Arajilla conquers all- with Doyle and Nev’s help

by Helen Hopcroft on 15 Oct 2007 Arajilla the 35ft Archambault owned by Geoff Pearson and Eric Stano has had a truly spectacular season. They started off by winning the Middle Harbour Yacht Club winter series and then took on some of the best IRC yachts in the country at Airlie Beach. Racing in her first Airlie regatta, and helmed by Nev Wittey, she was the overall winner of the IRC Division. With Geoff Pearson at the helm she then took out third place at Hamilton Island. Pearson attributes their success partly to new sails from Doyle Fraser and the advice they received from former Olympian Wittey.

‘I’d known Neville for many, many years from way back in the dinghy racing days’ explained Pearson. ‘It started off because we were talking about him coming sailing with us and he said he’d be interested. He’d just started working with Doyles so away we went with it.’

Doyle Fraser Sailmakers made a new set of panelled sails for Arajilla and Nev Wittey and the team set about the painstaking task of making sure they were as close to perfect as is humanly possible.

‘We did a lot of research with this boat to make sure that we could optimise it for IRC’ said Pearson. ‘We were really following along the lines of what Allegria in Queensland had been doing with Rod Jones at the helm of that boat. We wanted to do the same thing so we got these guys onboard and they helped us a lot.’

John Hearne from Doyle explained that when an owner asks them for help optimising their boat for racing it wasn’t a simple matter of just building a new set of sails. They usually start by discussing what racing the owner wants to do and whether the boat is ready for this program. Then there’s a trip to the boat to photograph the existing sails, a close study of the boat’s current rating and the usual discussion about what type of budget the owner wants to commit to the project.

‘We then try and co-ordinate it so they’ve got the fastest boat they can with the best rating they can’ said Hearne. ‘The trick is getting their boat to go fast first. There’s no point slowing it down to get a better rating, they still won’t win: you’ve got to have a fast boat.’

‘Fast is fun’ he added with a grin.

Pearson agreed with Hearne’s assessment and said that in Arajilla’s case the choice of sails had been a delicate balancing act between speed and rating.

‘We were trying to get as much sail area as we could on the boat. We ended up making the spinnakers a bit bigger and probably went down slightly in area on the main and jib but up on the spinnakers because we know that this is the best way to get our IRC rating optimised.’

As we all know that it is a long way to the bottom mark with a small spinnaker!

In what became a slightly obsessive process, even the smallest sail adjustments were made if it was considered that they may contribute to boat speed. At one point after numerous rig adjustments the mainsail looked like it needed a small alteration.

‘So we recut the mainsail’ reported Pearson.

‘Mike Carter (Doyle’s head sail designer) did a lot of that work and we’ve now got it so it’s working absolutely perfectly. We’ve got it working with the backstay and with the overall range of wind, and that’s what you’re trying to achieve.’

‘We’ve ended up with a really nice set of sails all over: mains, headsails and spinnakers.’

But the process of optimising Arajilla to perform well under the IRC system wasn’t just about the shape and size of her sails. Pearson said that Wittey’s experience was invaluable when it came to sorting out the way the boat was run. Great sails, after all, don’t mean a thing unless you have a close knit, skilled and well organised crew to deploy them.

‘Neville’s very, very good at organising the people into the correct positions and then organising a procedure for everything that’s done. It’s just a professional approach and obviously he’s an Olympian and an ex world champion so he’s had plenty of experience over a vast range of boats.’

Pearson plans to now race Arajilla in the Middle Harbour Yacht Club IRC summer series, Savills and the Audi series.

The expertise that helped boost Arajilla’s performance will be on show at the Sydney sail loft on the 6th of November at 7pm. As part of Doyle’s popular free monthly talks on anything and everything to do with sailing, Hearne and Wittey will present a talk titled 'Fast is Fun!' The presentation will focus on two main topics: how to effectively manage a racing boat and how to get your boat going faster.

Wittey with his experience as a National and World Champion, International Umpire, International Rules Judge and performance coach will be presenting the racing segments.

‘Nev will probably do more of the talking this time’ observed Hearne ‘and I’ll do more of the back up because he’s very good at yacht racing, I’m better at sail making, so we have both bases covered.’

Hearne hopes to run the next talk at the beginning of December and plans to have a weather expert to talk to offshore racers about how to use detailed weather information to formulate a race plan.

'I want to do a smaller one for all our ocean racing guys before they go to Hobart or one of the other offshore races….We want to ask him to talk about how to read the weather, understand it for a long race and how it all works. We can lead into now you’ve got the weather you can make a race plan of where you want to go on the race track.’

For more information on Doyle’s evening talks phone the Sydney loft on (02)93614836.
Another free service that Doyle is currently offering to their Sydney customers is a pick up and delivery service for sail repairs. The offer covers the Sydney metropolitan area and is available for a limited time only.





Contact details for bookings for the evening talk:
Address : 6 Nield Ave
City : Rushcutters Bay
State : NSW
Postcode : 2011
Country : Australia
Phone : +612 9361 4836
Fax : +612 9332 3271

http://www.doylefraseraustralia.com