Risk assessment

We look at the latest maxi, a Dubois design to be launched from McConaghys - Genuine Risk

Genuine Risk was launched recently in Sydney following a build at McConaghys, the latest in a spate of 90ish foot long maxi-monohulls that follows Reichel Pugh designs like Shockwave, Zephyrus and recently the maxZ86s Morning Glory and Pyewacket and the Hugh Welbourn-designed Bols.

While Reichel Pugh are the most prolific design house when it comes to this genre of boat, Genuine Risk differs in being a design coordinated by Dubois Naval Architects.

While Ed Dubois has a strong history in race boat design, recent years have seen his Lymington-based design company specialise increasingly in large sailing superyachts.
Previously they had designed the 140ft long Vitters-built Whirlaway for Genuine Risk's owner. With little recent history in race boat design and none in maxi race boat, Dubois was initially hesitant when offered the chance to design Genuine Risk.

"I said we would like to do it, but it will take a year to do the R&D before we designed the boat," Dubois recounts. "The one thing which encouraged us to do it apart from his patronage and keenness to keep us involved is that there are no rules to these boats any more. If you think back 15-20 years ago when people were doing IOR, they were very refined and small differences were all that was on offer. But what he wanted was the fastest thing that could be sailed at the maximum speed around the track. He didn’t want to know what size it was and didn’t care about there being no rules at the moment, although most clubs are coming across IRC to give these things a fair race. In a way it put us, without experience, at less of a disadvantage rather than if it were an IMS or an old IOR boat."

The owner agreed and a budget for research and development. For this Dubois and his co-director Malcolm McKeon worked closely with the Wolfson Unit and both Andy Claughton and fellow Team New Zealand partner in crime Clay Oliver (who also worked on Mari Cha IV) were brought in as the R&D specialists. Malcolm McKeog co-ordinated the day to day running of the research and design project over the course of two years.

Starting with a clean sheet of paper the brief was for a boat that could race unrestricted and win line honours and would be effective on inshore courses, in offshore classic events such as the Rolex Sydney Hobart and Fastnet Race as well as having transoceanic capability - next year's Rolex Transatlantic Race is in Genuine Risk's schuedule.

Dubois says they started off with a few constraints. "We looked at what we thought was the biggest boat that could be sailed at pretty much maximum speed all the time." 90ft was arrived at on the basis of the mainsail size being the largest that could be gybed manually in big breeze, without resorting to hydraulics, and headsails that were manageable round the cans. The size was also based on the fact that their main competition would be boats like the the maxZ86s and Alfa Romeo.

"The Z86s tried hard to get us into that game but the owner didn’t want to play that game because he felt that it would restrict our R&D," says Dubois. "So we felt that we would just go our own route and that happened to be a little bit bigger, and a bit narrower and a bit deeper and a little bigger on sail area, so the thing has a little bit more horsepower."

Using the tank at Hasler they initially tank tested two 6m models one water ballasted, the other with a canting keel. "We were pretty certain that the cant keel was going to be quicker and it is, but we wanted to quantify the water ballast concept," says Dubois. Using the data from this they went on to refine the canting keel design and around two months later tank tested a third model.

What differentiates the Genuine Risk design process from most other maxi programs is the America's Cup team approach they have taken. Aside from the involvement of Claughton and Oliver, the likes of John McConaghy and Southern Spars' Steve Wilson have been integral to the design process as have several of the sailors who will end up on board. During the design process there were open forum style meetings between all these parties to boot about ideas.

"It is a first class program that recognises the complexities involved," says 49er bronze medallist and former OneWorlder Charlie McKee who is to be tactician on board and attended some of these meetings. "The owner has done a very good job of getting very good people on the program in terms of helping to make decisions. They have recognised that people have got to do some good thinking and come up with the best solutions because you don’t go get that piece and that piece - you are breaking new ground."

Following the launch of the boat the design process won't stop here and some development of the boat is expected to up her performance. Dubois says they may have a number of going-faster devices for later deployment.

Having decided upon a canting keel system the next question was what foil arrangement would they use to prevent leeway - a daggerboard, twin daggerboards, a CBTF-style forward rudder? In the end they went for the latter option, although they carried out their own R&D into this rather than just using the technological know-how provided when you pay for use of this patented system. The reason they chose this system is that it offered performance advantages not just upwind, but across the board.

As a result Genuine Risk has a massive cant angle to her keel of +/-50 degrees like the maxZ86s. Tack to tack for the keel takes just eight seconds and she achieves this using twin Cariboni rams each weighing 230kg. Her forward rudder is marginally smaller than the aft one (on CBTF boats the fore and aft rudders seem to be of more or less equal size) and our impression (having seen Morning Glory and Genuine Risk within an hour of each other in Sydney earlier this year) is that the rear rudder on the Dubois design is further aft. On CBTF boats the positioning of the rudders seems to be closer than you would expect and equidistant to the keel. Unlike Mari Cha IV or Open 60s Genuine Risk carries no additional water ballast to change her fore and aft trim or her displacement to suit the conditions or point of sail.

One concern about the forward rudder is that it is quite exposed and therefore susceptible in the event of a collision with a submerged object. SP Technologies have had the task of engineering the boat and had to decide on the compromise between making it heavy and indestructible or lighter (and faster) but with more possbility of breaking.

Due to the swing keel, her hull shape is narrower than the water ballasted boats like Bols and Alfa Romeo because there are no water tanks that have to be located as far from the centreline as possible. With less dependence upon hull-form stability the boat is designed to be sailed upright, a trait she shares with the CBTF maxZ86s.

But how narrow to go? "We looked at the dynamics of beam because basically narrow is quick with a cant keel boat but then you have other considerations like chainplate base which has a big effect on mast weight," explains Dubois. "And there is obviously a balance point where if you go narrow you might be quicker, but you might have a lot heavier mast and that will affect stability so you have to be at the right crossing point there. Also the sheeting base - it is easy to go too narrow for an overlapping headsail."

Above decks the mast is by Southern Spars with five in-line spreaders. Interestingly rather than using PBO, Genuine Risk is the first maxi to use Southern's new carbon fibre standing rigging.

The sail plan is different to the other maxZ86s in that she has a fixed bowsprit. At present it is undecided upon whether they will use a spinnaker pole. This is partly because of the high loads involved, but also because of the high apparent wind the boat is expected to generate. Downwind they could sail hotter angles using only headsails tacked from the bowsprit (presumably why they have skiff specialists Charlie McKee and brother Jonathan on board). However if they do, the pole will be a short deck-mounted affair that won't have the ability to be fully squared. "The designers were pretty sure that if you do square the pole back it won’t be very far," says McKee.

The pole or no pole issue may also have some bearing on the number of crew required to sail the boat. At present McKee says this hasn't been finalised but could be less than the 18 the maxZ86s sail with.

Layout in the cockpit is fairly conventional with a shallow trench running aft. The boat is fitted with five pedestals. The mainsheet track is aft of the twin helming positions. As with the maxZ86s and Wild Oats, each wheel has an inner wheel with which to steer the forward rudder. Unlike Bols and Zana there is a centreline companionway to go down below and lines running back from the mast are divided either side of this.

Down below the smart space age silver and black paintwork continues and the level of finish by McConaghys seem high. However the major difference between Genuine Risk and the other maxis is that she has a lot more structure. SP appears to have been given free reign when it comes to structuring the boat and there are more fore and aft stringers and also more transverse bulkheads than for example the Reichel Pugh designs. Because of this and her narrow beam her interior feels relatively small and the bulkheads could make life a little awkward for the crew when they come to lug sails around.

Genuine Risk was launched Sunday before last in Sydney and went sailing for the first time at the end of last week. For Dubois and McKeon who were both on board for the first sea trials, it was their first experience sailing a canting keel boat. "It was very exciting seeing the speed suddenly increase. You are sailing along with the keel in the middle in 12-14 knots of breeze and the boat is heeling over like a normal boat. It feels narrow but it doesn’t feel unsafe and you are seeing 13-4 knots, fetching along, and then you cant the keel out and the boat comes upright and you think 'the wind has dropped' but the speed has spurted up to 17 knots. It feels like less wind because you are suddenly upright. It is a very odd feeling."

Dubois is reluctant to predict how well the boat will compare to the competition out on the race course. It is not a guaranteed maxZ86 eater he says. "We are hoping it will give them a good run for the money. If we sail the boat as well as they do then in theory we should beat them because we are a little bit longer and a bit more sail area and more stability for our weight." And there is no reason why they shouldn't. Aside from the owner and the McKee brothers the 'afterguard' will include navigator Mark Rudiger and Keith Lorence, the boat's sailing master and one time crewmember on Sayula II, winner of the first Whitbread Round the World Race. The rest of the crew will be made up of other heavyweight US west coast sailors.

Charlie McKee believes that how well the crew learn to sail the boat will have as much as bearing on the boat's performance as its inherent speed. "You would expect it to perform better in some conditions and not so well in others, because the hull doesn’t have as much form stability. Like in the skiffs the differences between designs and equipment are way less than the differencies in the sailing side. I think that we’re going to have good racing because sometimes one of the boats is going to figure out how to sail better in the conditions. Like dinghies, technique is going to come to the forefront more so than in other type of big boat racing. As a sailor that is very exciting to feel that starting we are going to be maybe sailing at 70% efficiency and that is going to totally overshadow any performance differences."

From Sydney Genuine Risk will be shipped to San Diego where she will be worked up. Unfortunately she won't be back in time to compete in the Bermuda Race as originally intended. Her first race will be the Port Huron to Mackinac race, before the main Chicago-Mackinac starting on 24 June. In this she may line up with the old Zephyrus, now renamed Windquest, the latest addition to the deVos stable. From there she will be packed up and shipped to the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Sardinia in early September. Original talk of flying the boat from regatta to regatta in its own plane have been shelved for the time being.