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Sail-World.com : Alegria IV steps into IRC offshore bullring next weekend
Alegria IV steps into IRC offshore bullring next weekend
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'Alegria IV owner and skipper, Rod Jones'
Tracey Johnstone ©
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Queensland’s newest racing machine, Rod Jones’s GP42 Alegria IV, has been going through last minute preparations before it steps into the IRC offshore racing bullring.
Pushing to get the boat ready for its inaugural Australian race, the Club Marine Brisbane to Keppel Race, the Alegria IV team have had the Mooloolaba Yacht Club boat up on the hard for the last few days finishing off its measurement and a bottom scrub.
Imported from Spain after competing on the European circuit, Jones’s 2007 Botin and Carkeek designed GP42 landed in Australia in April. Since then it has had several modifications to ensure the boat is competitive in Australian offshore IRC races.
This is Jones’s fourth grand prix boat. His first three came out of the Archambault family. Alegria I was his first move into the IRC racing circuit. As the IRC rule gained acceptance Jones moved into his second Alegria, an Archambault 35 footer specifically designed for IRC racing which he campaigned aggressively taking out the Audi IRC Australian Championship in 2007. Next came the Archambault 4 RC which Jones describes as again having 'a high performance profile in windward/leeward type racing'. The Alegria team again took out the IRC champions trophy in 2009.
With these wins under their belt Jones and his team decided earlier this year to turn their concentration to the north-bound, east-coast Australian offshore races including the Brisbane to Gladstone, Keppel race, Pittwater to Coffs and Sydney to Gold Coast races.
His search for the perfect boat for his new challenge took him to Europe. 'I believe that to have a better opportunity to do well in those races you need to have a boat that has a performance profile orientated towards reaching and running. We looked at what was out there. Unfortunately Archambault didn’t have a product in their network which suited us so we went outside the box and looked at a few other designers boats and came across a GP42 which we thought would do the job,' Jones said. | Alegria IV’s new bulb adding 230kgs and better righting moment - Tracey Johnstone © |
Getting the boat ready for the Australian offshore races Jones and his team have made changes to the keel with an additional 230kgs to the bulb added to increase the boat’s righting moment. 'This change will make it more powerful which will show up when the boat is reaching. It will be quicker reaching than when it was in its original form. And in theory, it will allow us to sail with less people. So we don’t need the same crew weight aboard that the GP42 class would have sailed with.'
Other changes have been the addition of a bowsprit, removing the symmetrical pole and one small comfort item, a icebox with refrigeration.
The design of the boat has delivered a clean deck and working area, and with a sparse black shell below. Jones expects Alegria IV will be a wet boat. With quite a few control lines under the deck and a smooth deck above, as the boat reaches high speeds, the crew will be expecting to be wet on and off the deck. 'We haven’t sailed it in anything overly windy as yet. I think the most we have seen is about 22 true. She is still not terribly wet at 16 knots in 22 true. I think however once we get into the 20 boat speed we will see water over the deck.'  | Alegria IV’s clean deck lines - Tracey Johnstone © |
Testing the boat over the last month on the waters off his home town of Mooloolaba Jones reports he is pleased with the VPP numbers. 'It seems to be doing everything we anticipated speed wise. The question now is what our rating will look like. We have an idea of the range of the rating we are going to get but it could be anywhere within that range. There is nearly a 20 point spread there.'
By next Wednesday Jones should have his answer. He anticipates a rating in the range of between 1.24 and 1.26. This is a pretty high rating compared to a Farr 40. 'We will have to give a Farr 40 a considerable amount of time, but then again, we have got a bigger rig, are lighter and longer on the waterline. So we should give them time.
'We don’t anticipate in this Keppel race we are going to be overly competitive because we still have our heads into the boat and looking at what it does. But certainly I think as time goes on the boat will show that it will be competitive in a the north-bound offshore races where there is quite a high component of reaching and running, and light airs. I think it will be pretty powerful in those conditions.'
Right now though, Jones and his crew are focusing on just getting the boat ready to race. With his crew of. James Walker (navigator). Sean O’Rourke (tactician). Gary White (mainsheet), Greg McAllansmith (pit). James Chilman (bow). Ben Calder (mid bow), Dale Sharp and Chris Anear (trimmers) and Rod Young (grinder and mast), it is all about physical hard work sanding the hull to a smooth finish, checking and rechecking the deck systems, ensuring everything is ready for their final over-night training run on the weekend as they deliver the boat to Brisbane.
Jones’s quiet confidence in the boat’s potential will get a good run in the Keppel race as they line up against five Farr 40s, the Welbourne 42 Wedgetail and his old Archambault 40RC, renamed Arcadia.
'If we sail the boat well it can certainly do the job. It is really if we can do the job. Obviously we are early in the program and will be sailing against some really good Farr 40s as well as Wedgetail. Those boys sail their boat pretty dam well. I don’t expect to see us sitting on the podium at this juncture in the program. This is really very much as suck it and see race for us to find out if, like, how we stow gear on the boat. It is going to be an interesting 35 to 40 hours going up there. The comfort levels will be pretty low, so we hope to get there quickly.'
After the Keppel race Jones will bring the boat home to Mooloolaba. He then plans to campaign Alegria IV in local Queensland events, both coastal and round the buoys as his team aim to have more fun and less time away from home.
by Tracey Johnstone
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http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=72712
1:34 AM Fri 30 Jul 2010 GMT
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