Wild Oats XI fitted with DSS!

It's not even really a sailboat.

 

It is an interesting sailboat but it's sad that the boat cannot be operated without a 150 hp engine running continuously. There are no manual backups everything is hydraulically powered from the engine.

The range of the boat is severly limited by the amount of fuel it can carry.
They bought speed by chucking out every ounce of material not deemed necessary that included the mechanical systems to back up the hydraulics. If the engine stops its a dead duck.

Funny isn't it, that every easy sail cruising boat with all the attendant comforts would beat it in the Transpac in it's current form, it doesn't have any manual winches and cannot be sailed once the fuel runs out.

But I really think that foil blade is a very dangerous appendage for anyone in the water. At what point does a feature become irresponsible ?

 

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yeah, right.....

 

Wild Oats XI

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It's not sad at all-it's a triumph of technology that allows the boat to be sailed with a much smaller crew than would be required on a 100 footer w/o hydraulics. The engine, I imagine was required to cant the keel , so they added the other hydraulics because they had the capacity and it would save on crew. I wouldn't like to listen to an engine running all the time but that doesn't matter-it is a state of the art 100' race boat-winning is all that matters.
Nobody should be in the water when the foil is deployed. Hell, the boat itself- at speed- is dangerous to anyone in the water. I'm not at all sure the DSS foil will be a big benefit because the boat was not designed for it from scratch. Maybe with the added RM they can use bigger sails on a reach. Hugh obviously thought it was a worthwhile experiment.

 

If the race was on Aug. 17, how did they do?

 

Wild Oats XI

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I think they won but I'm not sure. The big race for which this boat was built is the Sydney-Hobart which is something like December 28th.

 

It changes the whole paradigm if demonstrable full manual control was required as a base point. This boat is not only nonviable but impossible to compete in longer races. So the slowest underrigged sailing tub in the harbour can beat it if it chooses a race that exceeds WOXI's fuel bunkerage.

So if you add manual systems and sufficient crew and stores to work ship under full canvas it's suddenly a lot heavier and requires a heavier hull structure has more wetted surface and is suddenly slower and the other boats that are pure sailboats could beat it. So it's only lighter and consequently faster because it has a screaming 150hp diesel running continuously driving the crew nuts, and they hate it, good sound insulation would be too heavy.

That's a platitude. Think this through. Every boat practices man overboard drills and most boats have a MOB at some stage. A 'blade' encounter would likely be lethal to any MOB who goes over the lee rail fwd of midships unless it's heeled so far below the surface it's out of the MOB 'plunge' zone or the MOB is just lucky. It's the fore deck crew that are at the greatest risk of MOB. It's a very poor design wrt crew safety.

 

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I don't think so -it is a fact that must be enforced as much as possible. Modern boats that use foils create problems like this. When I watched the crew run in front of the wing on Oracle or TNZ I hoped they had a tramp up there to catch the guy if he slipped.
I think the ingenuity that has created these magnificent boats should be able to be used to ensure the crews safety and I bet it will be.

 

So you do think that they are problematic designs wrt safety !

The platitude is that it’s supposedly ok as no one should be in the water, in every human endeavor ‘Sh it happens’.

AC72’s weren’t in a seaway and can’t even operate in a seaway, nor a blow but this boat does. A plunging foredeck and a flogging head sail or sail change gone awry from a sudden gust are the very candidates for a Lee side MOB. So perhaps the foil should be retracted before anyone goes fwd or they must all be on secure short tethers permanently fwd of midships.
Can’t see how that will work, maxi’s have and do have crew OB from time to time sometimes 2 at once, and even without the scythe sticking out the side MOB is a dangerous situation.
With personal epirbs and auto-inflating aids the drownings are not an issue any more. So maybe we have become blasé about MOB but that foil will change that.

Something to consider for the rule makers before someone gets horribly maimed perhaps.

 

vitually all the performance boats over 30 meters are now diesel powered. Sad.

Gigantism and the desire for fame has produced a generation of terrible boats.

At the shipyard Im contantly seeing the damage caused when electo, diesel, hydralic sail system go wild.

A runaway high speed diesel powered winch is a dangerous beast.

Generator fires are the modern plauge.

 

My 2c: if the thing can't be sailed without the motor running, it's a motorsailer at best.

A sailboat should be usable under sail alone.

 

And despite all the money, engines etc it is still not very fast compared to a multi.

It's a rule freak, not exactly something I feel should be celebrated or encouraged.

 

The market has spoken; there's been only half a dozen canting 100s built in about 7 years. That's the least-successful maxi class, in terms of build numbers, since before IOR was created.

Of course the boats are breaking records, but every new maxi class breaks records so that's completely to be expected. And as bpw says, they are still slower than multis.

To be fair, it's not just in the maxi class that the canters are fading....the proportion of new canters for fully-crewed racing in all sizes is minute and probably falling.

 

Has nothing to do with whether they are canters or not-there has been a major worldwide economic downturn in case you haven't noticed.
The major ocean racers are all canters-Open 60's and the Volvo 70's and now 65-canters every one. Unfortunately there is a trend to one design in these boats which will put a cap on development but nevertheless they're all canters. Why? Because they're faster.....

 

The new wally box class 100 footers are fixed keel

http://media.wally.com/document/sail/wally-cento/wally-cento-media-information/