Karma Police passes its first big test in B&G Simrad Opener

by Sarah Ell on 1 Aug 2009
The new Shaw 9 design, Karma Police, passed its first big test in the initial race of the SSANZ B&G Simrad two-handed series, finishing second on line behind the 52-footer Wired in the long-haul division.

The 30 foot canter completed the 50 mile course in 7 hours 11 minutes, taking second on PHRF in its first major race outing.

The race was a good test of the new boat, launched in mid May. Designer Rob Shaw and Blair Gerrard of Kiwi Yachting had to cope with a wide range of conditions, from 5-10 knots at the start to a 35 knot squall at the bottom end of Waiheke.

‘We certainly had a bit on at times, but one of my aims for this boat was to sail it two-handed, and it worked really well,’ says Shaw. ‘It was a good shakedown and I’m really looking forward to the two longer races in the series.’
The Shaw 9 is a lightweight, canting-keel harbour and coastal racer with longer distance and offshore capability. Rather than being an extreme open-style chine boat, the design combines light displacement and high righting moment to provide excellent all-round performance even in the low wind range and good control characteristics in the upper ranges.

The keel is canted by a 6:1 purchase, running back to a pair of dedicated cockpit winches, giving it the necessary stability and power for shorthanded racing.

The canting keel, combined with twin daggerboards, also provides significant improvements in performance upwind over conventional keelboats, producing speeds in the mid-7s with good height. Even bigger gains are produced reaching and running, as a result of the high power-to-weight ratio.

Construction is carbon skins over a foam or Nomex core, vacuumed over male moulds and post cured. Foils are built inside CNC-cut female moulds for accuracy.

The rig is a triple-spreader configuration with topmast runners for control and an element of safety when running under masthead gennaker. A coarse- and fine-tune purchase system means the runners don’t need to be loaded onto a winch when gybing.

Principal dimensions
LOA 9.1m
LWL 8.8m
Beam 3m
Draft 2.5m
Displacement 1800kg
Sail Area
Upwind 66m2
Main 42m2
Jib 22m2
Gennaker 120m2