National currency
by John Curnow, Editor, Sail-World AUS 30 Sep 2018 15:00 PDT
18ft Skiff Alice Burton Memorial Trophy © Frank Quealey
No. It is not the AUD. Rather, it is the other, completely unofficial, one. Yet it is also the one that not only tends to get things done pronto, and thankfully has a buying capacity that seems not to have been significantly devalued over time.
Best of all, it is absolutely not linked to geopolitical instabilities, natural disasters, demand for base or precious metals, gems, rumours, elderly men in dark cigar dens controlling hedge funds, cash rates from the Federal Reserve, or subsequent fluctuations in the mighty USD. Arguably, you could even say that it is during all of that sort of stuff when it absolutely gets to shine.
Yes. It's the ubiquitous couple of slabs. Back, just a wee little while ago in Always going to be, both our Managing Editor, Mark Jardine, and I were significantly impressed when the latest of the IMOCA 60s, Charal, first appeared out of CDK's shed. Indeed it had also not been that much earlier in the year when the mighty Ultime Tri, Macif, had emerged from the same locale after her conversion to Macif 2.0.
Just looking at Charal's foils was enough to promise that she was going to be something else, and now we have the proof. So now here is the link, in case you had not already worked it out. She was punching along doing low 20s in 20-25 knots on a beam reach over a set 1.5nm range in 4'52", BTW. And all of that was done with two slabs in. Wow. For sure she did not need more horsepower, and of course, it also meant the apparent wind demon offered less resistance to the very driving force that was hammering her along.
Yet out of it all, it was that wiggle over her rudder, seen on this video that meant the age of the giant skiff had been firmly recast. This of course was the reason for the 18-footer image from the great Frank Quealey that started us off, today. Yet Charal cannot be called the 'Skiff on Steroids', for Xena/AAPT grabbed that one ages ago. So then seeing as this is all ultra-new tech, and 'of the age', and Xena really was some time ago now, perhaps Charal needs to be called the GM Skiff. No. Not General Motors... Genetically Modified!
A couple of days later, a more polished video would show how wet she was - we had mentioned that was a given in our initial piece - but also just what it was like to drive it like you stole it! The next thing was to look at what it was like in comparison, of sorts, to Banque Populaire and Hugo Boss down deep in the Indian Ocean, which you can see in this video.
Now a decade ago you seriously would have wondered whether this would have been possible with an offshore mono. Suggesting that sending 60 feet like it was an 18 or a 49er fully out, even a Hobie 16, would have got you keel hauled with extreme prejudice. Mark Jardine actually drove the utterly incredible l'Hydroptere eight years ago, and punched it out to 36 knots, even attempting a foiling gybe, which he happily admits did not come off, but the point is that he is excited by what he sees here, and who wouldn't be?
Interestingly, the word is that the new Hugo Boss is another level again, just like the last one was over the Vendée winner, Banque Populaire VIII, which set the record of 74d 03h 35m 46s under Skipper, Armel Le Cléac'h. We won't see the new HB until next year, as they want to leave it as close to the start of the Vendée as possible, so we can just speculate for now, but I reckon she'll be a lot narrower, and still have a similar height stick, even if that means a 'skinnier' main. One thing you can bank on (pun totally intended BTW) is that if the last Hugo Boss was a radical departure over Banque Populaire, then the next one is set to look like something from another solar system all together!
Tacking. It was good to read what James Spithill had to say about not only Luna Rossa on the back of their 52 Super Series win at Valencia to wind the season up, but also the AC. Seems he is one motivated dude. Quelle surprise... Talking of national currency, around the same time, Nathan Outteridge got linked to the 'fifth team', Columbus 2021. At $1m for services rendered it is chump change in the scheme of things when it comes to a full campaign for AC36, but given there are just five skippers from a global population of 7.5B, well it is kinda cool... Good luck to each of them, just don't see how doing the Nacra with your sister could compete.
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Right oh - here today there are some gems for you to review. We have information about the OKs, J/70s, all the goings on with the Golden Globe Race, Nacra 17, the Classics, the Clipper, intel from North Sails, gear from Musto, RC44, GC32, Mirabaud video, VOR and also Nico says he wants in for the next one, F101 and foiling for all, AC news if you are one of the interested sailors (spoiler alert for the rest), M32, and certainly there is much, much more.
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John Curnow
Editor, Sail-World AUS