Doyle Sails: One Design expert and coach, Andrew Brown on designing sails for youth sailors
by Doyle Sails 17 Oct 2021 15:40 PDT
18 October 2021
Toyota National Optimist Championships, Murrays Bay SC, April 2019 © Richard Gladwell
Winning sailors know that when boats are identical, sails become the major opportunity to gain a performance advantage.
Doyle Sails utilises a computational simulation environment to engineer sails that are faster out of the bag, easier to trim and maintain their designed shape through a greater wind range.
Recently Doyle Sails One Design expert Andrew Brown, spoke about what he enjoys most when working with one-design sailors and, in particular, the future sailors. Andrew comments: “I always enjoy when clients get in touch about their newly designed Doyle Sails. This is the second time the Palmer family from Christchurch (South Island, New Zealand) have worked with us on developing a brand new design for the class.
“The first sail that we worked on together was an Optimist sail for an ultra-small skipper – this then became the “Orange” sail which is a weapon of a sail - and the sail of choice to a number of small Opti kids. It started off as a one of a kind “Pink” sail; but was so good it ended up being a production sail.
“This second sail we have worked together on is the P Class Black+ sail. It is for the stronger, more experienced P Class sailors, and after moving through thorough testing in Charteris Bay, Christchurch and in Auckland combined with the feedback we’ve received from the Palmer family – it looks like our by sailors, for sailors approach continues to work well. It is really great to also see a good number of sailors out on Lyttleton Harbour being put through their paces by the Charteris Bay Yacht Club Coaches!
“As the saying goes – if you can sail a P Class, you can sail anything”.
Originally from Christchurch, Andrew Brown is the holder of 13 national titles in dinghy racing, and represented New Zealand at the 2004 Olympics in the International 470 Class.
He currently undertakes contract coaching for the Yachting New Zealand’s NZL Sailing Team, as well as coaching locally and internationally and running local yacht club programmes in Auckland as well as being part of a long term commitment by Doyle Sails to the One Design market. Andrew is supported by One Design expert designer Andrew Lechte, who is based out of Australia and focuses primarily on the strengthening of the global One Design division.
For his tips on regatta preparation click here
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