Maximus unveiled - from launch to first race

by Richard Gladwell on 11 Aug 2005 Few boats, if any, have quite caught the thinking sailor’s imagination quite like Maximus.

Dazzled by a plethora of claims about records, speed, general craziness and other tales, the general public has become a little blasé about the next that is claimed to be the latest and greatest on the sailing scene.

Maximus is not just another Big Boat. In the flesh, or rather on the water, the size and presence of the Greg Elliott designed supermaxi is awesome, attention grabbing and athletic.

Athletic is not a word one would normally use with in a sailing context, but how else would you describe a boat that has breathtaking acceleration, sails faster than the wind, and is completely orientated towards speed?

Up close it takes a trained and studied eye to fully appreciate this masterpiece. Appropriately she is painted Porsche silver and the embodiment of engineering and fine design is to the level one would expect from Germanic engineering and design excellence.

For the initiated the maxi-yacht racing world has been is something of a quandary for many years. The old 70ft maxi’s were once thought to be the ultimate machines, then came the out and out speed machines like the aircraft carrier Vendee Globe types and the Volvo 60’s soon to become the Volvo 70’s.

In the rating world rules have come and gone, and now the market, or rather jungle, is making its own rules and new types seem to be emerging led by owners rather than rule makers. Typically these boats fall into box rules – where length is the only real measure and within that box – anything goes – or may the fastest win.

The ‘box’ that has emerged at the top of the scale is the Supermaxi class – which are informally limited to 100ft, but typically come in around 30 metres overall or 98ft in the old money. Numbers of the type are somewhat vague with 20 being touted as the world fleet, however eight is the more researched figure – most of whom are located in the Southern Hemisphere – and five in Australia and New Zealand.

Like many race boats, as the type becomes more refined the boats start to fall into the same ‘corner’ of the rule and the advance of design increments becomes smaller and smaller.

Maximus breaks this mould wide open with several design features, of which one alone would have been considered radical for this type of boat and design thinking. Her design inventory boasts a rotating wing mast, hydraulically lowered keel, centreboard complete with trim tab, and a Code Zero jib/gennaker. She is the first supermaxi to tread the technology path in all these areas.

Jointly owned and conceived by Charles St Clair Brown and Bill Buckley she combines the entrepreneurial approach of St Clair Brown and the engineering expertise of Bill Buckley with designer Greg Elliott bringing the ideas into fruition. Then it is over to Cookson Boats to create the dream and Southern Spars and North sails to power her.

The mainstay of the Maximus project is to provide a demonstration of New Zealand marine design and technology excellence, in quite a different way from say the America’s Cup efforts – which have been more a process of technology refinement with a strict set of design rules. Maximus is a real blank piece of paper exercise.

Comparisons with Elliott’s other radical creation Mari Cha 4 – the twin masted, canting keel, water ballasted 145ft holder of numerous world sailing speed records.

'There is no real comparison between the two boats as there are two different design briefs’, says designer Elliott. ‘The design brief for Mari Cha 4 was to design the fastest monohull in the world. And the design brief for Maximus was to design the fastest boat under 100ft. That is the end of it. If you look at the two boats there are very few similarities, if any. One has two masts and is a canting keel water ballasted boat and so on. The other has a single rotating mast, extendable keel and is 45ft shorter. They are very different’.

Her vital measurements are: LOA is 30 metres or 98ft, waterline length is 1.5 metres less. Her beam at deck level 5.7 metres, coming down to 4 metres at waterline. According to St Clair Brown, the deck beam measurement was more dictated by the spreader base width required to keep her rig in place, rather than by form stability requirements. Her draft is 6 metres and with keel raised is 4 metres. Draft of rudder is 3.7 metres and same for centreboard which is raised hydraulically. Fully retracted, the centreboard is 800mm above the deck level. It is made of carbon with a trim tab to give a better asymmetrical shape to the foil. The centreboard has a trim tab on it which is 30% of the chord width, and is driven hydraulically from the steering position via a button.

Sailing on Maximus is an unnerving experience which has one constantly in reality check mode.

First is the sheer size and smallness of the boat. Even though she is 100ft long and certainly looks at from the bow, in the cockpit she feels like a 60fter due to the cockpit layout and forward positioning of the twin steering wheels.

Out of the boat the rig and sail area look huge, in the boat and looking skywards they seem even bigger, and certainly there’s plenty of the high tension graunching noise associated with releasing sheets when under high load.

The rotating mast looks unusual, but seems quite normal, after a short while. The rotation is quite noiseless - in spite of 38000lbs of jack pressure under its heel. The fact that it has only two spreaders and a set of diamonds makes it seem more appropriate to a boat half the length. However it functions faultlessly and you can almost feel the reduction in drag.

Sails hoisted, Maximus starts off at a fast jog around the inner Waitemata. Non-working crew quickly take up a position in the ample after end of the boat and keep a nervous eye out for flailing backstay blocks, sheets and keep a firm grip on something solid .....

For the remainder of this story see: http://www.kiwispy.com/Offshore/Maximus.htm