PlanetSail's Matt Sheahan takes a closer look at Benoit Marie remarkable transatlantic-crossing foiling Mini 650 and discovers how this new design is impacting the performance cruising space.
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It's 6.5m long and when it flies it's doing almost double the speed of a 'normal' Mini 650, no wonder the focus of attention for the famous single handed race across the Atlantic, the Mini Transat, has been on Benoit Marie's foiling Nicomatic.
But while the French skipper is leading the charge in this notoriously hard core racing scene, he's also plotting the future of performance cruising – and the two are starting to look very similar.
Matt takes a look at Skaw [A] a radical new 12m performance cruiser. But could you live with a scow?
Another class that knows all about scows it the Class 40 where the bluff bow configuration is unstoppable. And in the Globe 40 double handed race around the world the competition is tight at the top. So tight that after 7,000 miles of racing no one knew who had won.
It’s been sailing’s worst kept secret for the past several months, but it has now been formally confirmed that Australia is returning to the America’s Cup for the first time in 26 years.
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