wrong fit. I realised that, with the knowledge and relationships I’d developed competing at the highest level against the very best in the world, I could help the right owner achieve something truly special in this sport. That became the motivation for launching Cornwell Race Management.’

While grand prix racing remains a major focus for Cornwell Race Management, the company also recognises the growing importance of superyacht racing within the wider sailing landscape.

‘I love superyacht racing,’ says Cornwell. ‘It’s a very different and unique challenge. Over the years it became clear that the management principles and relationships developed in the grand prix world could bring real value to this thriving side of the sport. While the owner’s experience may take precedence over pure competition, working closely with them and their captain to build the right team, culture and processes remains just as important.

‘Balancing enjoyment and safety with performance and cost efficiency helps create truly unforgettable experiences for owners and their guests.’

Across the sport, there are numerous examples of owner-led programmes that demonstrate the value of long-term commitment, clear objectives and effective management. Sustained success rarely happens by chance. It is built through strong leadership, continuity within teams and a shared understanding of what owners want to achieve from their involvement in the sport.

Perhaps another reason owners receive less attention is that, by most measures, yacht racing appears to be thriving. Participation in the 52 Super Series is at its strongest in years, the 44Cup continues to offer exceptional value at the highest level of grand prix competition, new maxi yachts are entering construction and the return of the Admiral’s Cup has injected significant energy and investment into the sport. Alongside this, the superyacht racing calendar continues to expand, attracting strong and growing participation.

With new owners setting their sights on the world’s premier events and established owners renewing their commitment to the sport, Cornwell Race Management believes it has never been more important to provide owners with the same level of focus and support found in America’s Cup campaigns.

Through expert guidance, a tailored approach and an understanding that success is measured not only by results but also by experience, Cornwell Race Management helps owners transform their ambitions into reality – ensuring they are best prepared to cross the starting line and enjoy every step of the journey.

More on Cornwell Race Management

Being absolutely honest, I didn’t have the highest of expectations for last weekend’s second preliminary regatta of the 38th America’s Cup in Naples. I’d been warned to prepare for chaos ashore and windless drifting conditions out on the water.

As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong. My four-day visit to Naples was a fantastic experience all round, during which I got a real taste of the spirit and passion of Italy’s third-largest city, and witnessed some amazing high-performance racing between the top sailing teams in the world.

That’s not to say that Naples is not a completely bonkers place that pulses with incessant noise and frenetic activity. From the hair-raising, bone-jarring, Mad Max-style driving experience around the city’s mostly cobbled streets to the thronging crowds that pack the pavements and pedestrianised areas, and the breathtaking beauty of the coastline and surrounding islands, Naples is an all-consuming assault on your senses. (And don’t get me started on the quality of the local food and wine.)

Best seats in the house…

My official role last weekend was as a driver of one of the four America’s Cup photographer boats, but I was also keen to find out for myself how Naples and the Italian general public would respond to this precursor of next year’s 38th America’s Cup spring/summer spectacular.

Driving a photo boat at the America’s Cup is a wonderful assignment that gets you about as close to the racing action as you could possibly wish for. Photo boats operate in a narrow corridor between the race course and the outer circle of spectator boats. For the race starts we typically set up slightly to windward of the start line transits and then follow the fleet up to the halfway point of the first beat. There, we wait to catch them on the way back downwind, before making a fast run up to the windward gate. Of course, we also find our way to the leeward gate to catch the action there.

Every regatta venue has its iconic identifying landmarks – the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sky Tower in Auckland, and the mirrored W Hotel and Sagrada Família in Barcelona – and in Naples it was the natural grandeur of Mount Vesuvius and the sheer stone walls of the waterside Castel dell’Ovo that the local photographers were clamouring to line the AC40 fleet up with.

Naples is at its most spectacular from the water. Multiple tiers of sun-bleached ochre, terracotta, faded pink and cream façades form a natural amphitheatre around the America’s Cup racing area, and make for a simply stunning backdrop in the late afternoon as the sun’s angle decreased and the golden hour approached.

Bragging rights and more…

I suspect that anyone reading this will have also watched the racing in Naples last weekend for themselves and already know that – following eight exciting fleet races – the Luna Rossa ‘principal’ team led by Peter Burling emerged the overall winners after defeating Nathan Outteridge’s Emirates Team New Zealand in the match race final – a repeat of the first AC38 preliminary regatta in Cagliari on Sardinia in May of this year.

Since arriving at Luna Rossa last year, Burling has become something of a talisman for the Italian team and appears to have given the perennial America’s Cup challengers a new belief that a successful Cup campaign is within their grasp. At the prize giving ceremony in the waterfront race village in the Lungomare Caracciolo on Sunday evening a somewhat bemused-looking Burling was tossed in the air by his excited team mates. That, I’m guessing, never happened to him following any of his three America’s Cup victories with Emirates Team New Zealand.

If the Italians are on a high after last weekend’s regatta, which floor the mood elevator at the holders of the America’s Cup is currently sitting on is hard to establish. “Nobody likes losing,” said a quietly frustrated-looking Outteridge after the match race defeat.

Quentin Delapierre’s third-placed French team will be able to take plenty of positives from the weekend’s racing, but are no doubt ruing the two capsizes – at least one of which could well have cost them a spot in the final match race.

Paul Goodison’s Swiss Tudor Team Alinghi also impressed early in the event, although a poor last day dropped them from third to seventh overall. Nevertheless, the helming combo of Goodison and Phil Robertson looked much more coherent than during their first outing in Cagliari.

Meanwhile, there must surely be smiles on faces in the American Racing Challenger Team USA camp after the newcomers – led (although not officially) by Harry Melges – stunned the fleet with a win in the opening race and went on to finish fourth overall.

After an utterly lacklustre showing for the majority of the regatta, Dylan Fletcher’s British GB1 outfit will no doubt be keen to quickly refocus on the final fit-out and relaunch of their AC75, scheduled to take place in Naples this autumn.

What did we learn? Looking ahead to next year.

I’m not sure if this second preliminary regatta has taught us anything new in regard to the individual teams’ potential performances next year at the main event. After all, Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa were already the favourites to contest the 38th America’s Cup final, so you would expect them to be doing well at this stage too.

What we can say with confidence is that – if it were ever in doubt – Naples has proved that it has the potential to be one of the great America’s Cup venues. By and large the weather gods smiled on regatta director Iain Murray over during the event and delivered – albeit with an occasional bit of waiting around – pumping breezes on all three days. From what I was told by some of my new local best friends, we can confidently expect more of the same next year for the Louis Vuitton Cup and the AC38 Match itself.

Onshore, I think next year’s event is likely to be off the hook. The locals – and some visitors – packed out the race village on Saturday and Sunday and the atmosphere when Luna Rossa did a high-speed victory fly-by behind their chase boat accompanied by the massed ranks of the local coastguard was a sight to behold. The same went for the prizegiving an hour or so later when the winning team was received by a music-festival-sized crowd.

There has been some speculation about the practicalities of splitting the event between the race village in Chiaia and a separate location out in Bagnoli, where a rundown ex-industrial area is being redeveloped to house the team bases and a spectacular race village. I went out to Bagnoli by boat on Sunday morning before the racing to take a look. While there is still plenty of evidence of the old steelworks that used to dominate the site, the progress on building out the team bases and event organiser offices is impressive. The Emirates Team New Zealand, GB1, and Tudor Team Alinghi bases looked well advanced, and the steel shell of the AC media centre and offices appeared almost complete.

By the time the team bases are operational, the superyacht pontoon is in place, and the race village is complete I think this will perhaps be the best America’s Cup setup we have seen since AC32 in Valencia in 2007. My advice for visitors planning their accommodation for next year would be to stay in the city and enjoy all that it has to offer in the evenings – don’t get me started on the Italian food and wine – and then take the 20-minute, €3 train out to Bagnoli to enjoy an F1 paddock-style day around the bases.

What’s next?

For the fans, there is no denying that this America’s Cup cycle has been somewhat stop-start. With the two preliminary regattas now behind us, we are in for a bit of a quiet time until the third prelim regatta – this time in AC75s – at the end of May next year. That said, we can reasonably expect to see the British, French, Italian, and Swiss teams sailing their AC75s in Naples before the end of this year, with the Kiwis, Americans, and Australians joining the party in the new year.

Our best source of insider information is likely to come through the output of the Joint Reconnaissance Programme, which looks set to kick fully into gear as the teams arrive in Naples with their AC75s. The French were the first to move their big boat to Bagnoli – it arrived by barge last Thursday as there is not yet a suitable access road to the site – and are planning to have it on the water in mid-October. The Swiss and the British are also understood to be planning to have their AC75s sailing in Naples during November.

Just how many differences we will be able to identify on the updated AC75s – aside from a modified cockpit layout – is difficult to conceive. Other than the Australians, the teams will be using legacy foils, rudders, masts, and sails until next spring, and the changes to the control systems will be invisible from the outside. Nevertheless, it will be good to see the return of the AC75s as it marks the beginning of an exciting new phase of this latest cycle of yacht racing’s oldest and most prestigious competition.

The same Harken hydraulic engineers who helped keep Oracle Team USA and Ben Ainslie’s Athena Racing flying through three America’s Cups, and who equipped both Gitana foiling Ultims, have now turned their attention to Trinity – the newest yacht in the highly competitive 52 Super Series.

Trinity features a suite of hydraulic innovations that aim to set a new benchmark for the class. Adopting unproven technology requires confidence, the owner’s project manager Micky Costa explains, but the potential gains made the decision worthwhile.

‘It’s a leap into the unknown, but my job is improving the boat every chance I get,’ he says. ‘When I saw what they proposed, it was exactly what I wanted.’

Working alongside Costa were Harken’s head of grand prix sales Mark Wiss, director of engineering Steve Orlebeke and Ben Biddick, who leads hydraulic engineering at the company’s Pewaukee, Wisconsin headquarters. Jim Stone of Gorilla Rigging and Felix Schliebitz also played key roles in the installation.

Ordinarily, the sailing team would have significant input into the systems package. This project was different. ‘It’s a new team,’ says Costa. ’They came with no experience, so I tried to transfer my knowledge from other teams and make the boat as easy as possible to use. The goal was to get them sailing straight away with minimal setup time.’

The sailors provided input on the optimal location for the hydraulic controls, particularly for the jib trimmer, but simplicity remained the guiding principle.

The relationship between Costa and Harken spans many years, built on a shared focus on performance and problem-solving. ‘I’ve always felt supported and they give great service,’ says Costa. ‘If you have a problem, they won’t come with excuses.’

Biddick values the relationship just as highly. ‘Micky is exceptionally good at what he does and very demanding. He’s been a great partner for a long time, so we make sure we listen carefully to what he has to say. We’re always looking for every small advantage.’

For Wiss, that customer-focused approach is central to Harken’s culture. ‘It’s something Peter and Olaf Harken brought every day: listen to the customer and solve their problem.’

A cleaner, simpler solution
The challenge was to design and build the most advanced hydraulic system yet seen on a TP52. Earlier-generation boats relied on hydraulics for only two functions – backstay deflectors and headstay adjustment – while for most other controls they used rope purchases and block-andtackle systems.

As teams pursued cleaner interiors and lower overall weight, the prospect of having a more integrated hydraulic solution became increasingly attractive. ‘Compared with other projects we see, the loads are not very high,’ says Wiss, ‘ so we needed extremely compact equipment operating at very high pressure while remaining affordable.’

For Costa, the benefits of sophisticated hydraulics extend beyond performance.

‘If I didn’t have hydraulic jib up-anddown, jib tack and jib inhaul controls, and instead used traditional rope purchases, it would add another week to the build process. A jib-in system with a 48:1 purchase and spool boxes can use more than 50 metres of rope.

‘We still use rope purchases for the cunningham, outhaul and vang, but if every function used rope systems the boat would become a mess. With hydraulics you have a small cylinder, a strop, valves and hoses. It’s much simpler.’

Rethinking valve control
Class rules prohibit electrical actuation, so all hydraulic valves must be operated mechanically. To meet that requirement, Trinity carries four of Harken’s newgeneration hydraulic valves, with a fifth mounted as a spare. Six control lines at the jib trimmer’s station operate three valves that are responsible for jib clew up-and-down adjustment, inhaul and jib tack control.

According to Biddick, reducing operating effort was a major design objective. ‘Micky gave us very specific feedback about the positions the sailors operate from and the amount of force they can comfortably apply while maintaining control,’ he explains. ‘We took that to heart and made sure the lever geometry and ratios worked effectively in those real-world sailing positions.’

Serviceability is equally important. ‘If there’s an issue, we want the fastest possible path to maintenance,’ says Biddick. ‘Wear components are external and visible, so they can be replaced without having to dismantle the hydraulic system itself.’

Every valve is tested under maximum operating loads before leaving the factory. ‘When it reaches the boat, we know it has already experienced the worst conditions it’s likely to encounter and still performs as intended,’ Biddick says.

The design is also future-ready, capable of accepting electric actuation should class rules eventually permit it.

Self-sufficient jib trim
The valve system is only one part of Trinity’s hydraulic package. Equally important is how that system is powered.

To supply hydraulic oil pressure for jib trim functions, Harken developed a stand-alone recirculating line-drive pump that is mounted in the bilge and nicknamed “Evinrude”. The trimmer pulls a line integrated into the footrest, spinning a pump that builds hydraulic pressure. A bungee system then retracts the line, ready for the next stroke.

‘On Trinity, the jib trimmer is completely self-sufficient,’ says Wiss. ‘He has complete control of his sail functions. And nobody wants the crew leaving the rail to pump oil for him.’

The system can also be tuned to suit individual sailors by adjusting the spool diameter, altering the balance between pumping speed and hydraulic power.

The feedback from Trinity’s first regatta in Puerto Portals was immediate. ‘Their jib trimmer was over the moon with how well everything worked,’ says Wiss. ‘Hearing that from the sailor actually using the system was especially rewarding.’

Solving a subtle problem
Perhaps the most elegant innovation sits below deck in the bow: a compound forestay and jib tack cylinder developed through four separate design iterations. ‘That product is certainly not on any other boat,’ says Biddick. ‘We’ve only made two.’

A trinity of hydraulic innovations

The challenge it solves is deceptively simple. Traditionally, easing the headstay without easing the jib tack system can overload the sail and potentially damage equipment. By linking both functions mechanically, Trinity allows the relative position of the jib tack to adjust automatically as the headstay is eased. The engineering challenge was preventing damaging side loads.

Placing a 1.75-tonne jib tack load onto a forestay cylinder already carrying nine tonnes can create bending loads that compromise seals and reduce component life. Harken’s solution is a pivoting yoke that keeps the loads aligned in pure tension.‘It’s a triangulation scenario,’ Biddick explains, ‘that allows the loads to articulate and remain balanced as they increase and decrease.’

The result is a lighter, stronger and more serviceable assembly. Each cylinder can be removed independently without disturbing the other.

Costa was impressed by the final result: ‘It’s a new development and a very pleasant surprise. It’s light too. The guys in Pewaukee have done a good job.’

Learning through iteration
Arriving at the final design required several false starts. ‘We started producing it, then stopped and said, “This isn’t market-worthy,”’ Wiss recalls. ‘We tested it, showed it to potential customers and received some pretty blunt feedback. That told us we needed to rethink the concept.’

The breakthrough came unexpectedly. ‘One morning Ben showed up and said, “I have an idea.” We pushed him hard on it, and it turned into the solution.’

For Biddick, that process is simply part of engineering. ‘That’s why we test,’ he says. We test to learn and to make sure that our products don’t fail in the field. If a problem still exists, you keep working until you solve it.’

Every fraction of a second
The final piece of the package is Trinity’s new down-drive pedestal system. The design for this allows grinders to switch between full-speed and full-power modes using a foot switch without interrupting handle rotation.

Traditionally, crews had to stop grinding during transitions, costing valuable time and momentum.

‘Now you can switch between hydraulic and winch functions without stopping,’ says Biddick. ‘If four sailors are already at maximum effort, eliminating that pause can be a significant advantage.’

In the tightly contested TP52 fleet, even fractions of a second matter. Trinity finished mid-fleet on her competitive debut, but the early signs were encouraging.

‘The first days of competitive sailing are always a little nerve-racking,’ says Wiss. ‘You hope that everything works and has been installed correctly. But once Trinity reached Puerto Portals, everyone was happy. Then they went out and won one of the races, which was exciting.’

For Harken, Trinity represents the culmination of years of feedback, testing and refinement. By working closely with sailors and continuously iterating designs, the company has developed a suite of systems aimed at delivering meaningful gains where they matter most.

In a fleet where races can be decided by fractions of a second, those details can provide the decisive edge.

More on Harken

Wow, did we all just blast through the midpoint of the 2026 season in the buffeting trade winds of Lanzarote! The 52 Super Series went to Marina Rubicon in search of strong breeze and were rewarded – if that is the right word – with an average windspeed the strong side of 20kt. The third regatta of the year was a spectacular acid test. Few teams came through unscathed.

In the end, and befitting a team from the nation that has long dominated ocean racing, Jean-Luc Petithuguenin’s French team on Paprec proved very popular winners in Lanzarote. Winds of 20-30kt must have felt like a walk in the park for some of the Paprec team in Lanzarote… not least Vendée Globe veterans Loïck Peyron, tactician, and sometime navigator Yoann Richomme.

After coming within touching distance of the world title last year in windy Cascais – missing out by a single point on the final day – many came to Lanzarote expecting the French to be one of the strongest in the big breeze and big seas. They did not disappoint.

Main image: Loïck Peyron (right) seems to have officially completed his transition from oceanic racing god to outstanding Grand Prix tactician as a now longstanding member of Jean-Luc Petithuguenin’s (with trophy) Paprec team, winners in Lanzarote… If Banque Populaire and Macif lead the way with commercial support for sailing, Petithuguenin is surely among the most prolific private campaigners. As well as a winning TP52 team that tirelessly promotes young French sailing talent, there is the brilliant Yoann Richomme’s second Vendée Globe Imoca programme coming up shortly plus sponsorship of both the Figaro Solitaire (for now) and two-handed Transat Paprec.

That said, as one of the original teams to have transitioned from the MedCup to becoming a staunch supporter of the 52 Super Series in 2012, perhaps there were some within the Paprec camp who questioned if a regatta victory would ever come their way, even after finishing on the overall podium for the first time at the end of the 2025 season.

So when they finally made it happen in Lanzarote there were more than a few emotional French sailors docking in to enjoy the champagne showers ashore, not least Petithuguenin who, through the company he founded, Paprec, has given so much to French sailing over the years. Just to remind us, that longterm support, year in year out, has included sponsoring La Solitaire, the Transat Paprec two-handed race to St Barts and of course supporting Yoann Richomme who has a new Imoca in build funded by Paprec.

Stéphane Névé, mainsheet trimmer and project manager recalls, ‘Jean-Luc was just so happy. As was the case for all of us… It has been such a long time since we first started on the circuit. And, yes, sometimes we were thinking, “OK, it’s nice to be here, but maybe winning is not for us.” But finally we have done it.’

Paprec were among the fastest downwind in the breeze last year and they were again in Lanzarote. Another fundamental asset was reliability – helpful when their rivals were regularly blowing up sails; one team destroyed four chutes during a single two-race day.

Névé continues: ‘We have been working a lot on our sails. And unlike most teams we work on our own. We try to analyse what was good last year and the conditions where it was good, and when it was not so easy. We took our baseline from those sails, and we said, “OK, on the J1 we want this much change. On the J1-5 we want this. We keep it as simple as possible.”

‘But in the end we stayed close to the North baseline. We didn’t change much. In hindsight we didn’t change much at all!

‘But you can see that, especially with the kites, we had no issue during the event in Lanzarote when some of the teams were working their way through kites like they were going out of fashion.

‘That was the target we also gave to North Sails, including the choice of sail cloth. They had to be reliable. We knew it would be windy and we did not want to have to hold back.

‘I mean, on the A4, for example, we only use nylon while most of the fleet are using polyester. But we felt that in these conditions polyester is too risky, especially with frequent shock loads that can pop a polyester chute in an instant. If you hit a wave… poof! I mean, you have all seen the footage!!

‘Of course, on paper polyester is always better because it doesn’t stretch so much. But to win the race you need to finish the race and to finish with all your sails.

‘As well as sails, we have been working quite a lot on the hydraulics, the pedestals, the winches and everything else in the systems. Again, our call to the technicians, the shore team, was to make things bulletproof. That was our thing. Don’t try to save some weight. Try to make it as reliable as possible. In Lanzarote we really wanted to be able to push hard, no compromising.’

It has also been fascinating to watch Paprec tactician Loïck Peyron learn and improve regatta by regatta, year by year. Since joining the team in 2024 Peyron has brought a remarkable energy and team spirit – Loïck is of course a famous ocean racer, but he has learnt to love the new challenge of grand prix inshore racing.

The way the French go about their TP52 racing is both unique and admirable. For a nation so steeped in the greatest traditions of blue water racing, when taking on the toughest Grand Prix circuit – the 52 Super Series – not for them the call out to the brightest international stars and those enormous invoices. Barring emergencies, Eric de Turckheim’s Teasing Machine (above) and Jean-Luc Petithuguenin’s Paprec both go racing with 100 per cent French crews. And the heavier conditions of Lanzarote suited them to a tee 36

His own satisfaction at winning was obvious: ‘Finally I can die happy now,’ Loïck laughed at the prizegiving. He is of course an instinctive racer who reads the racecourse more by eye and feel. But Peyron contributes in every area.

‘Loïck is not a lifetime fleet racer like Terry (Hutchinson) or Vasco (Vascotto),’ says Névé. ‘So when we get close to the top mark and there are many boats around it’s more difficult for him. So, in that situation, most of the time he’s telling Cedric [Château], “OK, now I’ll let you decide.” It’s generally when we get to the upwind mark or the downwind mark and there is a lot of traffic. This is the kind of situation where Loïck is not as comfortable as he could be in other conditions.

‘However, on the trimming and the set-up of the sails Loïck is truly excellent. He quietly tells us what he sees and what he would like to do. Sometimes we do not agree. Sometimes we explain that we have been trying what he’s suggesting and that it doesn’t work. But always we talk together and between us we find the best option.

‘Loïck has recently been doing a lot of multihull sailing… so not surprisingly on the trimming, especially downwind, sometimes the way he sees things is not the way Cédric and I see it! The dynamics are different, especially on the main. But most of the time the comments he’s making are very relevant and useful.’

Helm Cédric Château is a sailor whose broad overall talents are maybe overlooked outside France. What other grand prix helm is a match racing champion, a dinghy and offshore coach, and a shorthanded Transatlantic race winner (Château won the 2025 Transat Café l’Or with Guillaume Pirouelle)? He also talent-spotted and coached the young Charlie Dalin in the 420 class and became a key influence during his early career.

‘Cédric’s very clever,’ Névé adds. ‘Because he’s not just a helmsman, he’s a coach and also a good match racer. He really knows the crew, he knows those guys because he has also been coaching them. He can say, OK, try this or try that. He has a really good feel, and he will tell the jib trimmer, “OK, I would like to see if this is an improvement. So we talk a lot together. Most of the time it’s easy communication with Cédric which then brings more performance.’

Again, coming from a nation of great offshore sailors, Paprec are very much a self-contained, self-reliant team. They have no big-name coach but instead work with a young Figaro sailor, Pierrick Letouzé, who brings his own raft of skills.

‘Pierrick’s on the chase boat. He’s looking at the sails, he’s looking at the trim of the boat, at the trimming of the sails. He’s our personal geek. He’s also a drone pilot, and he’s watching everything everywhere. All the data, everything,’ Névé explains. ‘He’s only 25. And he’s largely self-taught. But he’s very, very clever, and he’s bringing a lot of new things to the team. New ideas, new techniques. He’s constantly analysing sail shapes, sail design, the trimming of the sails compared with the other boats.’

Stéphane Névé: ‘We have not made any big changes. Our big goal for this season was to have no issues. Because we knew that the conditions would be tough in Lanzarote we tried to make every technical area as reliable as possible on the boat. And it paid off.’

Going forwards, the second half of the season looks set to be as fascinating as ever. Sled shed a dozen or so points of their hard-earned lead over the last two races in Lanzarote and look a lot more catchable than they perhaps did after winning in both Puerto Portals and Porto Cervo. Harm Müller-Spreer’s Platoon Aviation are making their customary late-season charge. Although they lost more spinnakers than any other team in Lanzarote they looked fast and otherwise are sailing very well!

So too Andrea Lacorte’s Alkedo, second in Lanzarote and third in the season standings. But there are more than the usual number of teams that have yet to show their very best at the midway point, notably Joakim Sundberg’s Trinity, Pieter Heerema’s No Way Back, Tony Langley’s Gladiator, Ergin Imre’s Provezza and Andy Soriano’s Alegre. All will take inspiration from Paprec and all will be pushing hard in every area to finish the season with a regatta win.

More on the 52 Super Series

It has been a great year so far for maxi racing, first in the Caribbean and now in Europe. That said, because of the unexpected turbulence in global shipping, our first events were less well supported than usual – the PalmaVela particularly suffering despite the imaginative addition of La Larga, a distance race around the Balearic islands. One day perhaps this could be tried as an alternative to our present IMA Maxi European Championship in Sorrento?

There were some changes to the format of the 2026 edition of our Maxi Europeans, organised jointly with the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia in the Bay of Naples and kicking off with the Regata dei Tre Golfi offshore race – the start always being memorable with the fleet departing from Naples with Mount Vesuvius as backdrop.

As so often with Mediterranean distance races it was a tactical battle to avoid as many shutdowns as possible – some teams suffering six or seven park-ups this year. It was a constant game of lead changes between the 100-footers Galateia, V and Leopard 3. The first two, both modified Wallycentos, have been arch-rivals for the last few seasons. V was only beaten on the water right at the finish and that left Galateia winning both line honours and on IRC corrected time. In the Maxi Grand Prix class similar battles were being fought. In the end Jethou got in first but Peter Dubens’ North Star achieved an impressive third win in a row on corrected time.

For the subsequent four days of inshore and coastal racing the wind remained very light and at times fickle but PRO Stuart Childerley held his nerve and the series was completed, with all planned races sailed including the traditional circuit of Capri.

The main change for this edition was to try to achieve fairer results by not mixing up the classes with their impossibly wide-ranging ratings – from the highest, the new Magic Carpet at 1.870, down to the lowest, the 50-year-old Swan 65 ketch Shirlaf at 1.102. Replacing the previous mass start this year the fleet was split into two, Maxi 1 and Grand Prix in one start and Maxi 3 and 4/5 in the other. We also scored the four classes separately, thereby creating not one but four new Maxi European Champions.

On the penultimate day V and Galateia continued their sparring but the smaller Capricorno was only one point behind. In Maxi Grand Prix Jethou was having a much better week although Jolt, North Star and Django7X were closing in behind. Class 3 was dominated by the canting-keel Mylius 60 Cippa Lippa X, chased home some way back by the new Manticore (a previous Jethou). These two raceboats were usually far ahead of their more ‘cruisey’ competitors.

It was down to the final race for the Maxi 1 and Grand Prix classes and the weather kept its best to the last. The forecast had suggested it would be too light to race but in the end reality served up the best wind of the series, touching 19kt at times. Leopard 3 relished these conditions and won; this result propelling her up to second overall sandwiched between V and Galateia. In Maxi Grand Prix Jolt also had a great final day allowing her to win overall by just one point from North Star, in turn one point ahead of Django 7X. There were no new surprises in Classes 3 and 4/5, won respectively as expected by Cippa Lippa X and Fra’ Diavolo. Unfortunately, the Tre Golfi Multihull Trophy only attracted three entries – won again by Irvine Laidlaw’s Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18.

Barely two weeks separated this event from the Yacht Club Italiano’s Loro Piana Giraglia; what started in 1953 as an offshore race to help thaw post-WW2 relations between France and Italy is today preceded by a four-day inshore/coastal series held out of St Tropez. Sadly, entries were significantly reduced by an unfortunate clash with both the Rolex TP52 World Championship and the Sardinia Cup which ruled out a high proportion of professional crew.

As is often the case in Saint Tropez, winds were very light all week, one day lost to lack of wind and the final day reduced to a very short coastal race.

Class A’s inshore series was won by V – their fourth regatta win in a row. Second was Jethou and third Galateia although third to fifth were all on equal points decided on countback, with My Song and Proteus losing out. In Class B one unusual entry was Baruna, built in 1938 but recently immaculately restored. It was a test of the IRC rating system but she was able to compete and ended up sixth out of 11 in her class. The veteran Atalanta II also had an outstanding regatta winning all her inshore races, knocking recently crowned European Champion Cippa Lippa off the top spot.

At least all IMA maxi regattas are scored using the simple and efficient IRC system, with fixed TCCs, and so not dependent on the vagaries of the weather. However, the ORC classes in the Giraglia were relying on ‘predicted expected finishing times’ for each boat according to the weather forecast at the beginning of the race.

And the outcome was entirely predictable, the weather models proving wildly inaccurate with more wind than expected for the larger boats which arrived in many cases substantially ahead of their routeing while the opposite occurred for the smaller boats. Weather forecasting may be better than it used to be but to calculate – let alone try to predict – results in this way defies understanding.

Maxi racing is looking a lot healthier than some other areas of the sport. For owners there was further encouragement when the IMA Technical Office recently circulated a document confirming that no major changes are envisaged in the rating system, clearing the way to build new boats. IMA’s clear conclusions are:
1. IMA is not considering any changes to the rating systems.
2. IMA is not seeing instability in the rating systems.
3. IMA is not planning to change any of the class splits.
4. IMA is seeing one of the most stable periods in the past 35 years in maxi racing, with the fleet growing at unprecedented rates and events expanding. The IMA will continue to act to maintain this encouraging environment.

Finally, after 13 years in the role I am passing on the baton of running the International Maxi Association to my successor, also well known in the Maxi world, Giorgio Benussi. I wish him every success in continuing the development of international maxi racing with the excellent supporting team and relationships that we now have in place.

More on the IMA

Her predecessor established YYachts as an international avant-garde boatbuilding brand. The new Y7, designed by judel/vrolijk, takes the game a notch higher.

She proved her worth twice early on. And on both of these occasions, in a strong breeze and also in very light wind, her sailing performance exceeded all expectations.

In April, when under way from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, where she would make her debut at the Palma Boat Show, the English Channel set the stage. This being a delivery trip, the new Y7 sailed conservatively canvassed for the solid force six from astern, under selftacking jib and reefed mainsail only. But it didn’t seem to tame her much.

For almost four hours non-stop she sat on a continuous plane, averaging more than 16kts of boat speed, topping out at 20.7kts through the water even without any help from the rather unruly sea state.

‘She sailed like dream, like on rails’, recalls Klaus Kurzweg. The skipper who has logged nearly 50,000 nautical miles on previous Y7 models met the new design “with a bit of scepticism”, as he admits. ‘I was really in love with the old boat’, he says, not sure the wider, bigger sister would match his expectations. ‘But she really does have significantly more power.’

Ten days earlier, during the very first sea trial in her home waters near the city of Greifswald, an ice-cold high-pressure system across the Pomeranian coast threw a pointedly different challenge at her. Together with YYachts founder Michael Schmidt, a highly experienced team of engineers from judel/vrolijk & co who were working with the yard for the first time, stepped aboard to get a feel for the Y7’s sailing performance.

As the 22m yacht slid away from the jetty under engine there was hardly any breath of wind. Further out at sea, the anemometer at the top of the 34.6-metre tall mast began to turn sluggishly, recording four to five knots, with puffs reaching seven to eight knots true. However, the light breeze did not reach the water’s surface.

Any conventional cruising boat would have become a drifting buoy in these conditions, even for the Y7 it appeared challenging. This 72ft luxury performance cruising yacht is full carbon sandwich construction and lighter than most of her competitors. The backstay-free rig, braced by extremely wide, aft-swept spreaders, allows for a square-top mainsail the size of a volleyball court. During the test, with the code zero unfurled, the boat projected a total of 500 square metres of jet-black Technora membrane. Yet it was also pulling the equivalent of a loft-style flat through the water, complete with four bedrooms, just as many bathrooms, a kitchen, living-dining room, boat office and separate crew quarters.

So, expectations were, shall we say, cautiously subdued. But no sooner had the sails been trimmed in than the log figures on the mast display started ticking merrily upwards. Before you knew it they roughly matched those of the wind sensor: 5.0 kts… 5.8 … 6.4… 7.0… 6.7. It felt like a quiet miracle in this wintery cool, almost motionless weather.

Matthias Bröker, who played a key role in designing the new Y7, was still marvelling at that moment weeks later: ‘The way she created her own wind on the oily-calm patch of water was truly surreal.’

Of course, the yacht was designed for this: challenging wind speed in the light stuff and outpacing most of her competitors. But experiencing first-hand the combination of tenderness and power on such a colossal scale is something else still.

Easily accessible performance has always been one of, if not the very essence of the brand. The boats are also distinguished by their own signature aesthetic. Clean hull lines and the flat superstructure with recessed, vertical coachroof windows define YYachts’ appearance. Michael Schmidt calls it “timeless elegance”, and rightly so. Even at 10 years old, the marque’s first designs still look fresh and distinctive today. Schmidt, a restless entrepreneur who has never been shy to challenge conventional wisdom, built the very first boat in 2015 for himself: Y8 Cool Breeze. It was to be his retirement project after 20 busy years as founder of Hanse Yachts, during which he had developed the yard into the world’s third-largest production builder and successfully floated it on the stock exchange.

Why did he not just buy from another yard, and happily cruise the Med, the Caribbean, the world? ‘The yachts available at the time just didn’t spark my interest’, he says. ‘Too heavy, too cluttered, too complicated’. He wanted a yacht he could handle on his own, one that is easy for a small crew to operate – ‘as easy as it goes for an 80-footer, a boat you can feel’.

It apparently wasn’t just Schmidt who liked the idea of sophisticated simplicity. A year after Cool Breeze was launched, he sensed demand – and an opportunity to postpone early retirement. He founded the company in 2016 as Michael Schmidt Yachtbau and then later rebranded it more internationally as YYachts. Today it is arguably one of the hottest brands in big-boat sailing.

Y7 technical specifications

Naval architect: judel/vrolijk & co
Interior design & styling: YYachts Design Team & David Thulstrup
CE classification: Category A
Yard: YYachts GmbH
Hull length on deck (LOD): 21.99 m
Length overall (LOA): 23.80 m
Length waterline (LWL): 20.55 m
Beam: 6.10 m
Draught standard/shallow keel: 3.50 m / 2.85 m
Displacement31.8tBallast / Ballast ratio: 10.7t / 34%
Ballast telescopic keel approximate: 10.4t
Mainsail: 180m²
Self-tacking jib (Std.): 126m²
Jib 105%: 147m²
Code 0: 320m²
Gennaker: 500m²
SA/D upwind with jib / genoa: 31 / 33
Displacement/LWL: 102
Engine (Yanmar 4LV SD15 saildrive): 150 hp, 110 kw
Fuel tank approximate: 850 litres
Fresh water approximate: 850 litres
Black Water approximate: 240 litres

The original Y7 was launched in 2018, a design by the American naval architect Bill Tripp. It became the shipyard’s bestseller: both a style icon and a highly successful business model. No other boat of this size and configuration has sold a total of two dozen units in just eight years. So it is no coincidence that the yard kicked off its 10-year anniversary with a new, refined version.

Judel/vrolijk designer Jan Kuhnert compares designing the successor to the task of “developing the next generation of a Porsche 911”. It’s a balancing act between sensitively preserving the heritage on the one hand and resolutely modernising the product experience on the other.

The design and engineering team, who also undertook the structural analysis, have mastered this thoroughly challenging task remarkably well. From every angle the new Y7 appears more taut, more defined, more elongated, more exciting while still maintaining the family DNA.

The reverse sheer line suggests agility. The forward section of the hull and deck look nicely tensioned, poised to spring forward. It also brings down the tack on the bowsprit for more sail area in the asymmetric spinnaker and the code zero. The transom is wider but significantly slimmer, giving the boat a distinctive lightness from the stern.

Not visible but certainly noticeable is the significantly higher stability. Matthias Bröker puts the increase at 30 per cent. This is due to nuances in hull design generating more form stability and a lower centre of gravity. These measures allow for more upright, efficient sailing in moderate wind conditions. The ratio of righting moment to heeling moment is improved by no less than 25 per cent.

The judel/vrolijk & co team optimised a total of 11 parameters relevant to sailing performance over dozens of iterations before finalising the Y7’s design in collaboration with the shipyard’s development team. ‘As naval architects we were tasked with creating much more space below deck without compromising sailing performance and ideally improving it,’ says Bröker.

The sail area to displacement ratio sits at 31 with the self-tacking jib, reaching 33 with the optional 105 per cent genoa. Displacement to length is 102. By common standards these indicators put the new Y7 firmly into the category of racing yachts. She can provide for pleasant daysailing in the notoriously light-wind Mediterranean as well as crossing oceans at pace.

On hull number one, only the rather stiff steering dampened the fun somewhat. The twin-rudder set-up had noticeable initial resistance even when operating without load. While it improved during delivery, the shipyard has now modified the push-rod steering system to deliver that light yet precise feedback which is part and parcel for a luxury performance cruiser.

Pedestals, electric winches, halyard clutches and line storage are situated aft of the guest cockpit, ensuring that the deck area remains clearly segmented. A companionway offset to port leaves the seating area around the large cockpit table as a relaxation zone, free of any traffic by other crew passing.

Access to the winches is excellent. They are mounted on pedestals further inboard than on most yachts, so to actively sail and trim the genoa sheet no one needs to brace all the way out and down on the side deck to leeward, allowing for more sheltered sheeting and easing. Features like this show the depth of experience and refinement in the design team as well as within the yard.

The Y7 has also gained enormously in terms of space below deck, far more than the 30-centimetre increase in beam would suggest. In fact, the increase is closer to 20 per cent in volume, due not only to the more powerful hull shape and wider forward sections but also to a more efficient layout.

This is particularly evident in the saloon, where in the yacht’s standard configuration the U-shaped galley adjoins the main bulkhead on starboard side. On the port side there is a lounge that can also be converted into an office or partitioned off to create a guest cabin. Those who do not choose the latter option retain the open character of the saloon, which then appears as spacious as on a typical 80ft yacht.

Equally impressive is the owner’s cabin, located forward in all layout variants. It features a slightly off-centre double berth, accessible from three sides, and has an en suite bathroom. A walk-in wardrobe is available on request. The optional VIP guest cabin aft on the starboard side is also a new and highly attractive feature. However, it does restrict the crew quarters aft a bit, as the crew lose their own mess.

Owners can choose from three basic layouts, which allow for a further five variations. All of this is available in four different styles – from dark and dignified (Baltic) to fresh and light (Glacier, as on hull number one). So the Y7 offers nearly three dozen different combinations without moving bulkheads or racking up extra cost and complexity for custom solutions – which the yard is, of course, still able to provide.

No matter what you choose, crew on the new Y7 can access the deck from their cabin via their own companionway, located in front of the mainsheet block. It is so seamlessly integrated into the aft end of the cockpit that it remains almost invisible.

The carefully insulated engine compartment is also accessible via this route. There is a second access from the forward end, via the central service tunnel, which houses the washing machine (on rails!) and much of the electrical system.

Whilst the first boat in the series is already sailing under her owner’s flag following the Palma boat show, the second is due to be launched in Greifswald shortly. Orders for three further yachts have already been placed. Ready to sail, they generally cost between €3.2 million and €3.6 million ex tax.

It looks as if the Y7 is continuing her successful course in swift style. So YYachts have given themselves a fitting gift for their 10th anniversary. And there is yet another one in the making. The new Y6, which at 65ft will become the brand’s smallest model yet, is set to be presented this fall.

More on YYachts

Slingsby’s numerous sailing achievements speak for themselves. After winning an Olympic gold medal in the Laser at London 2012, he played a key role in Oracle Team USA’s legendary comeback victory in the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco, before masterminding three consecutive season championship wins in SailGP as skipper of the Australian team.

The common thread that runs through all those successful campaigns is the level of his influence over the way they were run.

His Olympic gold medal came with plenty of support from his coach Michael Blackburn, but out on the waters off Weymouth it was Slingsby alone in the boat who delivered the results.

The US America’s Cup team’s turnaround in fortune came almost immediately after a rejigging of the afterguard that saw Slingsby elevated to become one of the key decision-makers, on and off the water.

And the Australian team’s almost total domination of SailGP since its inception can almost completely be attributed to the quality and longevity of the sailing team that Slingsby hand-picked and then carefully honed into a close-to-invincible force.

Given that SailGP success, it comes as no surprise that when tasked with picking a team for the first Australian America’s Cup challenge in 26 years, Slingsby has called up all but one of his BONDS Flying Roos teammates. (Only wing trimmer Iain Jensen is missing from the list, having previously signed for Emirates Team New Zealand.)

SailGP flight controller and tactician Jason Waterhouse steps into a helming role on the port side of the Australian AC75 opposite Slingsby, after switching allegiances from the Swiss America’s Cup challenger Tudor Team Alinghi. Waterhouse won silver in the Nacra 17 (sailing with Lisa Darmanin) at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Team Australia’s two trimmers/flight controllers are Luke Parkinson and Tom Needham.

As well as winning the 2014-15 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race aboard Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, Parkinson was a cyclor with INEOS Britannia when they won the Louis Vuitton Cup during AC37, and is the flight controller with the Season 5-winning Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team.

In 2025, Tom Needham became the youngest-ever helmsman to win the JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff World Championship. He sailed as part of the Team Australia entry in the 2024 Youth America’s Cup in Barcelona, and is a reserve sailor for the BONDS Flying Roos, as well as working within SailGP’s hydraulic and systems operations. Appropriately for a modern America’s Cup sailor, Needham attained a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, in which his specific focus was on the performance of supercavitating foils.

The BONDS Flying Roos’ Tash Bryant had previously been announced as a member of the Team Australia America’s Cup challenge. A past 49erFX under-19 world champion, Bryant was co-helm opposite Hannah Mills aboard the British Athena Pathway Women’s America’s Cup crew that made it to the final against Luna Rossa at AC37.

Also announced as sailing team members were BONDS Flying Roos grinders Sam Newton and Kinley Fowler – both of whom were part of Oracle Team USA’s America’s Cup victory. Although Fowler’s role has not been specified, Newton describes his responsibilities as: “working with the sailing team as part of the operations management, to keep the link between the sailing team, design team, and shore team, to work out the most efficient processes to maximise our time out on the water”.

The Australian team will not be competing at the upcoming second preliminary regatta in Italy in a couple of weeks’ time, but the sailing squad have been spending plenty of time in their simulator at the team’s new base in Sydney.

Meanwhile the Aussie AC75 – previously Te Rehutai, winner of the 2021 America’s Cup – continues to undergo modifications by its previous owners Emirates Team New Zealand under the supervision of technical director Glenn Ashby. The team aren’t planning to launch their boat until 2027, with the first sail expected to be at the 38th America’s Cup venue in Naples.

• How great it was to return to Valencia / memories of America’s Cup events of old / thronged with UK visitors there to see SailGP

• The local taxi drivers’ opinions on the size of the crowds

• The problems of covering sailing in light winds and the constraints of a broadcast window

• Magnus pitching (again) for a trial of windward starts

• The perfect positioning of the media centre in Valencia – right at the back of the start box

• Light winds didn’t mean poor racing / the benefits of split fleets / the sailors remain ultra competitive

• How impressive the F50’s big rigs are to be able toi race in seven knots of breeze

• Motorised booster jets yet to be tested

• Justin’s experience with Russell Coutts in the press conference

• British Olympic medallist John Gimson gets some wheel time for the Swedish team

• The Spanish sparkled on Saturday and crashed out on Sunday

• How the Italians surprised everyone – including themselves?

• A stellar performance in Sunday’s single fleet race from the Americans

• Backed up by a smash and grab win in the final

• The British were better but not good enough

• The Australians had to settle for second, but will have gone home happy

• Time to make a decision on the Middle East events

• Geneva is up next – will there be any wind?

Today’s performance cruising multihulls are faster, lighter, and more highly loaded than their predecessors. They carry larger sailplans, sail at tighter apparent wind angles and often spend extended periods operating at speeds once associated primarily with racing yachts. At the same time, owners expect these boats to remain manageable offshore with small crews, long reefing intervals and high levels of reliability.

For sail designers, this combination presents a unique challenge. Unlike monohulls, multihulls do not heel significantly to dissipate load. With the loads transferring more directly into the platform, the rig and the sails themselves, fabric strength, reefing geometry, sheeting angles and load distribution all become more critical factors for performance, durability and handling.

Quantum Sails has been at the forefront of addressing these challenges through its highly customised approach to sail design and its proprietary iQ Technology platform. A design and validation system originally developed for high-performance racing programmes, iQ is now used as part of a broader design process that enables Quantum Sails’ designers to simulate, refine and validate the behaviour of complex sailplans before they are built.

This capability is particularly relevant in the performance cruising multihull market, where each project demands an individual balance of speed, reliability, handling and owner expectation.

A different type of design challenge
Modern cruising multihulls routinely operate at apparent wind angles and boatspeeds that create substantially different aerodynamic environments from traditional cruising monohulls. Large square-top mainsails, overlapping reaching sails and highly refined deck layouts create systems where relatively small geometry changes can produce meaningful differences in sail shape and load distribution.

Reefing adds another layer of complexity. Offshore cruising multihulls often spend extended periods at sea, which means that the sailmakers are not simply designing for a single full-power condition. Instead, they must consider how sail shape, twist and structural loads evolve across multiple reefing states and wind ranges.

Using iQ, Quantum Sails’ designers can evaluate those reefing states and wind ranges virtually, helping identify not only how a sail will perform when reefed, but also the conditions where a reefing transition may become the more efficient, controlled or safe option.

‘Multihulls don’t provide sailors with the same “feel” that monohulls do, to help them to identify when to reef, which can often lead to breakages or failures,’ Quantum VP of design Doug Stewart explains. ‘By looking at shroud loads, sheet loads and loads on the sail fabric, iQ can give owners the exact numbers they need so they know when to reef. Otherwise it’s just guesswork.’

Historically, much of this process relied on accumulated design knowledge and seatrial refinement. Experienced sail designers developed instinctive understanding of how certain sailplans would behave on certain platforms. Quantum’s approach builds on that experience with digital validation tools capable of modelling not only sail shape, but also the interaction between sails, rigging, deck geometry and aerodynamic loads.

Modelling the entire system
Quantum’s iQ Technology platform approaches sail design as a fully integrated system rather than an isolated exercise.

For projects such as the new S/V Delos expedition catamaran, that process begins by constructing a virtual model of the yacht which includes detailed deck geometry and rigging layouts. The longrunning sailing channel operated by Brian and Karin Trautman is building a new 53’ aluminium expedition catamaran designed by David De Villiers and built by Stradbroke Yachts in Brisbane, Australia, for extended offshore cruising and circumnavigation.

The project presented an unusually broad design brief. The yacht needed to combine offshore durability and manageable handling with the performance characteristics expected of a modern performance cruising multihull. Sailplan and rigging decisions therefore became closely interconnected from the outset.

Doug Stewart worked with the Delos team during the early development phase, helping evaluate both sailplan and rigging configurations before the final geometry was locked in. Once the configuration was established, Quantum designer Joan Subirats and the design team created a complete digital model of the platform within the iQ environment.

Winches, chainplates, sheeting tracks and hardware locations were incorporated into the model so the software could reproduce precise sheeting angles and trim geometries. Once the sailplan was established, designers could simulate airflow across the sails over a wide range of wind angles and velocities while simultaneously analysing structural load paths throughout the sail.

Subirats describes the process as a balance between aerodynamic and structural requirements. ‘It’s a kind of dance between the structural side and the aerial one,’ he says. ‘We adjust until they are in harmony at each stage.’

The practical implications are significant. Rather than estimating how a sail may behave under various reefing conditions or sheeting configurations, designers can evaluate those scenarios virtually before construction begins. Changes to running rigging geometry, sheeting angles or sail structure can be modelled and tested digitally, allowing designers to observe how loads move through the sail and where shape distortions may occur.

‘iQ helped us to understand what size patches we actually need for the different reefing configurations,’ Stewart explains. ‘For an offshore programme like Delos, those insights are really going to impact the overall strength and long-term durability of the sails.’

Another area of focus for Delos was fabric selection for the mainsail and headsails. Early discussions had pointed toward Dimension-Polyant’s Hydra Net radial fabric, a woven hybrid material combining polyester with Dyneema and Spectra fibres. Using iQ, Quantum modelled various Hydra Net weights against alternative constructions while observing how each behaved structurally across projected operating loads and reefing states. According to the designers, the simulations reinforced the choice not only from a performance standpoint, but also from a longevity and reliability perspective.

The same process allows sailmakers to compare construction and fabric options with greater precision. Different constructions and material weights can be modelled against identical sailing conditions to evaluate how each behaves structurally and aerodynamically across a projected operating range.

While the software itself does not replace the sail designer’s expertise, it acts as a validation tool that allows experienced designers to confirm assumptions and refine decisions using measurable data. For the sailor, the outcome is a sailplan intended to feel more predictable and controlled in the conditions where the boat will actually be used. A better-supported shape can result in smoother steering, more consistent autopilot performance, easier trimming, more confidence when reefed, and a construction plan designed around longevity rather than generic load assumptions.

Proof across the multihull category
While Delos provides a detailed example of the process on a custom expedition platform, Quantum’s work in the performance cruising multihull segment extends across production, semi-custom and owner-led projects.

For builders such as Vaan Yachts, which has specified Quantum sails across its range for a number of years, the value lies not only in sail construction but in the ability to support the boatbuilder’s broader design and performance objectives. A builder must deliver not only performance, but also a consistent sailing experience across boats, owners and conditions.

‘On a modern cruising catamaran, the sailplan strongly influences the overall onboard experience: how a boat accelerates, balances, handles and ultimately how intuitive and enjoyable it is to sail,’ explains Igor Kluin, co-founder and CEO of Vaan Yachts . ‘That is why we value working closely with Quantum from an early stage in the design process.’

The same approach can be applied to well-established performance cruising platforms. On owner-led projects, the design objective is not simply to replace sails, but to tune the sail package around the owner’s real use case: fast passagemaking, manageable loads, and confidence across a wide range of conditions.

On a recent project for an Outremer 55, the owner wanted to fine-tune his setup. ‘We worked from the sailplan and analysis on what has been done on similar boats and used iQ to estimate loads and refine all the systems,’ says Quantum sail designer Adrien de Belloy. ‘The boat is fast while easy to handle in all kinds of wind and sea conditions. The owner is particularly impressed with how the sails retain their shape and allow the boat to accelerate.’

Together, these projects show the broader relevance of Quantum’s process. The value of iQ is not limited to one-off custom programmes, nor is it confined to grand-prix raceboats. In the multihull segment, production partnerships, owner-led upgrades and custom expedition projects all contribute different kinds of insight into how modern cruising catamarans are actually sailed. Those data learnings can then feed back into future designs, creating a continuous loop between design, validation, real-world use and refinement.

Continuous evolution
For offshore cruising multihulls, the key objective is not always outright speed. Many owners are equally focused on stable sail shapes, predictable reefing behaviour, manageable loads and long service life over the course of their extended cruising programmes.

As performance cruising multihulls continue evolving, sail design is becoming more integrated with rig engineering, deck layout and offshore systems planning. Sails are no longer being designed independently from the rest of the core platform. Instead, the boat’s entire sailing system is increasingly evaluated as a connected structure.

For large multihulls, that can mean modelling apparent wind ranges, validating reefed sail shapes, analysing square-top mainsail load paths, comparing cloth weights and understanding how changes in sheeting geometry affect both trim and structure. The goal is not to remove the designer from the process but to give the designer a more complete picture of how the sailplan will behave before the boat goes offshore.

For owners preparing for passage-making, the result may be less about extracting another half-knot of speed and more about reducing uncertainty. And for a new generation of performance cruising multihulls, that shift from estimate to validation may prove just as important as outright pace.

More on Quantum Sails

For A+T, the 2026 New Year began with the news that B&G had ceased production of its flagship H5000 display, which was supplied with all its high-end systems since launch in 2013. With no direct replacement, the A+T team got round the table and the HFD5 five-inch display was born as a drop-in upgrade and replacement. Below, we look at the design challenges and how these were overcome.

It had to be compatible

The HFD5 is designed to fit the same footprint and mounting as an H5000 display. The N2K compatible connection is plug and play. It displays all core data available on the N2K network, including custom channels, in a variety of formats. It does not support pilot applications or advanced calibrations which are better suited to a web interface.

It had to be better

The display is transflective, so the stronger the sunlight, the better the definition. Each unit is tested to 75°C and those recently shown at Palma Boat Show were working fine at an internal temperature of 85°C in the strong sunlight there.

Anti-glare glass is used, as in all A+T products, which enhances visibility and doesn’t show reflections or finger marks like other displays on the market. Like all A+T displays, the HFD5 has no breather hole and is hermetically sealed, so it is fully immersible in water for extended periods. Central to this is using control buttons with no connection to the internal electronics, using instead tiny magnets sensed from inside the sealed casing.

A wide range of data display formats is available from simple grids of data to analogue displays, trend graphs and bar indications. Any combinations of these can be selected and set up as custom pages. The display also allows for data-based context switching of colours to indicate good/bad/warning or point of sailing selectable layouts.

As with all A+T products, users are encouraged to request sensible additions and modifications which generally can be implemented within a few days.

Software updates are done by linking to each display with WiFi, so the display does not need to be opened or removed to do this. This WiFi may be connected to the vessel’s WiFi network, thus opening the possibility of running this display without a data cable. This is not implemented in the initial release.

Another possible application of this WiFi, especially for a smaller boat, is using it to drive the increasing population of watch, phone and tablet displays and applications being produced by people and organisations such as Campbell Field, Ian Moore and NMEAremote, iRegatta, SAILGRIB.

It had to be done quickly

Once the B&G-end-of-life announcement was made for the H5000 displays, clients were on the phone within days asking if A+T would step up and provide new and better replacements. The design team met in the first week of January, specifications were agreed and work commenced. Pre-production units were produced some three months later for testing.

It certainly helped to meet this time scale that much of the design of A+T’s seven-inch display, the QBD7, could be carried over to the new display. The QBD7 was launched at METS in November 2025 to great acclaim and many of the units being sold are to yachts that had Sailmon displays. Sailmon went out of business in 2025 and A+T specialise in upgrading these systems.

A substantial run of orders is being received and are now being delivered on a first-come, first-served basis. Many of these are replacements, but a good number are also for new-build projects.

Part of the family

This is the versatile little brother of the existing A+T range of vibrant and tough colour displays, 12in BFD and 7in QBD. All of these are tough, versatile, ultrabright, anti-glare and robust non-touch screen units. They are built with interfaces to Ethernet and to N2K networks (N2K compatible). They are fitted to many hundreds of large yachts and new builds including the new 65m Aquarius from Royal Huisman and Project Zero, currently finishing build at Vitters.

Note: A+T has no connection or affiliation with Sailmon, Navico or B&G. H5000 is a trademark of Navico, which is acknowledged.

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