A look at the PoW winner's boat

Roger Gilbert shows us around his Pickled Egg International 14

The International 14 class has been attempting to hold its Artemis-backed World Championship in Weymouth over the last week and a half, although going into the event’s final races they have only made it out on to the water on three days, thanks to excessive winds blowing on the Olympic race course.

71 boats are on the entry list with a container full coming in from Australia and another from the USA, plus a strong Canadian contingent and several boats coming across from the continent, in particular Germany.

The 14 is obviously a development class and during our brief foray down to Weymouth yesterday we got to see two of the newest designs. The Killing 3 is the latest from Steve Killing, who we have come across in the past having designed Fred Eaton’s four C-Class catamaran. But one of the most popular designs is likely to be the latest from Oracle Racing designer Paul Bieker, the Bieker 6 of which there is currently just one example being sailed by Kris Henderson and Joe Bersch.

Following the introduction of T-foil rudders, over recent years the hulls of the 14s have standardised in style to a large extent, all at minimum beam, with a substantial chine and most with pretty much slab sides. The greatest design variations between the boats is now in their T-foil rudders and how they articulate; their sails and rigs where some such as Richard Mason and George Nurton’s Ting Tong 1 design The Hoff and Kris Henderson and Joe Bersch’s Bieker 6 having aerodynamically cleaner single-spreader rigs; and cockpit layouts. Sails are typically from P&B, Hyde or Dynamic in the UK, Glaser Sails in the US and Alexander or Irwin Sails in Australia, while the most popular rigs come from Selden Mainsails and CST in Australia. Mainsails have all manner of square top designs and while the International 14 rule has mostly remained static for a number of years now, a rule was recently introduced limiting the angle of the flat top to 112° from the vertical. With the 14s, the size of the flat top is effectively limited by a measurement point a quarter of the way down the leech.

Roger Gilbert and Ben McGrane’s winner of Wednesday’s Prince of Wales Cup is one of the most ‘vanilla’ 14s – a Phil Morrison-designed Pickled Egg model, one of a short run of five boats built by Ovington two to three years ago, all of them racing in Weymouth, including Andy Fitzgerald and James Hughes’ prototype. The PoW started in about 20 knots the wind dropping to around 14-15 knots and Gilbert described the first couple of laps as being “full on”.

In fact Gilbert, who sails out of Hayling Island Sailing Club, has now won PoW three times in a row since moving into the 14 class. He also finished second to Archie Massey at the last World Championship. Prior to getting into the 14, Gilbert has previously shone in other classes from the Merlin Rocket to the RS200, but says these days he has been focussing on the 14: “I have had to give everything else up at the moment. I have done a lot in the past, but I am getting a bit older. This year I have only sailed this. Trying to do two classes becomes time consuming.”

Looking at the fleet Gilbert agrees with our assessment of the equipment: “There is quite a good range of boats. There is quite a variation in hulls, but I don’t think it is all in the hulls at the moment. It is in the rig and foils.”

The cockpit of their Pickled Egg is fairly clutter-free. “We have gone pretty simple,” admits Gilbert. “It is just the kicker and Cunningham we play with which are led out [to the rack]. There isn’t a lot to over-complicate it. We try to keep it clean so we don’t trip over anything.”

Their T-foil rudder has the lateral lifting foil protruding out in front of the vertical part (oddly the wisdom is that the lifting foil should protrude from the front or the back of the vertical part, rather than being flush with it). Unlike Moths, where the lateral lifting part of the foil is at the bottom of the rudder, on 14s it is half way up since they don’t lift out of the water. “People have tried them at the bottom and apparently it doesn’t work,” says Gilbert. “There are arguments about it interacting with the hull, which I don’t understand.”

Gilbert says that they are about the only team using a standard Ovington rudder foil, rather than the numerous alternatives such as those designed by Tom Partington and Composite Craft.

To alter the pitch of the rudder, their 14 has a twist mechanism on the tiller. This was found not to offer a large enough range particularly downwind, so in addition to this they have a block and tackle arrangement on the transom, with a 12:1 purchase pulling against elastic. This allows the pitch of the rudder to be adjusted by +/- 7°, while they now use the twist mechanism on the tiller as a fine tune, offering around 0-1° of variation. Gilbert says that typically he only uses the fine tune upwind. The elastic is useful as it allows a little ‘give’ in the system if the boat starts bouncing around in a seaway.

Unlike some of the other boats, their centreboard is in a fixed box and doesn’t gybe and as with their rudder, they are using the Ovington centreboard. “A lot of people have standardised on the Ovington centreboard. I think it was a Beiker 5 shape originally. It is about the only bit of kit that is standard,” says Gilbert.

With Ben McGrane working for Selden, so Selden is their sponsor and has supplied their lightweight high modulus mast. Gilbert says he is unconvinced about going single spreader. “You end up with quite a big round section and you lose a lot of control. It is an interesting development, but I’m not going to be rushing there.”

All the deck gear, blocks and rope are also is supplied by Selden, while their sails are by P&B.

Next week we’ll be looking in details at the Killing 3 and the Bieker 6.