Design Analysis

Yeah, sure could. When the trimaran Great American did the San Francisco to New York record attempt in the mid-1990s, they got capsized by big waves off Cape Horn and were righted again by a big wave.

Are there any special measures that PlayStation took to help avoid a capsize?
All of the boats in The Race have a system to slow the boat down. The biggest problem in those conditions is surfing down waves at uncontrolled speed, burying your bows into the wave ahead and cartwheeling. Each boat has a drogue system. You can pay out as much as you need depending on the conditions. All the boats have similar drogue systems.

The drogues are your brake, then you have a parachute anchor if you need to heave-to. You'd launch a parachute off the boat to completely stop.

Otherwise, just chose a careful course.

What are the chances one of the boats could sink?
Slim to none. These multihulls. I've never heard of one sinking before. There's no ballast to pull it down, other than water ballast.

All the boats are built of carbon fiber over a honeycomb core. Ours is aluminum honeycomb, and the Ollier's are Nomex. All the carbon is pre-preg. The air in the honeycomb is enough to keep the structures afloat.

Each boat has a series of watertight bulkheads. We have them fore and aft, on both sides of the boat. The beams have flotation in them. They may not be completely sealed, but there's lots of trapped air. Other than fire, the safest thing is to stay on the boat.

The organizers did require all boats to carry life rafts, which is somewhat unusual. Most times in the past, life rafts haven't been required because of the unsinkability of the boats. But fire is an issue. Pre-preg carbon burns well, as we've found out.

In what ways does PlayStation make use of water ballast?
We have tanks in the transoms only. I understand the other boats have it amidships for transverse righting moment and in the transom for fore and aft control. I think that's maybe why they decided to go narrower. In light to medium conditions, when you're just powering up, you want to fly a hull to get rid of wetted surface area. Maybe their thinking was to make the boat narrower so you would fly a hull easier and have better performance in moderate conditions. Then you'd increase the righting moment with transverse water ballast. But in windy conditions you're adding weight. So transverse water ballast isn't as good as a wider boat, but it's better in moderate conditions.

PlayStation has roller-furling headsails, while the Ollier boats have headsails that are hanked-on. Is this a crew choice for easier sail handling?
We found the boat's so big that having to send crew forward to put sails up and down in rough conditions is physically difficult to do. We also thought it would be safer to have roller furling. You'd just roll things up.

The other guys think the gear's not reliable enough to survive. We've had few problems with ours and are happy. The other consideration is windage. On these boats the apparent wind is always forward of beam, but we haven't changed our mind yet. If a furler does break, you could put sails up and down on the head foil.
First published on QuokkaSailing.com, republished with permission.