Author Archives: Foiling Week

Foling Week Gurit Forum Day 2

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The core subject on day two of the Gurit Foiling Week Forum concentrated on ‘Sustainability’

The common theme that came out of the round table on the subject of sustainability was that the foiling marine industry needs to work together in combining resources to improve sustainability and reduce carbon emissions.

The foiling industry has the technology to create the designs for efficiency with reduction of waste and even re-cycling.

Enrico Benco who represents Go Sailing for a Change made the comment:

“We need to keep educating kids to make sustainability cool”

Every year one of the largest dinghy regattas takes place at Lake Garda with around 1000 Optimists.

Benco made the comment:
“Put an Opti made out of recycled materials in front of the kids at a 1000 boat Opti regatta in Lake Garda and you capture their interest, and from there they are aware of sustainable practices and what that looks like”

Benco’s company have also constructed a foiling Mini 6.5 sail boat completely out of re-cycled product.

Luca Torlaj from Polynt Group, a company that works on recycling carbon components and fibres, re-iterated the need to combine resources and ideas on sustainability working closely with the automotive industry.

Pierrerick Cassin from Agiplast, who produce marine and sports equipment with the re-use of plastics, encouraged the audience to look at regeneration rather than recycling.

Chris Ballen from event sponsor Torqueedo explained the value of using efficient electric sports boats for running races.

Luca Rizzotti, the founder of The Foiling Week, spoke about race management and reducing the carbon footprint at events. A specific initiative mentioned by Rizzotti for race management is the use of mark set floating drones. Another idea used at the 2017 Foiling Week is car pooling using BMW e-cars & use of BMW e-bikes for competitors attending the event.

The sustainable theme continued into the afternoon with test drives of the BMW sponsored 100% electric i3 car. Parts of the frame work and doors where made of recycled carbon fibre from the same process presented earlier in the day by Luca Torlaj from Polynt Group.

New Zealand 470 Olympic gold medallist Jo Aleh was the first to test drive the i3 and was thoroughly impressed.

“We use our cars way to much in New Zealand, this is just such a great car with incredible acceleration”

John Downey a self proclaimed ‘wing nut’ gave an update on his latest wing development for a custom A+ catamaran. Downey used the forum as an opportunity to seek ideas on the future of the C Class catamaran and the Little Cup. As John explained,

“The C Class and Little Cup has been somewhat eclipsed by the latest format at the America’s Cup”.

Marc Menec, Tanguy Le Bihan and Bruno Andre presented on their new company Foil & Co who manufacture foils for a number of pleasure craft projects including kites, windsurfers and surf paddle.

Menec pointed out that there are an estimated 25 million users in surfing and SUP foiling taps into that as well. Menec also gave details of a new market with huge potential. ‘Surf Paddle’

Tanguy Le Bihan explained how hydro foils are opening up new areas for windsurfing and kites and that there are now new users on new lakes and now surfers are surfing in new spots on new waves.

The third day of the Gurit Foiling Week Forum carries the core them of ‘Accessibility’.

Foling Week Gurit Forum Day 1

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The first day of the Gurit Foiling Week Forum focused on the core subject of Safety.

John Craig – (PRO 2013 America’s Cup and deputy PRO 2017 America’s Cup) and (Regatta Director for the Extreme Sailing Series), spoke about the lessons learnt from the last two editions of the America’s Cup and the need to continue to improve race management at major high performance regattas.

After discussions at Foiling Week Newport in 2016, a World Sailing (Safety Working Group) was established to initially draft racing rules and safety requirements for ‘fast boat events’ predominantly aimed at professional events with on the water umpires.

With accidents at both the 2013 and 2017 Americas Cup still very raw and close calls at other regattas including the Extreme Sailing Series, particular attention focused on the 3 boat length zone and the ultimate requirement for much greater room for safe mark rounding and also the training of support boat/media boats as part of the race management safety plan. Even with chase boat qualifications the support boats/media boats need to be much further away from race course marks in Craig’s view.

“We still have a long way to go” he said on progress, “but at least there is momentum.”

International Moth Class President, Scott Babbage has come straight from Bermuda as part of SoftBank Team Japan to get some valuable practice time on the waters of Lake Garda. With an entry list of more than 220 boats, this years Worlds will be the biggest fleet ever and a logistical hurdle in terms of race management.

Scott is aware of the issues and advises us that the fleet will be split into groups and raced on separate race courses. Scott also told the Forum that the class has a great respect for the 3 boat length rule in the zone and that the class is to a degree self policing, but that specific race rules have not been necessary for big regattas to date, but it is something the Moth class continues to monitor.

At the Forum experts like Francesco Feletti, an extreme sports medicine specialist and Marcello Bencini from Dainese, who created the body armour for Emirates Team New Zealand, showcased the protective gear created specifically for high performance sailing competitors.

Davide Tagliapietra, a structural engineer for Groupama Team France said,
“Its up to us to put pressure on the rule makers to include human safety in the design packages of our foiling craft, for example impact and protection around cockpits”.

The Forum then heard from teams involved in the 35th Americas Cup in Bermuda. Andy Claughton from LandRover BAR shared his perspective on how the kiwis got the upper hand in the 2017 Americas Cup by providing an insight into the strategies that helped the team win back the ‘Auld Mug’.
On the successful Emirates Team New Zealand team he said,

“It took 5 years for the sailors to expand their confidence and sail this design without freaking out”

“The kind of mentally that ETNZ had was, “Throw the ball as far as you could and try and reach it”

“Sailing these boats is like balancing a pencil on the top of your finger.”

The Round Table discussion included Bobby Kleinschmidt (Appendage designer at ETNZ) who briefed the Forum on the trickle down effect of knowledge and analysis from the Americas Cup.

“The exciting thing for me is that we are able to use technology developed in industry and apply it to sailing”

“The immediate trickle down is that people working on these cup boats will be working on other boat designs in the future.”

The Forum on day 2 (Friday) will focus on the core topic of ‘Sustainability’ including a sustainable Mini 6.5 craft and innovative ways to reduce emissions in regatta management.

Designing the Future

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France’s Guillaume Verdier to lead new design project for Volvo Ocean Race 14th edition, with PERSICO MARINE selected as lead boatbuilder

Guillaume Verdier visits the Boatyard – Ph. Amalia Infante/Volvo Ocean Race

  • Monohull-multihull question to be resolved in coming weeks
  • New boat is part of radical shake-up of race to be announced 18 May, in Volvo’s home town of Gothenburg, Sweden

While final preparations and team announcements continue for the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18, the event’s leadership team are working in parallel to map out the race’s future. The edition after this one, the 14th, will be contested in brand new One Design racing yachts designed by France’s Guillaume Verdier and built under the direction of the Persico boatyard in Italy, race organisers announced today.

ph. Amalia Infante/Volvo Ocean Race

Verdier has joined the Volvo Ocean Race Design Team and is currently working with the race on the crucial issue of whether the new boat will be a monohull or multihull. The final decision on the proposed designs will be announced on 18 May at an event in Gothenburg, the home of the race’s owners and title sponsors Volvo.

Verdier is the ‘quiet’ achiever who has been involved in most of the leading designs right across the sport in recent years – from giant multihulls like Gitana’s Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, to be launched in July, through Team New Zealand’s current America’s Cup flying multihulls to maxi-monohulls like Comanche, and the leading Vendée Globe IMOCA 60 foiling projects such as Hugo Boss and Banque Populaire VIII.

Marcello Persico – ph. Vanessa Zanni

The monohull-multihull question is just one of a series of key decisions that will be finalised in the coming weeks and announced at the 18 May event in Gothenburg, Sweden. Together, the announcements will form the most radical shake-up of the Volvo Ocean Race since it began life in 1973 as the Whitbread Round the World Race.

“Conceived in 2011, the current fleet of boats was built to be competitive for two editions,” said Volvo Ocean Race CEO Mark Turner. “We need to move now on the future boats to keep all our options open on boat type and design.

“We’re excited to work with someone as talented as Guillaume Verdier – who will be a perfect complement to the wider Volvo Ocean Race Design Team, and the input we plan to have from a wider group of professional sailors and industry partners.”

On the decision to award Persico the lead role in the building of the boats, rather than the Consortium approach used for the Volvo Ocean 65s, Nick Bice, the race’s Chief Technical Development Officer, said: “The Consortium did some good work last time around to produce such matched boats, but we prefer to contract this time with a single builder, who in turn will undoubtedly sub-contract a number of other builders around the world to achieve the build in time and to budget. Persico have been a strong partner over these past few years, and we are delighted to be working with them again.”

The decision to continue with a One Design concept follows the introduction of the Volvo Ocean 65 monohull for the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15, which produced the closest racing in the history of the event.

The upcoming edition, starting on 22 October 2017 in Alicante, will use the same Volvo Ocean 65 boats that have since undergone a one million euro per boat refit process in the race’s Boatyard facility in Lisbon. These boats were designed to be fast enough and reliable enough to complete at least two laps of the planet at the highest level of professional racing, in a fully competitive and equal state.

The fleet of seven existing boats from 2014-15 will be supplemented by a brand new but still identical Volvo Ocean 65, commissioned by team AkzoNobel, for the 2017-18 race.

With more than six months still to go before the start, four teams have so far been announced. The remaining teams will be revealed over the coming months.

The race opted to go with Verdier after inviting input from half a dozen industry-leading yacht designers, including Farr Yacht Design, the team that kick-started the One Design era in the race by delivering the successful Volvo Ocean 65 project.

Verdier’s goal will be to lead the Volvo Ocean Race Design Team to build a new fleet to the same exacting levels of matched One Design achieved with the current boats, but very much connected to the big evolutions in foiling technology the world of sailing is currently seeing.

“We’re bringing together a wide-ranging depth of experience from events such as the America’s Cup, offshore multihulls and IMOCA Open 60 projects,” Verdier explained.

“We are starting from a blank page, and whatever kind of boat we design, whether it’s monohull or multihull, we will learn a lot from this process of working together.”

He continued: “I think sailors just want to have fun, and are attracted to a new way of sailing. In the Open 60, for example, we made something which was quite radical, but also very safe, and that’s key for the Volvo Ocean Race.”

Marcello Persico said the company was delighted to be building the next generation of Volvo Ocean Race boats.

“We’ve been working closely with the Volvo Ocean Race for the last eight years and we feel part of the family,” he said. “I believe that Persico Marine will deliver excellent support and service to the Volvo Ocean Race as it embarks on the next phase in its history.”

Moth entries at Foiling Week will open on Tuesday

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Foiling Week Moth Regatta is scheduled from July 6th to 9th of July at Fraglia Vela Malcesine, Lake Garda, the same club where less than 2 weeks later the Moth Worlds will be run, a perfect test event!

The Moth Worlds already have over 200 entries and high numbers are expected also for the Foiling Week moth fleet: a special discount for boat park is in place for sailors that will attend both events.

On April 11th entries will be open for Foiling Week Moth Regatta: stay tuned for NOR and Entry form on www.old.foilingweek.com

Flying cyclists

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Bruno Dubois Team Manager for Groupama Team France, former manager of North Sails Europe and more recently Team Manager for Dongfeng Team in the Volvo Ocean Race, in a comment to a Mark Turner Facebook post, explain the roles of the Emirates Team New Zealand AC50 crew members, cyclists included.

So…. to explain you the way it works : the guy in the front is still the bowman, he trims the jib and tack it. The #2 activate the daggerboards with kant and rake. The #3 does the same but he is the one jumping on the other side of the boat for the tacks and jibes. #4 call the tactics.

The #5 is the wing trimmer. he has enough on his plate to do that only and communicate about speed with the helmsman. #6 steer the boat and also play with the elevators on the rudders. All this need to be well coordinate to make it smooth through the race course.

Those crew are the best you can find in the sailing world. They are fit with no fat at all and a huge cardio. They are great match racers and not afraid about speed. You know how much my heart is on offshore sailing… therefore my comments are now polluted by the cup.

The 4 guys in the front on top of doing all the jobs mentionned above do grind for sure. But it is on top of their normal sailing job.

In 2007 on the V5 cup boats we had 8 big fat grinders pumping all day long. They had no agility , just fat and muscles. It was not a problem since the boats were sailing at 11knts….. now we are toping the 45knts easy !!

 

The FLYING MANTIS takes off

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The FLYING MANTIS will debut at the RYA Dinghy Show, Alexandra Palace, London, on 4th and 5th March 2017, stand C86.

The FLYING MANTIS is a lightweight carbon easy foiling trimaran for the solo sailor. It is designed to deliver windsurfer flexibility and be transported and sailed almost anywhere.

The FLYING MANTIS is two beautifully designed performance boats in one. It can be switched between a semi-foiling displacement trimaran and a full-foiling version depending on a sailor’s skill and sailing conditions.

Key specs:

  • Main hull – length 4.2m (LWL), beam 0.5m
  • Outrigger – length 2.5m, beam 0.14m
  • Overall beam 2.4m
  • Combined hull weight c.45kg
  • Lifting T foil rudder
  • Semi-foiling version – central dagger board
  • Foiling version – dagger board plus interchangeable lifting central T foil adjusted by wand
  • control from a bowsprit
  • Sails – Main 9 sqm, Jib 2.3 sqm
  • Easy sailing

The Flying Mantis boasts a lightweight carbon epoxy foam sandwich construction. The hulls are quick and simple to assemble. The central hull weighs around 20kg plus outriggers at 12.5kg. Fully assembled, this lightweight trimaran is especially suited to taller & heavier sailors, with a weight range of up to 120kgs.

www.FlyingMantis.UK ….to be unveiled just prior to the RYA Dinghy Show

Record Fleet for 2017 Moth Worlds

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With 6 months remaining, the 2017 Moth Worlds has already attracted a record number of entrants. Earlybird entries closed on Tuesday with 190 competitors from 25 countries registered for the event to be held at the Fraglia vela Malcesine on Lake Garda in late July.
The record lineup features a daunting who’s who of top sailors.
At the top of the list is the Olympic Laser shoot out, with reigning Moth World Champion, 2008 Gold Medallist and Artemis Racing helmsman Paul Goodison (GBR) going up against 2012 Gold Medallist and Oracle Team USA tactician Tom Slingsby (AUS) and 2016 Gold Medallist Tom Burton (AUS).
2016 Laser Radial Olympic Silver Medallist and 2014 Women’s Moth World Champion Annalise Murphy (IRL) leads the charge in the growing women’s fleet against reigning champion Wakako Tabata (JPN) and 2013 Women’s Champion Emma Gravare (SWE).
Among the past champions, 2009 & 2013 Moth World Champion Bora Gulari (USA) makes a comeback to the class after taking time out to compete in the Nacra 17 at the Rio Olympics. Also making a return after Olympic and Americas Cup commitments, dual medallist Iain Jensen (AUS) will be looking to improve on his top 10 result in 2015.
Despite, or perhaps due to the venue, over 30 Australian entrants will make the journey, lining up against a large British contingent. New Moth countries Argentina, Ireland and Finland are well represented, alongside competitors from growing fleets in Poland, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Norway, Canada and Bermuda.
Taking it to the Olympians will be the Moth regulars including 2012 World Champion and current Australian Champion Josh McKnight (AUS). McKnight will debut a new Australian built Moth for the event against the dominant Mach2 and Exocet designs. Also pushing the development envelope is 2015 and 2016 Amlin International and Volvo Ocean Racer Rob Greenhalgh (GBR), who will surely be among the favourites based on recent form. 2016 European Champion Mike Lennon (GBR) will also debut a new design, the Lennon PP Moth designed by David Hollom and built by White Formula in the UK. Not short of innovative ideas, winner of the 2013 Mini Transat Benoit Marie (FRA) returns with a new boat for the event.
Alongside Marie is a large European contingent, with 3 time Moth European Champion Arnaud Psarofagis (SUI) taking a break from his responsibilities as helmsman on the Alinghi Extreme Series GC32 to return to the Moth. Not to be taken lightly, the local Italian fleet will be out in force, lead by 3 time Olympian and Artemis Racing helmsman Francesco Bruni (ITA).
6 months is still a long time in a Moth, but with entry numbers rapidly approaching 200, anticipation will be building for what will be the largest Moth World Championship ever. Follow the event progress at http://www.mothworlds.org/malcesine or find MothWorlds on FaceBook & Twitter.

2017 Garda Moth Worlds entries are open!

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The Moth Worlds are coming back to beloved Lake Garda , from July 22nd to 30th 2017 at Fraglia Vela in Malcesine. NOR is published and entries are open! The event will be in same club of the Foiling Week Garda 2017 ( July 6th to 9th ) with a special discount on boat storage for all boats participating at both events.

Entries and Nor on www.mothworlds.org