Inter 14s continue to push the technical envelope

If conditions mean they can't sail the 14s love nothing better than messing around with their boats

One activity that 14-ers enjoy almost as much as sailing is bimbling, and a dinghy park full of state-of-the-art boats to play with is too much for most to resist. The highly successful buddy system had many hotshots bimbling away on boats further back in the fleet, helping to get them up to speed and fully tuned.

As usual at POW week there are many innovations to be seen in the dinghy park. Following on from last year’s swing to more flexible rigs spearheaded by the Australian fleet, several boats are now experimenting with self-tacking jibs.

18-foot skiff and 49er aces Rob and Peter Greenhalgh, sailing the RMW Marine works boat, have gone the whole hog with crew trimming the main upwind 49er style. Top UK sailmaker and 14 newcomer Ian Pinnell has gone down the same route, with last year’s POW-winning crew Dan Johnson working the main upwind for him.

Both boats are going very well, and as Ian said, "Anything which makes it easier for me has to be a good thing!"

Pete Harper is one of several helms with a self-tacker who is still trimming the main himself, and he was also very happy with his upwind boatspeed. Time will tell which technique proves to be faster.

Winged rudders were a highly publicised development at last years’ Worlds, with winners Chris Bundy and Jamie Hansler sporting a Paul Bieker-designed variable-pitch winged rudder which, according to Paul, generates lift upwind and fools the water into thinking the boat is 15 feet long. Chris Turner and Peter Bagwell tried a refined version of the concept in Sunday’s practice race, with an internal push-rod inside the rudder controlling variable-pitch fins. Unfortunately this proved to be something of a weed-catcher, and the rudder has spent the rest of the week in Pete’s van.

Andy Partington and Doug Walker in Linton Jenkin’s radically narrow Gatecrasher had a much smaller non-adjustable fin at the base of their rudder, but admitted to not being able to tell the difference when it folded in half downwind yesterday.

Spinnaker design has always been important in the 14 class. Area is not limited by the rules, but every POW and Worlds course includes reaching legs as well as runs, leading to an optimum size of 34 to 38 square metres and an interesting design compromise to make a kite which works well on both types of leg.

Top Aussie sailmaker Lindsay Irwin has hit on an innovative and very clever solution to this problem, and is now making kites with a variable luff length. The sail has a longer luff for better downwind VMG, but is adjustable via a cunningham-like device at the end of the bowsprit allowing the crew to shorten the luff for tight reaches.

As well as Australian Champions Jason Beebe and Sam Reid, several UK boats are now using this style of kite, which is proving to be devastatingly fast downwind, whilst still being able to make it up the tight reaches.

Dave Spragg and Andy Loukes have been experimenting with composite PBO rigging from The Rigshop all year. The jury is still out on longevity (no failures so far) but Dave and Andy report that the rigging is considerably less stretchy than the wire it replaces, and the weight saving in the rig - over a kilo - has to be worthwhile. Several other boats are showing a keen interest, but so far no-one else has bitten the bullet.

Now the trend is for fixed-rake bendy rigs the boats have become much simpler in layout, and this is making the boats cleaner, cheaper and, most importantly, easier to sail. With several crews claiming to have secret weapons still up their sleeves for the Worlds in Bermuda this November, it will be interesting to see what further technological advances the 14 fleet can make, but in the meantime the entire fleet seems to be hooked on rig tension gauges and tape measures. Have tension gauge, will travel.