Interesting Sailboats

[PCP]

FANTASTIC!!!! After all those different moves, with the exception of Ian Walker and Abu Dhabi that is the big winner of the half race, all the others are quite close.

Puma is a bit better positioned and has some advantage over the others but nothing that could not be recovered in a day or two.

Ahead lay interesting options. It seem to me that a North route can pay off now but I am not sure that in a day or two it would not be better staying more to the South.

Anyway, the big and final gamble will happen after Açores where they will meet again weak winds and two options will be presented: Go North have more wind and came down along the Portuguese coast with the Portuguese trade winds to Lisbon or go directly to Lisbon and risk weaker winds. This one is going to be interesting till the end

Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 | Race Data Center

[PCP]

Adrien and Capucine continue their fast and save journey around the world in their nice little boat and has time to make some nice movies:



For the ones that missed the previous posts about the Fox 10.20, a look at the boat:

[PCP]

it is a mini aluminum boat. I confess that this one I was not expecting

It is a micro cruiser with an incredible interior space, a full head a galley and 1.80 standing height...well just incredible.



It is a well known professional French aluminum shipyards and not some crazy amateur that is doing this project. The boat has a sharp keel (that can go up) with a ballast bomb and I bet that is going to sail quite well

But pretty isn't at least to my eyes.







Design David RAISON; David ROY; Quentin DELOUETTE.

Hull lenght: 6,8 m
LWL: 5,75 m
Beam: 2,88 m
Light displacement: 1,6 t
Main sail area: 19,5 m2
Jib area: 13,6 m2
Draft 0,5/1,5m
Standing height 1,80 m

I am quite curious to see who is going to buy this boat. I guess that in the US probably there would be a market for this boat. They love small cruisers. Or maybe not because they are also very conservative.

Guys, tell me what you think about this boat. I am very curious to hear your opinion. I confess this one put me scratching my head.

[Mr W]

Originally Posted by PCP

Guys, tell me what you think about this boat. I am very curious to hear your opinion. I confess this one put me scratching my head.

That really is ugly...

It do have an impressive amount of space inside due to the hullshape, so that´s a bonus. When it comes to sailing performance I´m not sure it will be a good allround boat. Wasn´t Raisons mini 6.50 rather lousy upwind? And that is compared to other 6.50´s that aren´t exactly top performers when it comes to upwind sailing, and probably not to comfortable upwind either. I´m not sure this concept is made for the large mass of sailors, but I guess many people say this about boats like Pogos as well. Seeing is believing, I guess we will have to wait for some youtube videos before judging this ugly duckling!

//Mr W

[DiasDePlaya]

I'm waiting for the first designer that launch a 38' - 40' cruiser/racer scow. I'm sure that more than one is now drawing it.

[PCP]

Originally Posted by Mr W

...When it comes to sailing performance I´m not sure it will be a good allround boat. Wasn´t Raisons mini 6.50 rather lousy upwind? And that is compared to other 6.50´s that aren´t exactly top performers when it comes to upwind sailing, and probably not to comfortable upwind either. .
//Mr W

The disadvantage to the other mini has only to do upwind with waves. Since that aluminium boat would be mostly a coastal cruiser (unless some mad one decide to circumnavigate in one) that would not be a big problem and the advantage in space are really huge. Downwind it will be even more stable than the other mini, almost a cat

The idea of taking advantage of the extra space in a small boat looks good to me, what I found odd is the aluminum

Regards

Paulo

[PCP]

Originally Posted by DiasDePlaya

I'm waiting for the first designer that launch a 38' - 40' cruiser/racer scow. I'm sure that more than one is now drawing it.

Racer/ cruiser I don´t know, as W pointed out this would be mostly a downwind boat and would have an horrible rating for racing. Now, a solo 40class racer or a boat like the Pogo cruiser (that is a performance cruiser but not a cruiser racer) that is a completely different story and I believe you are right regarding that.

Regards

Paulo

[PCP]

The teaser: Just beautiful

[PCP]

Great article published in Voile and Voiliers about the evolution of VOR design that is a bit the story of the evolution of modern sailboat design since you can find most of this evolution on performance cruising boats and even on cruising boats.

It is amazing how much boat design evolved in 10 years.

I will just post an Image calling the attention for the full article by François Chevalier.

On this image you can see the huge evolution between the 2001 Far plans (above) and the ones from Juan K (2011):



The article is very good and deserve a good reading. If you don't read French put it on a translator it will be worth the trouble.

Volvo Ocean Race, des VOR 60 aux VO 70 - Exclusif : les plans des voiliers de la Volvo depuis dix ans ! - Annonce bateaux - Annonces bateaux - Occasion Bateaux - Occasion Voiliers - Occasion voiles

I had already noticed that the actual VOR 70, even if on the surface seem quite similar have quite different hulls. Just look at the last images on the article and see how different are the hulls.

Look at what is happening on the VOR and you will see that the boats have different performances according with the wind and sea condition. For instance now that they are power sailing at speeds over 20K, Groupama is the fastest, closing on everybody but on the last leg with weak to medium winds not even the huge talent of Cammas could bring the boat near the winner (Puma).

This fantastic design evolution had taken place because several designers could work inside the box rule proposing different solutions. This evolution and the things that have been discovered on this boats entered on the knowledge of the NA community and were used on all sorts of sailing boats, one way ot another.

The most successful designer of the last years was Juan K.

Now they want to finish with all that story of evolution due to bright and different designs transforming the VOR in a one class race and the one that is going to design the boats is not JK but Farr

This is a bad idea. This race is so expensive that it would not be some hundreds of thousands of dollars that are going to be spared with this solution that will make any difference in a race budget and the disadvantages in what regards boat evolution are going to be huge.


...

[kibokit]

Wow!