Aethon Wing at Little America’s Cup, statement from Steve Clark

by Barby MacGowan on 20 Aug 2010 Aethon, the new wing for the C Class catamaran was revealed, trialed, and withdrawn this week.

Control system problems caused damage to the wing’s airfoil surfaces. These were too extensive to be repaired and tested before the start of the International C Class Catamaran Championship on August 22. The team has therefore decided to scratch the entry of Cogito, and use her wing on Aethon in the Little America’s Cup.

Steve Clark, owner of both boats, designed and built Aethon with his nephew Oliver Moore over the last 18 months. He designed and built the new wing hoping to achieve something new. The wing weighs just 140 pounds, about 30 pounds lighter than Cogito’s wing and probably about 15 pounds lighter than the Canadian’s wingsails. The wing also has solid composite skins, which are better aerodynamically than the typical heat shrink covering, and has a more extensive twist control system that allows Clark and Moore to vary the trim of the wing throughout its entire span.

'The way the thing works' said Clark, 'is that they are all interrelated. You cannot get the weight savings without adding complexity to the control system. During the brief time that we had everything working Oliver and I were highly impressed by the performance and potential of the new wing. We thought we had hit a home run. But some old boogiemen like stretch and bending caused certain parts to bear loads that they weren’t engineered to take and they folded up exactly like you would expect them too.'

The withdrawal of the second American entry means that Lars Guck and Andrew Gaynor, initially slated to sail Cogito at the event, will now be moved to first and second alternate. ' I feel very bad about having to scratch and entry to the regatta' continued Clark. 'We thought long and hard about what it would take to repair the wing and get to the starting line, but we concluded that it simply wouldn’t be possible. We would be showing up with a completely untested and untuned rig. We would have no confidence that we could complete the program, and would most likely have to do a series of mid regatta fixes under great pressure with little time. This would mean that we had the real opportunity of going backwards and turning something that has the potential to be extraordinary into a piece of junk. The work of the last six months could be completely thrown away.'

'We have no one to blame for this than ourselves. We did not manage to get the assembly done early enough to have suitable time to test and debug the new wing. As it happened, because we were so late to the water, any problem would have been significant, and a minor problem became a game ender.'

While Clark voiced his disappointment, he also made it clear that he feels quite confident in the team’s chances using Cogito’s rig. 'Cogito’s wing is a great power plant' Clark concluded. 'It is proven and we know how to sail it very well. We think there is enough innovation in Aethon’s hulls and foils to give us a reasonable chance at winning the regatta. And that’s what we are going to try to do.'

In the two photos, both with Aethon on port tack. In one she has the new wing, in the other she has Cogito’s. The differences are fairly obvious.