Just what the Doctor ordered?

by Guy Nowell, Asia Editor on 11 Mar 2016 The Editor of Sail-World Asia (that’s me) has just been away to see how the other half lives. Specifically, Fremantle, Western Australia, and the first round of this year’s World Match Racing Tour. The Tour is now owned by Aston Harald, builders of the 510kg M32 all-carbon catamarans that are to be used for all the WMRT events. He who pays the piper and all that.

We are not the first to notice that there are several rather similar-looking series’ out there at the moment – there’s the M32 Series, the WMRT (sailed in M32s), the GC32 Series, the Extreme Sailing Series (sailed in GC32s) and of course the America’s Cup World Series which takes place in AC45s which are almost the same size as the AC49 which will be used in The Cup proper (unless they move the goalposts. Again).

On the other hand, it could be argued that there are an awful lot of similar-looking monohull dinghies out there, too. A whole slew of designs that have proliferated over the years, with each one acquiring a following… everything from 470s to 505s and Enterprises to 420s, 470s, OKs, Enterprises, Lasers and Contenders.

What’s more important to consider is whether high speed catamarans are ‘suitable’ for match racing. The Jury’s going to be out on that for a while to come!

Meanwhile, we can report that (1) the other half lives in 22 deg of sunshine, and enjoys 18kts of onshore breeze every day starting at 11.00 sharp, and (2) M32 catamarans are enormous fun to sail. The RHKYC Class Regatta this weekend will have some serious catching up to do!