Louis Vuitton Trophy Dubai- Kiwi boat builders heroes of Day 1

by Louis Vuitton Media on 16 Nov 2010
This morning the Louis Vuitton Cup Dubai is giving a big hand to Sean Regan, Neville Thorpe and the Emirates Team New Zealand boatbuilding team.

Everyone remembers La Maddalena when a major collision put the two BMW Oracle Racing boats out of action, severely disrupting the regatta. But today it is as if yesterday’s collision never happened. Both boats are back in the water. The hole in the starboard aft quarter of the Kiwi team’s NZL-84, inflicted when the spinnaker pole from NZL-92 impaled it during a top mark rounding in yesterday’s second race between the Kiwi team (the impalers) and Mascalzone Latino Audi Team (the impalees) - you would never know it had been there.

Sean Regan, Construction Manager at Emirates Team New Zealand has been involved in the build and repair of America’s Cup Class monohulls for two decades now. It was he who was responsible for making the call that stopped the race after the collision occurred yesterday on the basis that it was too risky for the boats to continue.

No one wants incident like this but according to Regan they were extreme fortunate for a number of rasons. The holing occurred in one of the few areas of the hull where its inner side is exposed (rather than being hidden down below). 'It couldn’t have happened in a nicer spot because it allows us to work on the inside skin as well. If it had been forward and down into the cockpit we would have been ripping into the cockpit sole and it would have created more issues. We were just so lucky.'

More crucially from a structural point of view they were incredibly lucky NZL-92’s spinnaker pole struck where it did. The impact was about 0.5m forward of the critical area around the starboard running backstay chainplate. Further aft and the hull wouldn’t have been holed, but the interweaving carbon fibres in the structurally much more complex area around the runner attachment point to the hull would have been damaged and the possibility of having NZL-84 back on the water today would have been much less likely.

As it is, the holing took place in an area where loads from the chainplate run at 45 degrees into the hull. 'It is still a very dangerous area' warns Regan. 'I am still very worried, but you have to make an assessment. Yesterday it was a big one because we had to stop a race even though there were a lot of other issues with penalties, etc.'

To effect the repair Regan’s team had to make a hole larger than that made by the pole impact in order to eliminate all the delamination that had occurred in this area. 'We had to cut a section out of about 400 x 200mm to replace the core and from there we then set about repairing the hull laminate itself,' says Regan. In this area the hull is 34mm thick, composed of a 30.5mm Nomex honeycomb core material sandwiched between two featherweight 1.7mm thick layers of carbon fibre. They cut a new section of core material to size and then laminated fresh carbon fibre over the top of it on both sides.

The repair work was completed by 2230 last night but curing of the resin was only finished at 0400 this morning. 'The boys were here until 0630 this morning,' says Regan. 'Neville Thorpe and his team did the night shift and worked through and got the laminate done and we’ve just come in and tidied it up again this morning.'

While the hole damage was keeping them busy, the Kiwi boatbuilding team also had to rejoin NZL-94’s broken spinnaker pole aong with some bow and stern damage on their two boats that had also occurred during the incident.

Regan stays that the boats often get bumped and bruised but they have never previously had the hull punctured like this. 'NZL84 has turned out to be our battleship. She has had a lot of bang and clangs and little bits and pieces but we’ve had three years of sailing pretty hard in her along with all other teams playing on them and everything. When all’s said and done when the boats are sailing in their normal mode, structurally there is no issues. The problems have come about with collisions and it is getting a bit too close for comfort with this one.

'Fortunately we have a very good team of boat builders and we don’t let anything like this stop us. We have had lots of issues before like this. Our job is to make sure they go sailing the next day and we don’t let anything stop us. It makes the boys proud getting stuck in and doing it.'

So if you see Regan and his team in the bar tonight, buy them a beer.