Downwind Segel im Volvo Race

In an effort to keep costs down, there’s been some serious limitations in the number of sails, both manufactured and carried on board. But with fewer sails it becomes even more important to get the absolute best sails. So many teams spent as much money this time, but on CFD and wind tunnel testing, to be sure to get the best sails possible. Henrik thinks the boats might even be faster around the globe this time, despite having fewer sails in the inventory.

Also see my interviews with Michel Richelsen on CFD and the Wind Tunnel at University of Auckland who helped all the top teams.

A new approach to design
When we get into the sail development programs, it becomes clear that the process have changed since Juan K entered the stage with ABN AMRO. The traditional approach is to design a boat, a rig and late in the process get the sail maker to design the best sails for that particular boat. This has been the norm for many years.

Enter Juan K, who completely changed the rules.

- Let’s start with the engine, the sails that drive the boat. Take the class rules and design the best sails possible within those restrictions. Then I’ll design a boat that takes advantage of the horsepower. This was a completely new way of thinking and let the sail designers work without many of the restrictions they were used to. We all know what happened. More stability, more power and faster boats.

New materials change the game
When I visited North Sails in Minden in 2010 they built the first 3Di sail for Puma Ocean Racing. Then they wanted to see if it worked, and both Puma and Groupama tried to put 1500 hours of sailing on their forst 3Di mains. Now 3Di is the norm. We see a few Cuben sails, and Doyle on Sanya, but otherwise it’s 100% 3Di. It’s quite a breakthrough when everyone moves to a new technology in a big event like this.

First it’s a matter of durability. All sails held together well and breakages were caused by “the human factor”. Also, a small damage seems to be more containable and doesn’t spread as in other material. UV doesn’t seem to be an issue and most sails are painted for commercial reasons, which helps protect them. In earlier races the difference between painted and non-painted sails were huge. When pushed, Henrik thinks that the life span of a 3Di sails might be double that of earlier materials.

- We’ve also been able to extend the range of each sail, especially at the upper end. All sails look great when used in the middle of their desired range, but when you approach the upper limit it’s another thing. So we manage to get a bigger cross over with the next sail, that might save the team a sail change.

And here we get into philosophy of the downwind inventory. Is it about being around without any weaknesses or about being super fast in certain conditions? Another delicate balance.

Three teams seems to be all-round; Groupama, Puma and Telefonica have done their homework and are without any weak spots. There might be an advantage for Groupama, as they seems to slip away in TWA 90 and TWS 14-18, knots but otherwise they seem to be able to match each other. Abu Dhabi is geared more towards heavy downwind running, and Camper does well when it’s more upwind.

With limited options it’s important to know you sweet spots and have the guts to stick to them. It’s easy to get bought up in someone else’s game and trying to beat them at their best angles.

An additional benefit when downwind sails are on a furling cables, is that they require less trimming. A free luff sails needs to be trimmed constantly, and collapsing the sail is costly. Now it’s more forgiving and even if the top speed is lower, the average speed over time might be higher.

Then there’s a FR0, fractional zero in 3Di, typically 260-270 m2, a MH0, mast head zero in 3Di, typically 330 m2. Finally a A2.5 or A3 at maximum size 480 m2. This is either 3Di or Cuben and can be free luff (Abu Dhabi and Sanya). Those sails are combined with spinnaker- and a genoa staysails.

Den gesamten Bericht finden Sie hier: VO70 Downwind Sails