Class act?

But are the Swiss being visionary enough with their new boat design proposals. Is 90ft actually big enough? When the IACC boats replaced the 12 metres, a chance was missed to make the new class truly prestigious. At under 80ft in length they were already a great deal smaller than the existing Maxi boats and before very long the Maxi class grew to 90ft.

Now it is hovering around the 100ft mark. For the sake of an extra ten or so feet the new America’s Cup class could be the true ‘big-boat’ of international yacht racing. It seems too be to good an opportunity to miss. Cost can hardly be an issue. The Swiss, creators of the new 90ft rule, have already said that although the boat cost may well be double that of the yachts they replace, it is still a very small part of the overall AC budget. So why not add an extra 10ft? Think of the rig size. It really would look amazing and provide all the more advertising space for those all-important sponsors.

Size brings with it another significant advantage: A wider wind range to sail, in particularly at the bottom end. I well remember racing in the Aegean Rally many years ago on the S&S designed Errante which went on to win the event. But in one race we all watched, becalmed, while the maxi Baccarra just sailed away. There was no breeze a mere 50ft above the water, but in the rarified atmosphere, some 80ft up where the top of the maxi mast resided, their was enough puff to get her going. That extra 15ft, or so, of mast height that a 100ft AC boat would enjoy may well allow racing when there is almost no breeze at deck level. Bearing in mind all the lost days in Valencia, which could only be a good thing.

As to the control the Swiss want over the entire event – challenger trials, etc – I am totally with the Larry Ellison camp. It is a pity other challengers haven’t backed him up, because the way to have brought Alinghi to the compromise table would have been for there to be no challengers. Some would say it was brave of Origin, The Kiwi’s, the South Africans and the Spanish to enter the fray without having any idea of the event they are signing up to. Others would say it was just plain daft.

It’s clear though that certain teams, Origin in particular, see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to win the cup with a piece of inspired design rather than years of expensive research. And they are right. Theoretically, this could lead to many ‘cheap’ one-boat campaigns, but I wonder. According to the provisional protocol for 2009, you are allowed to build two boats, but you are not allowed to sail them together, the idea being to ‘save’ the cost of two crews. You really wonder who ‘cooks-up’ these rules!

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Health and Safety could be the death of all sport. The decision to postpone the start of the bi-annual Fastnet Race, at the beginning of August, due to predicted adverse weather would have had great past ocean racers like Adlard Coles and John Illingworth turning in their graves. You can’t learn the art of heavy weather sailing, or indeed survival, without gaining the experience.

But far worse is the knock-on effect this type of decision has on the boats themselves. If a boat doesn’t have to weather extreme winds and seas, then it won’t be built accordingly. It will become over-rigged, under weight and too strenuous on its crew. In other words it will be optimised for lighter inshore sailing. Even inshore regattas are guilty of creating less crew friendly offshore boats. Even fifteen-mile sheltered water events are regularly cancelled nowadays if the wind speed exceeds 35 knots.

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I want you to consider this. Two boats. Exactly the same length, beam, weight, sail area, waterline length, even the same rig. Same keel and draft. Identical in all visible respects, but not sisterships. Boat B is say one year younger and is designed and built by different people. These two boats should rate the same under IRC and today they probably would.

But back in the days before IRC was rebranded, CHS would have considered them different. An arbitrary rating difference might have crept in simply because of the name of the designer, but if this hadn’t happened things might well have changed once boat B was on the race course. Now suppose as a result of subtle differences of hull shape, not seen by the rule, boat B is faster than boat A. This would have resulted, after just one or two regattas, in boat B being given a swinging rating increase, based solely on results.

The ‘adjustment’ would have been large enough to make future victories unlikely except in extreme weather circumstances. It was this that kept ‘serious’ racers out of CHS. They mocked the rule because you couldn’t design to it, it penalised success and kept old cruising boats competitive. It was aptly named a handicap rule and a powerful one at that.

Now replaced by the indomitable IRC lettering, the rule has gained respect by the world’s top sailors, owners, designers and builders. Why? Simply because a few letters have been changed, or because it is the only rule in town. Or just maybe it has lost its teeth to such an extent that it has just become another type forming rule and one that ‘secretly’ encourages fine tuning of design and build in complete contradiction of its original purpose.

Better known in the Middle East for his powerboat designs for Al Yousuf, Julian Everitt has a successful design practice that has produced many race winning racing yacht designs over the past 30 years. He has also been Editor of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s magazine Seahorse and a columnist for Asian Marine.