Catamaran technique - part 2

In the second installment of our new series Hugh Styles gives his views on rapid deployment chute systems

Click here to read part one of our catamaran technique series (Mitch Booth on upwind technique)

One of the most exciting things in the cat world is how the Olympic Tornado has pushed development in gennaker hoist and retrieval systems. In fact we've probably seen more development in high-level cat sailing in the last two years than we've seen in the previous 15, and that's down to the Tornado Sport. Of those developments, the method of gennaker hoisting and retrieval is one of the most interesting and significant.

When the Tornado Sport came on the scene three years ago, sailors were using bags on the trampoline to stow their gennakers. Now everyone in the Olympic fleet is using a form of chute arrangement, more akin to a 49er spinnaker chute system. It has made a huge difference in our ability to race catamarans around the cans rapidly.

There were concerns initially that a cat would pitch more because of the added weight further forwards of carrying the kite slung underneath the pole, plus you'd have all this extra structure, as opposed to a bag that is quite light and out of the wind on the trampoline. But all those potential disadvantages were far outweighed by the chute's ease of handling. The chute system allows you to hoist the kite sailing a hotter angle away from the windward mark, and you can approach the leeward mark at virtually any angle. You can't do that with a bag.

Hoists
Sailing past the windward mark in 17 knots of breeze, for example, I would say the difference between chute and bag could be as much as five boatlengths. With the bag, you have to bear away very deep before you can hoist the kite safely in the windshadow of the main, otherwise it will blow out to leeward and probably get snagged around the shrouds. With the chute system, you can have the helm on the wire throughout the manoeuvre and hoist the kite while sailing high to protect yourself from anyone trying to sail over the top of you.

Drops
When it comes to dropping the gennaker, the difference between chute and bag system is like chalk and cheese. We were one of the first to use the chute in 2001, and I remember one time when we were about five boatlengths behind Olivier Backes (the top French Tornado sailor and former European Champion). We were coming in to the leeward mark at a hot angle, and we knew that even when he came in to drop his kite into the bag on the tramp, we could still carry ours for a couple more boatlengths. We sailed through his lee and rounded three boatlengths ahead of him out of the leeward mark - an eight boatlength gain in one rounding.

Chute developments
Needless to say, everyone has now adopted some form of chute arrangement. Our own system has developed from having having a chute mechanism mounted on the tramp, which meant the kite could get wet and hold a lot of unwanted water upwind, to having an all-in-one bowsprit and chute arrangement. This is a long, hollow carbon structure that holds the kite inside, but also has enough strength to serve as the bowsprit when the kite is hoisted. It is elliptical in profile, so as to reduce aerodynamic drag, but it also needs to be strong enough to withstand not just the huge forces of the gennaker but also a rogue wave that might come up and hit it from underneath.

There is a minimum pole weight of 2.2kg, and we are getting pretty close to achieving that minimum. But even if we don't quite get there, an extra kilo up front is still a price worth paying for the ease of handling. In fact, I'd use this system even for a long-distance event like the Worrell. If you're on a reach for a hundred miles and you've got a couple of hoists and drops in that time, you've already justified the extra aerodynamic drag. We did a lot of two-boat testing, one with a pole and one with a bag, and we could find no discernible difference in drag.



My crew Adam May has been responsible for developing our integral chute system in conjunction with Linton Jenkins of Full Force Boats, and we believe it is just about the most advanced system out there. Admittedly, at £1,200 it's not cheap, but it's stood up to harsh treatment much better than some of other carbon arrangments in the fleet.

Fortunately, the Formula 18 rules prevent anyone from using a carbon system, but people are now using glass-fibre chutes slung underneath the aluminium sprit. This gives you virtually the same ease of handling for a fraction of the cost, perhaps around £200-300, so the technology has trickled down very nicely into less elite cat racing.

Gennaker developments
One of the slight downsides of a chute compared with a bag, is the added wear and tear of going in and out of small tube. I reckon you get two regattas out of a kite at Olympic level, compared with perhaps three regattas if you were using a bag. The other thing to bear in mind is the forces going through the gennaker when you're sailing are huge, far greater than on a 49er or International 14, so you're going to get through kites pretty quickly anyway. In some ways the gennaker is more like a big jib.

But certainly there is a trade-off between ease of handling and longevity. You could build stronger downhaul patches, for example, which would reduce the wear and tear in and out of the chute, but which would also make the kite unnecessarily heavy and potentially compromise its flying shape. The chute arrangement has led to experimentation with sail cloth, and it looks like the fleet is moving from silicon-coated nylons to polyester cloths, because they seem to be more hard wearing.

It has been an exciting couple of years for developments in the Tornado, and there will be plenty more to come in the build-up to Athens.

About Hugh
Hugh Styles won the Laser Europeans before moving into Tornado sailing. Having teamed up with Adam May, a former match racing youth world champion, the duo finished 6th at the Sydney Olympics. In 2001, the first year of the Tornado Sport, they won the European silver medal and the World bronze.