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Could Team Philips have worked? My answer is yes, resoundingly. But only if the engineering had been right. For next time I advise having a project manager with real power to control brilliant but maverick yacht designers, carbon fibre fanatics and others who let enthusiasm rule rather than good engineering sense. Pete Goss now knows that when you build a prototype that pushes the envelope you need a special breed of engineer and you need to listen carefully. As an engineer with big project experience and TP's most consistent critic on this point, I watched the project unravel last year with disbelief and dismay.

Soon after the bow fracture I wrote to Pete Goss with warnings and suggestions for a second opinion to be obtained concerning certain of the design features. In July a letter I had sent earlier to Yachting World entitled 'Elegant Aberration' was published. With others I voiced concerns on the forum throughout the summer, and again after the mast step failure always with constructive suggestions. I even wrote again to Pete Goss suggesting he postpone the December trials citing a rationale I would publicly give him. He politely declined and all was for naught. As TP set out on her last voyage I was invited by Yachting World to submit a full article on the engineering uncertainties of TP's design; my draft with drawings arrived a day or two before her loss. It's on file but was not printed and is now history; but everything I wrote is still relevant.

The good things about TP's design are too good to be lost, namely her geometry and sailing characteristics, and her proven stability in waves with penetrating bows. She has to cope with exceptional knocks and forces, which simply were her undoing. The remedy? So simple to say but so tricky to do - to add well-engineered strength and suffer some carefully crafted extra weight. I take no satisfaction whatsoever in being proven right. My theme has always been that TP was not built strongly enough. To be sure lightness and speed had to be the watchword in such a craft, but without sufficient hull and rig strength all else is for naught. And I warned ad nauseam to beware of the process of scaling up - it is not for amateur designers. Adrian Thompson accused me publicly of parrot-like repetition as he adroitly side-stepped leading questions, particularly on wave forces and square / cube rule design checks. TP's spokespeople of last year left us in no doubt that some of those on the team were not professional enough. In my opinion, next time they must be. Then TP will work well and be a world beater.

From Robert Biegler
Could Team Philips have worked? I suspect that when Team Philips set out on her last voyage she was structurally stronger than the Ollier boats. Team Adventure suffered serious structural damage to the main cross beam when sailing in 25 knots, perfect conditions according to the reports, and "a little wave reared up out of nowhere and slapped the beam". Club Med, the strongest of the three Ollier boats, had serious damage to a bulkhead next to the main beam. All this apparently in easier conditions than those Team Philips survived for quite some time before being damaged as well. Because the Ollier boats and Team Philips never sailed side by side, there is quite a lot of room for error in that judgement, but I think the comparison is meaningful enough that the design of Team Philips cannot just be written off on structural grounds.

As for speed, during the Race there was a brief remark in one of the Amateur Yacht Research Society publications that a member (Richard Boehmer, if I remember correctly) had a velocity prediction program that did predict the performance of the Ollier boats, and it had Team Philips well ahead. It should be possible to address any remaining structural concerns regarding a Team Philips Mk II, and it seems she would be faster than the current generation of conventional maxi catamarans. The question is how much the next generation might be improved. Still, anyone planning to build another of those boats might be well advised to talk to Adrian Thompson.

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