North eNews - news about sailing events and North Sails products

by Julian Plante on 22 Dec 2009 As always it is busy time for North Sails, with the summer sailing season in full swing, and the regatta season including Hobart and Coff’s races drawing close.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for choosing North Sails and wish all sailors a Merry Christmas and safe yachting over the break.

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Inside North Sails Sydney Hobart Line Honour battle drives new sail developments

North Sails CEO Michael Coxon (Cocko) has been campaigning with Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo's for some years but his Sydney team have built the sails for both Alfa and its strong rival, Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI, the four times Hobart winner.

Just a few days before the 2009 Rolex Sydney to Hobart, 'Cocko' provides this insight into the Supermaxi scene.

The sail optimisation that Wild Oats XI and Alfa Romeo have done totally ignores IRC ratings - they are all about speed. The sails that both boats are putting in their inventory but may not use is driving their IRC rating through the roof, however for them it’s about line honours and chasing line honours, as both boats are hammered on IRC handicap.

‘Both boats have got an R1, which is going to drive their rating. The R1 is a spinnaker that’s going to measure as a headsail. It’s a furling, reaching sail from the end of the prod to the masthead so its a spinnaker area but like what you would call a Code 0 on the IRC boats.

‘We haven’t built it to IRC rules so instead of being measured as a spinnaker it’s going to be measured as a headsail. It's a more efficient sail from a shape point of view but it’s going to blow ratings out of the water because the headsail ratings are now driven by that, rather than the short footed, non overlapping headsails we have previously used.

‘The R1’s are made of 3DL so basically they are replacing the 3DL IRC Code 0s.

'Technology drives progress; as well as Alfa Romeo, Wild Oats and Mike Slade's Leopard have all got Cuben spinnakers. The North Sails Cuben development has gone forward a lot in the last couple of years. The Cuben bias has added incredibly to the tear strength.

'On Alfa Romeo we used a Cuben spinnaker right across the Pacific in the Transpac, for four days not stop. We put it up again today and we’re going to use it for the Hobart.

‘This is going to be a fascinating battle. Alfa Romeo last lined up against Wild Oats XI at the Maxi Worlds two years ago and we beat Wild Oats XI in the first race and we were ahead of her in the second race when she dropped her rig. Both boats have undergone modifications: both have gone to 100 feet long and they’ve both got different rigs.

‘Wild Oats XI received a new rig when she broke her mast and we got a new rig because Neville decided that he wanted to upgrade the boat. We could save windage and weight by going a stiffer rig and we have gone for a four spreader rig (from a five spreader rig) so it’s quite different. Because the rigs are stiffer it has allowed us to put more furling sails on it, which are pretty fast.

‘Both boats have undergone modifications and both boats worked on what their 'perceived weaknesses' were. From day one when the boats were launched, my gut feeling has been that Alfa has had an edge upwind and that Oats has had an edge downwind. I think that Oats has made modifications that she thinks will help her upwind performance and Alfa has made some modifications that will help her downwind performance.

'However while the competition for Line Honours will likely between those to boats, there is a BUT. I think Leopard will be the boat to beat if the weather is on the nose.

'If we have heavy weather sailing I would say she’s the boat; I would put my money on. With anything greater than 20 knots upwind, I would say that Leopard would be the quickest boat on the water.

'I would suggest with power crack sheet reaching; not necessarily spinnaker reaching, but power reaching I think she’ll be the boat to beat too. Leopard is by comparison a heavy boat, so when it goes light she could probably lose a lot of ground quickly too.

'Still, if these boats finish as the top three we won’t mind, they all have the latest North Sails!!

While the big boats clash at the head of the fleet, the battle for overall victory promises to be even more intense.

Looking through the North Sails fleet, Sales and Marketing Manager, Julian Plante, sees a number of potential winners. 'In the Mini Maxi size, Ran and Loki are both strong contenders. They are both using North's Cuben spinnakers. Its only a few years ago it was the STP65 Rosebud that was the overall winner in a boat of similar size category.'

As a regular tactician on Quest, Julian of course has a special interest in Bob Steel’s defending overall winner, but he says 'Quest will have to beat off the hungry pack including the mid size 50’s Yendy’s which has added a new square top main, and Living Doll, plus the TP52 gang of Cougar II, Ragamuffin, Shogun and Calm all part of the super-competitive 50 foot fleet.'

We will know soon enough... and we wish all the boats fair winds.

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Inside North Sails Volvo and America's Cup designer joins North Sails Australia team

Ongoing delays with the Americas's Cup and the end of the current Volvo Ocean Race have proved somewhat to the gain of North Sails Australia. Andrew Lechte, a resident of Tasmania has recently returned from Europe after finishing his work designing sails for the Volvo Ocean Race team 'Telefonica', and will be working with North Sails Australia on One-Design sail development and special projects.

Andrew's impressive credentials include designing sails for the past three Volvo Ocean Races with teams from Sweden and Spain, and for America's Cup teams during the previous five cup cycles with teams from Japan, Sweden and France.

In between working on the big boats, Andrew has also assisted the Australian Olympic Team with sail and rig development, particularly in the 470 and Yngling class.

Andrew will bolster the design resources at North Sails Australia, and will be on hand to assist local yachties with event campaigns. Through the development of yacht performance by working on improvements in the sails and rig, Andrew will be promoting a better understanding of the key elements for achieving the best boat-speed around the race course.

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Inside North Sails Necker Belle – Super fast cruising catamaran

Necker Belle, a magnificent 32 metre (105 foot) catamaran, the latest addition to Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Limited Edition collection, quietly cruised out of Sydney Harbour last month, bound for the Caribbean. The unique, light weight, all-carbon fibre yacht has been significantly rebuilt and redesigned to reach speeds of up to 25 knots.

Necker Belle had extensive upgrades to her yacht's sailing systems, including new North Sails sails, deck hardware and a new Southern Spars mast measuring a dizzying 38 metres high. North Sails Alby Pratt and Keith Lorenz worked closely with the Southern Spars and Necker Belle team to optimize the new rig and sail package.

The complete new sail wardrobe for Necker Belle was constructed using our exclusive range of Gatorback Carbon/Dyneema for the fully battened Mainsail and Gatorback Dyneema sailcloth for headsails. Laminating super low stretch carbon fibre with Dyneema Gatorback combines outstanding strength, toughness and UV resistance with superb stretch resistance.

The new Gennaker uses North Cloth Norlon 250 with a snuffer to combine excellent performance, durability and handling.

Once she has completed more than 10,000 nautical miles home to Necker Island in the Caribbean, Necker Belle will be available for tailor-made weekly charters from February 2010 onwards.

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Inside North Sails 16' skiff development

North Sails managing director Michael Coxon has been working on 16' Skiff sail development recently. While Cocko's 18' skiff sail designs have always been at the forefront of that fleet, taking ideas and designs from one class to another is not always straightforward.

While the square top mains Michael developed for the 18's over the last few years have dominated proceedings, this was largely facilitated by integrated rig development with carbon masts in conjunction with Southern Spars. Given that the 16' skiff fleet does not allow carbon masts to keep costs down, Michael has been working to develop an Alloy rig to suit the sail design objectives.

The resulting 3DL square headed Mainsail has been a significant departure from the pin headed sails that the fleet have traditionally carried. Ongoing modifications were required to get the rig to setup to the desired mast bend offsets, and once this was achieved the sail package has shown lots of promise.

According to Michael, in addition to the integrated sail and rig development and square top Mainsail, one of the other important factors has been the 3DL sails. 'The 3DL sails allowed us to bring state of the art sail technology onto the 16 footers, which have always carried traditional panel sails. The 3DL three dimensional thermo moulded process produces a lighter sail which can reproduce the design shape exactly and give more even leech twist profile than a panel sail' Coxon said.

Getting the product just right is first and foremost in Michael's objectives for this season, and so for this year, the aim has been to develop the sail and mast package and prove the product. On water testing so far has shown the project to be right on track.

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Inside North Sails One Design News

Etchells Big fleet competition is a vital part of the preparation for a major one-design championship and Pittwater Etchells sailor Julian Plante came looking for just that in the Milson Silver Goblets on Sydney Harbour. The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron conducted the Milson Goblets as a twilight regatta throughout the week, attracting a top class fleet of 23 Etchells.

While racing was close in every heat, Plante and his crew of North Star, Nick Garland, Hannah Nattrass and Michael Dunstan, won three races with a third and a sixth in the other two heats. North Star finished with six points after one discard.

Only seconds separated the top placegetters in almost every race, with North Star winning heat four by a mere four seconds.

Runner-up was Iron Lotus (David Edwards/Ivan Wheen/Tom King) with 10.67 points from a score of avg-4-6-2-2, third place going to Fathom (Rupert Henry/Tim Molchanoff/David Albert) on 15 points from placings of 5-2-4-4-8.

'The Milson Silver Goblets was part of our lead-up to the Etchells nationals on Lake Macquarie in January,' Plante said after his victory. 'We will also contest the States at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in February.'

Plante has been racing Etchells for ten years, his best results being winning the Australian mid-winter championships, a fourth in the 2004 World championships and a third in an Australian championships. He has also won seven Australian titles in NS14s and J24s.

story by Peter Campbell

(North Star used a PC-F Mainsail, GM-6.5 Jib and BR0.5 Biradial Spinnaker. Iron Lotus and Fathom also used North Sails inventories to complete a podium sweep)

Sydney 32 OD In a four race series held over two days by RANSA on Sydney Harbour, Wirrajurnd (CYCA) dominated by winning three of the four races. Wirrajurnd used a full set of Norths 3DL working sails and Norths spinnakers in this regatta, backing up from wins at Hamilton Island Race Week earlier this year and the National titles last year. Andy Kearnan, owner helmsman on Wirrajurnd, said 'in general we were faster and higher than the fleet, no small part due to the sails and assistance from Norths in tuning the rig'.

Melges 24 Chris Larson and his team aboard West Marine Rigging/New England Ropes won the Sheehy Lexus of Annapolis Melges 24 World Championship, held in Annapolis, MD from October 26-31, by an astounding 25 points. Powered by a complete North Sails inventory, Larson captured the World Championship Trophy without sailing the 11th and final race.

'We used North's standard Melges 24 One Design sails and the performance of these sails during the 6-day, 11-race series was fantastic,' said Larson. 'Our speed and height were awesome and we had no sail issues at all,' he said.

Racing with a North AP-3K mainsail; J-7 jib, Max Runner and PowerZone Reacher, Larson held off Giovanni Maspero and his team on Joefly, which was also powered by a complete North Sails inventory. 'Showing outstanding performance through a variety of wind and sea conditions, Chris's results clearly show that North's standard Melges 24 One Design sails truly are the best ‘all-purpose' sails out there,' said Vince Brun, president of North Sails One Design. 'These sails are fast and easy to trim and the Annapolis weather challenged every team with conditions varying from very light to fresh breezes. Nine of the top 10 teams dominated the event racing with North sails, which proves how versatile and durable our Melges 24 sails are,' concluded Brun.

North Sails would like to congratulate Larson and crew on West Marine/New England Ropes for an impressive finish. Congratulations also to Maspero and team on JoeFly for finshing 2nd; Eivind Melleby and team on Full Medal Jacket for finishing 3rd; and Nicola Celon and team on FANTASTICA for finishing 4th. North-powered boats also finished 5th*, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th*, 12th, 13th, 14th*, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th* and 20th overall.

Melges 32 29 boats from 6 nations met in Porto Cervo for the first Melges 32 World Championship. 26 of them had North Sails onboard. The class is developing very fast especially in Italy and USA and also starting to show also in countries like England, France, Germany and Eastern Europe.

10 races were scheduled and all of them sailed with eastern wind and quite rough sea. The first two days the wind was medium strong, 3rd and 4th day medium, the last one for the last race light.

The favourite team of Bliksem won the Championship without going in the water for the last race. Their key for winning was consistency. Australian input on the winning boat was also strong with the Wilmot brothers Nathan and Jeremy onboard, and young 18' skiff champ Michael Coxon.

All the 10 races were won by North Sails, and the top 10 boats had full North Sails inventories with standard CSD designs.

Dragon The Olympic Centre in Medemblik on the Iseelmeer was the venue for the 67 participants from 15 Nations. Never have so many Olympic medalists and World Champions been in one place in the Dragon Class.
It was Poul Richard Hoj Jensen with his crew Theis Palm and Lars Jensen, who both work on a daily basis with North Sails One Design, who won in the battle for the medals. Lars Hendriksen, Sergei Pugatchev and Michael Hestbaek were in second place and Jorgen Schönherr, Christian Videbaek and Axel Waltherdorph in third place.
North Dragon sails proved their all-round performance by having 7 boats in the top 10 at this event.

Please do not hesitate to contact Julian Plante at the loft to get the World Champion settings for your boat.