New IRC NMD 43 launched in France

by Rohan Veal on 27 Sep 2017 Ever since the 43’ IRC race yacht ‘Teasing Machine’ won division three on IRC in the 2015 Sydney to Hobart, the boat has literally raced around the world with a string of success including wins the Carribean 600 and the Commodore’s Cup, which resulted in becoming the 2016 RORC IRC Boat of the Year, and winning the UNCL black wing award.

The French designers Bernard Nivelt and Alexis Muratet, were then commissioned to come up with a 39’ version of the boat that was built in Portugal early 2017, that ended up winning the 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race overall on IRC in its first major race.

Around this same time, another French client asked Nivelt and Muratet Design (NMD) to design him a ‘MkII’ version of Teasing Machine, as it was clear to the designers that there was still plenty of room or improvement despite its TCC of 1.169.

The design philosophy was mainly based on attracting a contemporary category of owners who want to sail fast and win IRC races both inshore and offshore, but without a TP52 budget and a crew of less than 10.

So NMD had to produce a design that would perform well upwind and exhibit good VMG downwind while sailing faster at a higher angle (with an asymmetrical kite) to guarantee inshore racing results, and offer superior speed potential at various reaching angles that are encountered in offshore races.

The IRC optimisation process is based on mastering how much you pay (TCC), and what you get for that price (performance), leading to the best performance vs rating ratio achievable.
Having designed many IRC boats over the years including the very successful A31, A35, A40 and A40RC for Archambault, NMD probably have one of the best understandings of the secret IRC rules in the world, thanks to a huge database that permits to analyse TCC evolution with characteristic variation. However, experience and skills, combined with powerful tools such as CFD and VPP, are still required to provide the performance analysis.

One of the key parameters for the IRC design approach is displacement/length ratio. If the boat is too light for its length, this generally leads to a highly demanding boat (ie, maintaining speed in chop, permanent mainsail trimming, etc). Whereas if the boat is too heavy for its length, this leads to an old-fashioned boat with a classic kite, sailing slowly straight to the downwind gate, and is not good for offshore races when power vs displacement is required for reaching angles.

The ‘Teasing Machine’ hull shape was therefore optimised for performance and drag reduction, with a CFD study with a long-time working-partner, KND-Sailing. Noticeable changes included a more aggressive chine at the transom, reduction of the double chine along the gunwhale and a larger cabin top to provide more headroom downstairs and space for windows.

A twin rudder configuration was determined to definitely be the best control/drag compromise to hold the powerful hull for this dual-purpose program, but a single rudder can be consider for pure inshore racing. Either option can be configured with twin wheels or a tiller, and this would depend on how much inshore and offshore sailing will be done.

The deck layout was developed in close association with the owner and his Albator Sailing team, checking every possible configuration and manoeuvre they encountered. In the end, NMD proposed a pedestal (optional) which has a lot of advantages in manoeuvring, plus comfort for trimming, however the only change the owner decided make was to mount the pedestal in the forward part of the cockpit, whilst Teasing Machine had theirs located at the stern.

Once the design was completed, the owner carefully selected a skilled boat yard by the name of OceanTec in Slovenia, as they had plenty of experience in building a high-quality boat of that size, along with a very cost-effective price that was commercially attractive.

Axxon in France was the chosen carbon rig supplier as they are without a doubt the most cost effective option in Europe, whilst the sails were built by North which initially include an A2, A4, A5 and 2 x A0 (mast head and fractional).

The boat was then launched in September 2017 at St Tropez in France, where 38 South Boat Sales principal Rohan Veal, was there along with the owner, crew, builder and designers, to go out for its maiden voyage.

It is still early days, however there is a lot of potential and interest with this latest design from NMD, as OceanTec have the capability to produce a limited number of boats from the MDF female mould starting from 359,580 Euro including an alloy rig. It is also expected that the IRC rating should be similar to Teasing Machine of around 1.170.