Racing multihulls

The editor looks at the growing world of multihull racing.

Even before Russell Coutts announced that the 34th America’s Cup Match will be raced in 72ft catamarans, there was a groundswell of multihull racing that was becoming too hard to ignore.

Groupama raced around the world in just 48 days earlier this year. A fleet of 105ft trimarans will compete in a race around the Indian Ocean in 2012. The Extreme 40s are wowing crowds in Europe and Asia. Multihull divisions are growing at regattas in the Bay of Islands, Thailand and Western Australia. Australian Olympic Tornado medallists Darren Bundock, Glenn Ashby and Mitch Booth are flying hulls in the F18 cats and other classes in Europe, and the Tornado class has reinvented itself with what it calls “speed sailing”.

It seems that everyone, except of course the sport’s governing body ISAF, thinks that multihulls have a vital role to play in the future of yacht racing.

Record-breaking trimarans from Australia

While the Volvo Ocean Race has stayed with monohulls, to break an ocean race speed record these days you need a large trimaran. Already a new challenger, Banque Populaire V, is on stand-by for an attempt at Groupama’s Jules Verne crown and in August Sidney Gavignet smashed the solo round Great Britain and Ireland record by more than 24 hours in Oman Air Majan, an A100 tri which was built at Boatspeed in NSW. Gavignet set a new time of 4 days 15hr 9min 47sec for the 1787-mile course, beating the fully crewed record by more than an hour

Oman Air Majan was the third record-breaking big tri to be built by Boatspeed. They first came to the attention of the multihull fraternity in February 2005 when Ellen MacArthur’s 75ft trimaran B&Q/Castorama completed a record non-stop solo voyage around the world in 71 days and 41 hours. Next they built Thomas Coville’s 105ft Nigel Irens designed tri Sodebo, which broke the trans-Atlantic record in July 2008.

According to a report by Bob Ross on our mysailing.com.au website last month, Boatspeed built the major elements of Oman Air Majan – central hull, floats and crossbeams – using its successful custom-preg system at Somersby in six months, then shipped the components to Oman and sent a team of 17 over there to assemble them

Boatspeed’s CEO David Hayes said Boatspeed had started making components for another maxi tri for Middle East interests but “it is on hold for the moment, and we are looking at a few other projects.” Hayes is no doubt hoping for an Australian America’s Cup challenge to be announced, as the AC72s have to be built in the country they are representing.

If there’s a sailor anywhere in the world competent to comment on multi versus mono in big oceans it is Australian Nick Moloney. He has sailed in the America’s Cup, the Vendee Globe and on record-breakers Orange and Playstation. Nick says we have to look beyond “speed and adrenalin” when thinking about ocean-going multis.

“My experience onboard large multihulls on the oceanic stage may seem extreme, when in fact there are a lot of learnings from those speed record passages that support oceanic multis as a safe world cruising option. The comforting fact that there is more chance that a multihull will remain afloat in stricken circumstances than a mono-hull with lead ballast that is trying to drag the yacht to the sea bed, is both comforting and interesting, specially in a serious storm or collision with an object at sea,” he says.

Among the trimarans to watch locally in coming years will be Simon Hull’s ORMA Open 60 Kiwi boat Vodafone, which raced as G3 at the Bay of Islands regatta in January. Touted as “the fastest sailing boat in the southern hemisphere”, Vodafone is capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots and will be a strong favourite for line honours if the Round Australia race goes ahead next year as planned.

At the smaller end of the scale, the Multi23 has recently been introduced to Australia with two boats set to race in club competitions this summer. We will carry a boat review of this fun little trimaran, along with competitors the Weta and Farrier 22 in next month’s issue.

Big, fast cats

Although Ernesto Bertarelli’s 90ft catamaran Alinghi lost the 33rd America’s Cup challenge to the BMW Oracle trimaran, catamarans are the preferred racing multihull for off-the-beach, inshore and close-quarter combat. That is why they have been chosen by BMW Oracle as the AC boat of the future

The most exciting arena for big cats in recent years has been the Extreme Series, co-founded by Mitch Booth who won Bronze for Australia at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and Silver at Atlanta in 1996. He has competed in 64 World Championships and won 10 of them and has been Australian Sailor of the Year twice. Mitch is at the helm of The Ocean Racing Club in the series, while Nick Moloney skippers GAC Team Pindar.

In a recent email, Nick made some observations on the series that are required reading for any young sailor wanting to break onto the professional cat sailing circuit.

“The concept of the Extreme Sailing series is also very interesting from a professional sports business perspective and I think many readers would be surprised by the extent of corporate commitment required by all the teams and the level of alternate sponsorship management skills required by the individual sailors.

“These events are entertainment industry projects, it is the highest example of working for your sponsors and supporting your ‘sailing billboard’. To add extra pressure to an already cut-throat arena, we as sailors are jockeys... if we don’t perform well in a sporting sense then the phone stops ringing and mortgage doesn’t get paid. Its not a world of glamour and all smiles that’s for sure,” Nick warned.

Although the “jockeys” are obviously very hard at work on and off the water, as are the management teams in the background, there is no doubt that collectively the Extreme team have “sold” the concept of glamour to the adoring fans.

Nearly a quarter of a million spectators viewed the 2010 European series “live” with more than 60,000 lining the foreshore at Cowes alone. In 2009 there were over 535 hours of TV exposure and 894 articles or features in print publications with a cumulative circulation of 82 million readers, as well as 770 stories on the internet.

When evaluating camera angles to determine whether multis or monos had the best “wow” factor for the America’s Cup, Russell Coutts and his team used Extreme 40s and obviously liked what they saw.

To give NSW readers an idea of the speed of these beasts, in 2006 an Extreme 40 with Nick Moloney skippering and swimmer Michael Klim on board sailed from Sydney Heads to Fort Denison in 12 minutes.

Class acts

As in monohull racing, there are more multihull classes than you can poke a stick at and the same names keep cropping up in the top classes.

The Eurocat regatta in the Netherlands attracts around 300 boats each year. This year saw a fascinating battle among former Australian teammates and a ring-in Pom when six-time Eurocat champion Darren Bundock and GBR Tornado Olympic Silver medallist Will Howden took on Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhuis in F18 cats. Bundock/Howden finished 2nd and Booth/Nieuwenhuis were 3rd.

To add to the wealth of mulihull talent on show in the event, Bundock’s Dutch partner, Carolijn Brouwer and another Aussie, Liz Wardley, won their division sailing an F16 Viper against predominantly all-male crews. This highlights the unisex nature of multihull sailing, with Roland and Nahid Gaebler becoming the first mixed crew to win the Tornado World title this year and Aussies Lisa Darmanin and her cousin Jason Waterhouse backing up their 2009 Youth Worlds title with a win in the Euro 16s on Lake Como.

Another “development” cat is the C-Class which held its “Little America’s Cup” Worlds at Newport, Rhode Island in August. The event must have been a key factor in the AC decision, as the cambered foils being flown on this exciting class had spectators, including AC syndicate members, in awe of the high speeds and instant acceleration being achieved.

According to Canadian designer Steve Killing, “Downwind with the flap set at 40 degrees, the wing will produce almost double the force of an equal area soft sail,”

However, the event also highlighted the vulnerability of wings versus soft sails when Americans Steve Clark and Oliver Moore hit a patch of turbulence left by a freighter. Moore lost his footing and was washed off the boat with the mainsheet wrapped around his leg. As the wing rapidly trimmed in, the boat capsized and Clark fell through the wing, breaking the mast in the process.

ISAF out of touch

Even the most traditional monohull sailor would concede that multihulls provide speed and excitement. All the evidence above points to the fact that multis are becoming more popular, not less, and that they appeal to spectators – one of the factors threatening sailing’s continued participation in the Olympic Games.

So it was quite staggering when ISAF, forced to reduce the number of Olympic sailing events from 11 to 10 for London 2012, chose the only multihull class (the Tornado) to lose out.

As Glenn Ashby says, “Not everyone aspires to go to the Olympics but it is nice to have that as a dream or a goal when you are coming through the ranks. I am finding it very frustrating that the multihull is not represented at the 2012 Olympics. It is just crazy not to have this discipline represented. Not just for multihull but for sailing in general.”

Yachting Australia CEO, Phil Jones, was a vocal supporter of the multihull at the Olympics and is currently chair of the Olympic Commission, which was effectively created to protect sailing’s presence at the Olympics. In his column in last month’s issue of this magazine, Phil said that the Commission will present recommendations to this month’s ISAF AGM aimed at building the popularity of the sport for media and spectators and enhancing sailing in the Olympic Games. It can only be hoped that one of the strong recommendations put to the AGM is that a multihull event is returned to the Games program for Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Getting into multis

There are a multitude of multihull classes being sailed in Australia and around the world. I asked Glenn Ashby for some advice to young multihull sailors.

“It is hard for budding young talented sailors to choose to sail multihull with it not being represented at Olympic level,” he said. “However multihull sailing is very cool and is exciting and there are many great multihull classes for national and international competition.

“I would like to see as many youth sailors as possible at least be able to try sailing a multihull at a young age. I did and fell in love with the speed, excitement and extreme efficiency and great performance. There is nothing quite like pushing a multihull hard on one hull, at the edge, either training, racing or simply just having fun. Sailing a multihull is one sailing experience everyone, no matter what age, should experience at least once in their life.”

Glenn says there are many great multihull classes to use as stepping stones to bigger things or just to have great racing at all different levels.

“From Paper Tigers to Extreme 40’s and on to 100ft + ocean racing multihulls, there is something for everyone. I enjoy very much sailing different classes and having the challenge of making each one tick. I have come from a dinghy background but started sailing Paper Tigers at the age of 13 and then sailed a variety of different multihull classes including Taipans, Tornados, A class, F18s, Extreme 40s and more recently C Class and BMW Oracle’s 90ft trimaran.” (Glenn was the multihull coach of the winning America’s Cup team.)

Glenn also has some advice that applies to both multis and monos: “All classes have their own uniqueness, however many of the skills needed for success cross over from one to the other. You can learn a lot from stepping outside your comfort zone and having a go at another class. You just need to leave your own ego behind and be prepared to cop a few hits on the chin initially before you can put the gloves on and start hitting back hard. It’s great fun and a really good way of broadening your sailing and racing experience as well as being able to get ideas and meet some great people who all share the same passion,” he said.

Before monohull readers who have got this far start sending threatening emails
and burning down my house, Glenn is not advocating multis to the exclusion of all others.

“Sailing needs to keep its traditions and heritage,” he says. “But it needs to move to the future to keep in the international limelight. For the youth of today, fast, high performance and demanding boats are what’s needed to compete with computer games, X games, F1 and Moto GP in the international arena. Multihull sailing, I hope, will be able to help sailing do this in the future.”

A Class
Single-hander

LOA: 5.49 m

Beam: 2.3 m

Weight: 75 kg

Sail Area: 13.94 m

The A-cat is a development class, first designed more than 30 years ago, but subject to considerable changes and improvements over the years. Particularly strong in Europe, the class is also sailed in Australia and Brazil. There are 70 registered sailors in Australia and 900 worldwide.

Its light weight (75kg) makes the A-Class very responsive and easy to sail, however there is a lot to learn to sail the boat fast consistently. Being a development class there is always innovation happening and the latest “buzz” is curved centreboards, which indicate skippers will be sailing the boats a little differently in the future. The latest design is the Dutch DNA A-Cat from Advanced Catamaran Racing. The boat has made such an impression in Europe this year that 15 Australians have ordered one since the June Worlds in Italy.

Among the hot-shots to sail the class regularly are current World Champion, Glenn Ashby, as well as Steve Brewin, James Spithill, Andrew Landenberger, Scott Anderson, Chris Cairns, Graeme Parker and Brad Collett.

During the 2009/10 season there were record fleet numbers at the Nationals (51) and the Victorian (31), NSW (32), Queensland (30) and Northern Territory (18) championships.

www.a-cat.org.au

Hobie 16
1 or 2 person

LOA: 5.05 m

Beam: 2.41 m

Weight: 145.15 kg

Sail Area: 18.89 m2

Inducted into the Sailing Hall of Fame recently, the Hobie 16 is the world’s favourite catamaran. With more than 109,000 produced worldwide, the Hobie 16 can be found gracing sailing schools, international resorts and open or one-design regattas around the world.

Powerful enough to challenge veteran sailors yet easy enough for beginners, the Hobie 16’s asymmetrical hulls eliminate the need for dagger boards. This, along with the kick-up rudders makes for easy launching and beaching.

An optional 15 m2 spinnaker is available, but for one-design racing only the main and jib are flown. Both crew can get out on the trapeze for exhilarating racing.

At the recent World Youth Championships, Chase Lurati and Paul Darmanin of Australia took the Gold medal in the Multihull class, which was raced with Hobie 16s.

www.hobiecat.com.au

Taipan
1 or 2 person

LOA: 4.95m

Beam: 3.32m

Weight: 100kg (Cat), 102kg (Sloop)

Sail Area: 19.2 m2
The Taipan was designed in 1987 and is still an extremely strong class due to the
quality and speed of the boat. There are 85 cat-rigged and 52 sloop-rigged hulls in Australia. Taipans are also sailed in the USA and Singapore, with the occasional boat showing up in Europe and Asia.

Sailed in all states except WA, new boats are still being added to the fleet and class numbers at the Nationals have increased in the past two years. Among some of the “guns” who have sailed the class include Glenn Ashby, Darren Bundock, Carolijn Brouwer, Steve Brewin, Greg Goodall and Andrew Williams.

A new Taipan will set you back just under $20,000 (sloop rigged) or $18,550 (cat rigged)

www.taipan.asn.au

Tornado
Crew of 2 (double trapeze)

LOA: 6.09 m

Beam: 3.08 m

Hull weight: 155 kg

Sail Area: 46.94 m2
The Tornado was the Olympic class multihull from 1976 to 2008, with Australian crews winning Silver in Beijing 2008 (Glenn Ashby/Darren Bundock), Sydney 2000 (Bundock/John Forbes) and Atlanta 1996 (Mitch Booth/Andrew Landenberger) and Bronze in Barcelona
1992 (Booth/Forbes) and Los Angeles
1984 (Scott Anderson/Chris Cairns).

There are around 85 Tornados in Australia, with 45 active racers. Tornado sailors often sail other classes as well, including F18 and Hobies. Five Australian crews competed in the Worlds at Travemunde, Germany, with four crews in the top 20 and Brett Burvill
and Ryan Duffield finishing 4th in a
WA-built Windrush hull.

Nedlands (WA) is the most active club, with the class being raced actively at Darwin Sailing Club (NT), Somers Yacht Club and Sorrento (VIC). There are boats in NSW and QLD but few travel to compete.

A second-hand Tornado can still be found for less than $5000 and a good competitive boat can be found for less than $15,000.

www.aita.asn.au

Viper
1 or 2 people

LOA: 5.0 m

Beam: 2.5 m

Weight: Sloop 129 Kg, Uni 125 kg

Sail Area: 36.2 m2

The Viper was released just over two years ago and according to Brett Goodall, “ We knew it was something special and time has proven this correct. Results have shown it to be the highest performing 16ft catamaran on the planet, and under handicap one of the best performers of any catamaran in the world. This year alone it has won a host of championships and awards, among them the Raid des Corsaires with a husband and wife team and the Global Challenge with a 14-year-old crew.”

The Viper features high volume bows,
a square transom shape, gybing centerboards and carbon-finished foils. It can be sailed with a uni rig or sloop rig. The price for a new boat, fully rigged, is $21,500 (sloop) and $20,020 (cat rigged).

www.ahpc.com.au

Formula 18
2 person

LOA: 5.52m

Beam: 2.6m

Weight: 180kg

Sail Area: 42.15 m2

F18 has a box rule, developed in the mid 90’s, that restricts LOA, beam, weight, sail area and materials. The aim of the class is to provide fair racing for crews of various weights, from 115 to over 150 kgs, through the use of two different sail sizes of jibs and spinnakers, linked to the use of limited corrector weights. (At 150kg+ no correctors are needed.)

Other goals were to maintain competition among the manufacturers to keep the costs at the lowest level and to allow mixed or female crews to compete on an equal
basis in large male fleets.

Class aficionados say that F18 sailing offers probably the best balance between
cost and value, fairness and competition, to the wider range of crew statures.

There are 20 or more manufacturers of production F18’s around the world,
some low volume like the EDGE, BIM and Mattia and others high volume like the Hobie Wild Cat, Nacra Infusion, AHPC C2 and the Shockwave. Based on recent results, no manufacturer has a stranglehold on the top placings, with wins spread widely among the top contenders. The major brands racing in Australia are listed below.

C2

LOA: 5.5 m

Beam: 2.6 m

Weight: 180 Kg

Sail Area: 42.15 m2

Australian builder AHPC have recently released their F-18 C2 design, which supercedes the old Capricorn cat. They have moved the main beam further aft to give “more bow” and say the new bow shape improves the flow and volume in the front section of the hull, while utilising the maximum possible water line length. The square transom and raised rear beam are designed to decrease beam slap and increase large wave handling. Other features include gybing centerboards and carbon-finished foils.

In their first serious outing, C2s filled the first two placings at the 2010 Australian F18 titles.

A fully-rigged boat can be bought for around $26,500.

www.ahpc.com.au

Edge

The Australian designed and produced Windrush F18 Edge is a new boat, still in its development stage with only two boats built to date. According to designer Brett Burvill, “Our initial impressions are that this boat will be very competitive upwind with other F18s like the Nacra Infusion and Hobie Tiger. Downwind the Edge feels like it will be a rocket but it is still early days and we are yet to do some serious benchmark testing against other F18s.”

Brett and his crew, Ryan Duffield, scored a 2nd and 4th at the German F18 national titles recently, only missing the win after what they described as a “strange” jury decision. This followed the boat’s debut at the Australian F18 titles, where they finished 4th, with the second boat, sailed by Cara Lithgo and Joshua Fugill, coming 11th.
“We have chosen to go for a proven mast/sail combo, using the AHPC wing mast and Landenberger sails along with the proven Windrush production techniques to build a very stiff and strong F18. Our aim was to build a high-end boat without the compromises many of the high volume producers have to have,” Brett Burvill said. The price of an Edge on the water and ready to race is $27,500 INC GST .

www.windrushyachts.com.au

Hobie

There are two F18s in the Hobie stable, the Hobie Tiger and the Hobie Wild Cat.
The Hobie Tiger is one of the most enduring and frequently-raced catamarans in the world with nearly 1000 boats produced and active racing being held on four continents. The Tiger was developed specially for open multihull racing and has won all the great F18 regattas such as Round Texel, Eurocat and the F18 worlds at least once. Mitch Booth is one well-known name associated with Hobie Tiger success.

Although still competitive in F18 in the hands of top sailors like Booth, the Tiger is now an older design but has the advantage of its own class racing as well, in the ISAF-recognised Hobie Tiger International Class.
Recognising that the Tiger was facing increasing competition from other manufacturers, Hobie released the Wild Cat in 2009. The boat has wave-piercing hulls, integrated wing mast section and minimal drag from its high-aspect rudders and centerboards which Hobie says gives it “outrageous lift” when sailing to windward. Downwind, they say, is a sleigh ride with the full spinnaker rig. Features include fiberglass hulls with EVA anti-skid, carbon-reinforced rudder blades and daggerboards, carbon telescopic tiller extension and Harken mainsheet and spinnaker blocks.
Among its early successes have been the 2010 North American, Italian, German and French F18 Nationals. For prices, specifications and dealer contacts, go to

www.hobiecat.com.au.

Nacra Infusion

The Nacra uses wave-piercing technology which, compared to conventional hull shapes, gives less water resistance and hence more energy that can be turned into boat speed, especially upwind where the boat pitches less than traditional F18s and hence sails quicker. In light conditions the boat is wave piercing but as the wind increases the crew weight is moved further aft and the boat starts to plane upwind.

The Nacra is made using infusion technology which produces a stiffer hull compared to conventional methods. Dagger boards and rudder blades are made in three dimensional-shaped aluminium moulds using high compression to give stiffer and stronger blades for high level racing. The boat also features a wing mast for improved rig dynamics coupled with advanced sail design from Performance Sails.

A Nacra Infusion sailed by Coen de Koning and Thijs Visser won the 2010 North Sea Regatta. Nacras also won two consecutive Spanish F-18 titles and also managed to place 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th in the very competitive Dutch F18 nationals.

www.nacra.com.au

Other Cat Classes

Arrow
Single-hander

LOA: 4.3m

Beam: 1.86

Minimum weight un rigged: 50 kg

Sail area: 10.2m2
Mitch Booth learnt to sail on an Arrow,
a one-design class with rules which allow room for experimentation in the use of fittings and rudder profiles.

According to Queensland Arrow president, Robbie Lea, “People race Arrows because they are relatively cheap to buy, easy to store, don’t need a crew and are easy to maintain. They also race Arrows because that other Arrow on the start line is very similar to their own Arrow. Subsequently it will then come down to the skipper’s ability or lack of ability, whichever way you look at it.”

In Queensland you will find Arrows raced most weekends at Humpybong or Lake Cootharaba Sailing club, however many of the local Arrow sailors use email to organise themselves to converge on the local regattas.

Mosquito
1 or 2 person

LOA: 4.9 m

Beam: 2.185 m

Hull weight: 55 kg

Sail Area: 30.3 m2
The Mosquito pre-dates the Tornado, being designed in 1966 by Neil Fowler in Darwin as a one person (on trapeze) cat-rigged yacht. Later the jib and the second trapeze were added and the Mosquito became an easily converted one-person/two-person yacht able to be built at home by the amateur or by professional builders but not restricted to one manufacturer.

It is a consistently good racing cat, often beating much newer designs around the course. It can be sailed cat (single-handed) or sloop rigged (with crew) on the same VYC handicap of 84. The Mosquito is a restricted class rather than a strict one design, which has allowed developments in hull shape and sail design.

The class has been growing over the past few years and demand for boats is often greater than supply. The class is currently strongest in Victoria, South Australia and South Africa with growing numbers being seen again in Queensland, Tasmania and NSW.

A new set of carbon or Kevlar composite hulls cost between $4500 and $6000. This, combined with the low cost mast and beam sections supplied by the Association, means a complete new boat with Mylar sails can be on the water for less than $13,000. Alternatively a competitive second-hand boat (up to 8 years old) can be obtained for under $7,000.

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~nmcca/index.htm

Paper Tiger
Single-hander

LOA: 4.26 m

Beam: 2.13 m

Weight: 73 kg

Sail Area: 9.29 m2
Designed in New Zealand in 1967, Paper Tigers came to Australia two years later and an annual “international” is held, alternating between the two countries. As described in this magazine in the August-September issue, the class is prospering in NZ (92 registered) but needs a boost in Australia, where numbers at the Nationals dropped to 30. Victoria is the most active state. Fleets have also been sailed in South Africa, North America, Japan and Sweden.

Boats can be bought new, second-hand or built at home from plans. Older boats remain competitive, with a 25-year-old boat winning the 2006 Internationals.

http://www.papertigercatamaran.org