Rio 2016 equipment trials: Women's skiffs part two

We continue our tour with the Hartley Rebel, the Mackay FX, the 29erXX and Arup Skiff

This article follows on from part 1

Having looked at the Aura and the RS900, today we examine the rest of the Women's Two Person skiff contenders:

Hartley Rebel

Designed by Phil Morrison and Derek Clark, and with additional gravitas in the form of former Laser boss Tim Coventry lurking in the background as an adviser, the Rebel has been some five years in gestation, making it by far the most developed of the Women’s Skiffs on trial in Santander. The boat represents something of a departure for Hartley Boats, the Derbyshire-based company best known as builder of the more pedestrian Supernova, Wayfarer, Kestral, Osprey, Gull, Wanderer and Optimist.

Like the Aura and RS900, the Rebel has been purpose-built to be the Women’s Olympic Skiff brief. “It is designed to be the fastest thing we could make for the parameters we thought were appropriate,” explains Derek Clark. Even though the sail plan has been reduced and reduced over its development period, it remains the most grunty boat on trial here in Santander with the third biggest sail area upwind (to the FX and RS900), the second greatest upwind (to the FX), while weighing substantially less. “It has the same righting moment to sail area numbers as the 49er and it is a lot lighter...” says Clark. In comparison to the 49er which weighs in at 135-140kg (entertainingly finding out the exact displacement of the Olympic skiff is harder than you might think), the Rebel is a svelt 92kg.

Part of the reason for this light weight is that the Rebel is shorter than the FX, the RS900 and the Aura and Clark points out that as soon as hull speed is exceeded, weight becomes a negative. Once again construction of the Rebel is in glass/foam with epoxy.

For the sails, Clark says they went down the 18ft skiff route with the genniker while the mainsail concept originally came from the Tornado catamaran.

While there have been some comments about the Rebel being ‘too powerful’ to be the women’s skiff, these were the exact same comments made about the 49er when it was introduced. As Clark says: “We designed this boat specifically for the girls, setting them the same challenge as the boys had with the 49er - we didn’t want them to be treated to any less. In fact the hull characteristics are more sea-kindly than the 49er’s. In the bear away, you still have to prepare for them, but it is less ‘my God are we going to make it?’ Gybing it is relatively easy and because of its width and weight and easily driven hull you don’t have to do a wire-to-wire gybe. You can get one going through ahead and then you can take a bit of time. Or you can even get away with a sat-on-the-rack to sat-on-the-rack B14-type gybe.”

If the Rebel is one of the most refined skiffs here, the only downside otherwise expressed about the boat is aesthetic – the hull shape and tubular alloy rack arrangement looks a little dated compared to the newer opposition and the boat lacks the professional-looking branding of the RS900 and Aura.

Mackay FX

All the way from Auckland, New Zealand, David Mackay and John Clinton from Mackay Boats are in Santander pushing their FX, a 49er with a cut-down rig. The FX upwind sail area is now 19.6sqm compared to the 49er’s 21.2sqm while the kite is down from 38sqm to a much more modest 25.1sqm, both the mast’s top and bottom tubes reduced by 450mm.

Conceptually the FX makes sense. As John Clinton points out, in their report the ISAF Olympic Commission said that the preference on equipment choice should be to share gear between male and female classes and to date this has worked handsomely in the 470 classes and with the Laser Standard and Radial. So why not the Olympic skiff?

Above: John Clinton (left) with David Mackay

Clinton, a former America’s Cup sail designer and 470 coach points out: “A good example is the New Zealand 470s: If you had the women in a different boat they would have one boat, but now they have a fleet, so they can train with the guys, they have one coach who works together with them all and they travel together, they can share equipment and test equipment together.”

Even the new rig shares the same fittings as the big rig, such as the spreaders. “And it is proven equipment. The guys have sailed them hard and they don’t break.” Plus since knowledge gleaned in the 49er is all relevant, it means that with suitable knowledge transfer from the boys, FX sailors should be able to learn to sail them at a high level relatively quickly.

Changing the rig on an existing 49er represents a potentially cheaper option to get women’s teams out of the blocks quickly and with around 1300 49ers afloat to date, of which Mackay reckons 500 are perhaps still competitive, you could get an FX up and running for under 10,000 Euros (including 5,000 Euros for the FX transformation), making it one of the cheapest of the Women’s skiff options. However inevitably people will want new gear and at this point is becomes one of the most expensive choices with a price point around 17,000-17,200 Euro mark.

Design work on the rig has been carried out in-house at Mackay and there are seven FX rigs on trial around the world at the moment.

However an issue that has been highlighted this week is that the 15 year old 49er hull design is heavy when compared to the more modern purpose-designed competition for the Women’s Skiff slot. As a result it requires a substantial sail plan to get it going, more load in the sheets, harder to launch, right, etc.

29erXX

Were it not for the more modern more grunty opposition, the 29erXX would be the ideal vehicle to go to Rio 2016.

Obviously born of Julian Bethwaite’s 49er concept, the 29erXX is a development the original bigger version of what became the standard 29er, used for more than a decade as the skiff at the Youth Worlds. Significantly compared to the youth boat it has twin trapezes, and an enlarged sail area with a flat top main and a masthead kite.

While the 29er is now getting on for 15 years old, in its revitalised state the XX has been around since 2005. It took part in the ISAF evaluation trials for the Olympic skiff in Hyeres in 2007. Last year the 29erXX received ‘ISAF recognised’ status and the class rules have this month been officially approved by ISAF. The 29erXX has its first World Championship in September this year on Lake Garda.

So why should the 29er be chosen of the new Women’s Skiff, we put it to 29erXX Class President, Jen Glass: “Starting with the boat itself, it is challenging to sail. The size of the hull is suitable for 120kg [crew weight] and the shape of the hull makes balance and understanding of what’s happening with the boat very important. I have been sailing it for years and it continues to challenge me, body positioning, etc. That keeps me coming back to it and it is fast, a handful and most women skiff sailors are addicted to that challenge and that feel.”

She adds that from an end user/MNA standpoint the cost of the boat and availability around the world is attractive. Already there are 120-130 29erXXs sailing, in addition to the 1200 standard 29ers. “I think the important thing from a sailor perspective is that it is proven, we have been racing for years, we have been through the changes that a new design goes through and fixed them already. We know that we have works and it has been proven in many regattas around the world in different conditions.”

Converting a standard 29er to the bigger rig costs 5,900 Euros, while a new boat is 10,500 making it one of the cheapest options on offer in the trials.

That the 29er has been such a success in youth sailing represents both a plus point and negative. On the positive side it means that sailors will already be familiar with the boat. It is no surprise that two of the most talented MNA sailors trialling the Women’s Skiff candidates here in Santander are 29erXX hotshots such as Danes Marie Thusgaard Olsen and Ida Marie Nielsen.

But because it already has the ‘youth’ tag means that probably sailors won’t feel they are truly graduating up to a boat of Olympic calibre. However as Jen Glass puts it: “As a female sailor, you don’t grow out of something. None of us are growing and we don’t want to get bigger. I really feel that the hull is the right size.”

Arup Skiff

The most left field proposal to get the ticket to Rio 2016 is the Arup Skiff, represented in Santander by two Aardvark Technologies-built Ellway 6 design Cherubs, the only boats here with T-foil rudders.

Arup is one of the world’s leading structural consultancy firms, best known for their work on the Sydney Opera House as well as the Birds Nest and Water Cube in Beijing.

Arup's man in Santander is Head of Advanced Technology and Research, Bristol, Roland Trim. The reason for Arup’s involvement in this project is that they view carbon fibre construction as ‘the future’. As Trim puts it: “We are already starting to use composites – we stick them to bits [of buildings] as reinforcement to make them stronger and stiffer and future vehicles will all be composites - making them lighter to give them longer range, especially with electric vehicles where energy efficiency is all about weight.”

Around five years ago Trim went on a mission to study composites and as a result ended up joining the Cherub fleet, the class being a partner in Arup’s bid, along with designer Kevin Ellway.

While putting together a fully custom-built Cherub Trim says would cost in the order of £30,000 (although Aardvark are advertising Ellway 6s for less than £10,000 on their website), he says they plan to revolutionise the manufacture of them by making them in just two parts (deck and hull moulds), plus bulkheads and racks.

“What we have done, as Arup, has taken this as the concept, the hydrodynamic shape and the stiffness profile that we are running and we have said ‘how do we mass produce this?’ What we have presented to ISAF is an absolute cast iron way that we can deliver 100 boats for the 21 October 2012, for a regatta in Weymouth. That is what Arup brings to the table. We have taken the geometry and changed the deck layout slightly, so you can make it in two halves, so top part, bottom part and some bulkheads. The tubes are very cheap to make and they just slot into the moulds. So you have a monocoque Cherub.

“The documented business plan will deliver this boat at £10,500 ex VAT per boat on the water with a carbon foam construction. So we are offering effectively tomorrow’s technology for yesterday’s prices.”

We can’t help feeling that if Arup as a company is serious about using boats to research composites they should be looking at getting involved in an America’s Cup campaign or at least Norman Wijker’s C-Class catamaran campaign which is even based out of the same city as Trim operates out of...Bristol.

Tomorrow we look at the candidates for the Mixed Cats.