Sydney-Hobart 2012

Just that keel is a engineering masterpiece !

 

The last two boats have just started beating up the Derwent.

One is the oldest boat in the race, - maluka-of-kermandie

http://www.charterworld.com/news/20...uka-of-kermandie-sean-langman-photo-d-forster

and
cic technology inca

 

Are ther any one design classes in the Hobart....Bénéteau Figaro , Class 40...

 

Not as such, though the race operates several classes,

"New Zealander Bruce Farr, now based on the US, led the move towards light displacement yachts and is by far the most successful designer of Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race overall winners under different international handicap systems, first IOR (International Offshore Rule), then IMS (International Measurement System), and now IRC"


More info
http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/about-the-race/the-yachts/

 

DMG is quite slow in 20 knot breezes ( ~4 knots )

Poor sods - you can watch them 'live'

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/tracker/

 

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Thanks for the video Mike. With the new forward board deployed it seems like they've gone back to the part of CBTF they missed upwind? The little foils on the bulb are interesting. What a great boat.....
I'd sure like to see what a DSS equipped hundred footer would do against Wild Oats XI. It would be lighter and reduce its wetted surface under sail. That would be a hell of a good race.....

 

Actually a DSS design is very close to a multihull, a leeward Atlantic proa; that is if the righting moment is gained purely by the powerful, horizontal leeward foil and not a bulb (okay, maybe some internal ballast) ... so if perchance your hypothetical DSS maxi ever did get built, like a multihull with foils, it would wipe the floor of the heavy (relatively speaking) canter, stinker types.
But you wouldn't have to go so large as a maxi to clean the motorised maxis, a DSS 50 footer would be capable enough of doing the job.
Such a boat type will eventually appear ... but courage will be required to commit to the (relatively unballasted) concept.
However, a multihull, with its greater beam, lighter weight and righting moment is superior, so why bother?
Also a DSS 50 would be considered just as unwanted and persona non grata as a multihull in the Sydney/Hobart. Who would want to live with the antagonism and hubris?
Okay, blaze away.

 

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DSS boats, so far, carry the minimum amount of ballast required for self-righting.The fact that a DSS equipped monohull is generally faster than other boats it's own length and self-righting is an advantage of the system. A well designed (and I do mean Welbourn designed) 100 footer with DSS would roll over Wild Oats and any other current maxi mono.

 

The remarks about motivations that I was referring to are ones such as these;

"i have to ask why some one would pay so much just to watch their name win a trophy or line honours record".

"all an ego trip....Talk about losing the spirit of sailing - where you take on the challenge personally" (since largely retracted, which is cool).

Such remarks seem to be largely irrelevant to the question of powered systems. Personally, I am completely against powered winches and movable ballast as I think it's against the spirit of the sport.

Analogies from other sports are hard to find, and to me that seems significant as it shows how at odds with the normal concepts of "sport" such systems are. Other "non-powered" sports allow stored power for illumination, communication, navigation, cooking etc but draw the line there, as 99.99999% of sailing does - why not all of crewed IRC racing?

The "these boats are too big for manual handling" line seems unsustainable, because much bigger boats have been raced without powered winches. And FWIW I think the 100 foot canting maxi class has been a major flop - it's rubbish to blame economic problems as there are more expensive classes thriving and earlier maxi classes did well in times of recession, so if the boats are too big for human power then limit the size!

The idea that if the power is not applied directly to forward motion then it's OK also seems wrong; that opens a vast Pandora's box.

Having the fastest no-rules mono seems to me like having the biggest bonsai tree - multis are quicker but normal monos are fantastic in different ways so why not favour what they are good at instead of what they are not good at (ie all-out speed)?

 

what do you call pumping the spinnaker with a powered winch if thats not forward power?
That could add a knot or two over a few hours at a minimum.

 

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Nonsense! What an absurd solution: if you cant handle it w/o powered systems- ban it. I'd hate to see a group of reactionary
retro dudes take over the organization of the Sydney-Hobart or any other major race and ban spectacular sailboats like Wild Oats, a new 100' DSS race boat, Volvo 70(65) raceboats or Open 60 raceboats. The idea, that out of some sense of "purification" ,a small group of people could deprive the world of these magificent sailing machines would be terribly unfortunate. These great sailing yachts are as intrinsic to the sport of sailing and the spectacle of sailing as are the great races like the Sydney-Hobart. The good news is that kind of retro thinking has not one chance in hell of stopping the development of extremely high tech raceboats.
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UPDATE- I'm convinced that boats like Wild Oats XI and Ragamuffin-Loyal generate positive publicity for sailing. I googled Wild Oats XI and Ragamufin-Loyal: I got 15 separate news organizations carrying Wild Oats' story of the SH and it looked like about the same number for Ragamuffin Loyal. I simply googled the name of each boat-no other info. and only the first two pages of google results:
--Loki-2nd Div.1 IRC- 2 reports
--Black Jack-1st ORCii, nothing
--Occaisional Coarse Language Too, 1st IRC Div. 2,6 reports
--Lunchtime Legend,1st, IRC Div. 3, 4 reports
--Wild Rose, 1st, IRC Div 4, no reports
--She, 1st PHS, no reports-----
Looks like the fast big boats draw a lot of coverage compared to so-called "mainstream" boats- and that is great for sailing.

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I'd be interested in finding out specific instances of sloop rigged, canting keel boats 100' or larger that aren't using powered systems. Hell, even the new J Class replicas use powered systems as far as I know.

Render of Wild Oats XI, 2012 configuration by Francois Chevalier, Picture by Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex:
Click---

 

That's just a collection of adjectives, Doug...... For example, why are these boats "intrinsic to the sport of sailing"????

Simply saying that banning powered systems is "retro thinking" is not a reasoned argument. All sports have restrictions on equipment and technique.

Apparently there were people using similar reasoning to you who thought that the advent of steam yachts meant that sailboat racing itself should end - after all, why use such outdated technology as sails when one can use an engine?

Those in favour of restrictions or bans on powered systems are NOT a small group of people - the overwhelming majority of sailors choose not to use power and their use has been strongly opposed by many people.

The fact that there are no 100' canters that don't use powered systems is not evidence that it's impossible or that the use of powered systems is desirable.

The spectacle of modern canters is itself debatable in some ways. Is a small fleet of canting maxis more spectacular than the possible alternative of a much bigger fleet of smaller "conventional" maxis? And if the spectacle is assisting the Hobart then why is the fleet so consistently small since powered systems and shifting ballast were introduced?

In my experience, the big shifting ballast boats, as pointed out earlier, sail so far ahead of the boats that the typical wealthy enthusiast that the "mainstream" sailors could afford that the mainstream sailors lose a lot of enthusiasm for the race. The days of finishing and mooring near the maxis for a party are gone - the maxis are often on their way home by the time the "mainstream" boats finish. The gap between large and small boats is now vastly bigger than when the race was more popular.

There has been a long and unprecedented era of wealth creation and concentration down here, a boom that arguably should have lead to record fleets, and yet instead the fleets are small. What all your rhetoric ignores is that the canting boats have seen the smallest Volvo/Whitbread fleet ever, the smallest Hobarts for many years, the winged multi AC has seen the smallest AC entry for 80 years, etc etc etc.

Surveys like that of Yachting Australia and Sunfish/Laser proved that non-sailors see the sport as elitist, complicated and expensive - "spectacular" boats would just make that worse. The sport and individual events are suffering in this era of emphasis on high performance and that is a fact (as demonstrated by actual hard numbers of entrants) that all the rhetoric cannot change.

 

Purity Police

There is another thing about this vitrolic opposition to powered systems:
-- there are generators(or altenators and the main engine) running on most ocean racers these days
-- there are many sailboats used for disabled sailing that use powered systems for steering and sheeting-would the purity police say this was not sailing?
-- I have been developing a small raceboat for people who can't or don't want to move a lot that uses electrical power to move ballast-purity police problem with the electric movable ballast?
If not why not?

 

I would say most ocean racers use regen from the prop as thats the lightest fuel to carry..none

 

I could never understand why people buy wine made from oats anyway?