New Olympic Multihull Nacra 17 – Update

by Nacra Sailing on 2 Nov 2012 The production of the Nacra 17, which is the new Olympic multihull for Rio 2016, is continuing at pace at the factory in Thailand. By the end of the week, boat number 70 will be laminated and the first containers are underway to Europe.

Since the Nacra 17 was chosen as the multihull for 2016 a lot of work has been done, the production of the Nacra 17 is spread over three continents and has been fine-tuned and the quality control has been optimised with the expectation to develop a class with a high one-design integrity and the best possible reliability. The progress also includes a fully revised version of the well know Nacra rudder-system with CNC-milling technology and a Q-bond system to glue the sail panels together before they are stitched, for a durable high strength.

'This is an exciting time for us,' said Peter Vink, technical director of Nacra, 'The last couple months we invested a lot in order to get a fine product up to Olympic sailors’ standard on the market. The Nacra 17 will be out of the box ready to go sailing, to put it simple plug and play with equal equipment for every sailor. The Nacra 17 one-design class rules will be published soon to make sure the class will keep its strict one-design integrity.'

Apart of the fact that the Nacra 17 is a strictly one-design class the sailors will still be able to trim their rig to their preference. To give the sailors a better pathway to find their own optimum rig setup Nacra has introduced three optional sail batten stiffness’s. The top four battens of the seven mainsail battens may be changed to the manufacturer supplied, relative to the standard (medium) supplied battens, harder or softer battens. Clearly coloured certification labels will make sure the battens can be identified by others while sailing.

The table below gives the particulars of the Nacra 17 in comparison with other popular multihull classes the F18 and F16.

Particular	Formula 16	Nacra 17	Formula 18
Hull Length	5.00 m	5.25 m	5.55 m
Beam	2.50 m	2.59 m	2.60 m
Mast Length	8.50 m	9.00 m	9.00 m
Total upwind sail area	18.70 m2	20.10 m2	21.15 m2
Spi Area	17.00 m2	19.00 m2	21.00 m2
Average crew weight	130 kg	±135 kg	150 kg
Relative Righting Moment with average crew weight	681 kg*m	754 kg*m	881 kg*m

 

More information of the boat, the class and the upcoming events can we found on the Nacra 17 website.