Fastest man in Australia

James Boyd meets Sean Langman, skipper, owner and incessant modifier of the tabooed Open 60 Grundig Xena.

In the last Sydney-Hobart they damaged the boat following a collision with a shark but still ended up winning their class. Over last winter (summer in the northern hemisphere) they were on standby to make an attempt on the 24 hour record, but the correct conditions never materialised. Instead they took the boat up to Hamilton Island Race week but unfortunately during that event they ran aground damaging the keel and the internal keel structure.

The damage prompted Langan to "do something different with the boat". They brought her back to Sydney and went through a new programme of mods - making the keel 25% smaller with as narrow a blade as possible. They also increased the water ballast capacity from 2.5 to 3 tonnes. Most significantly they added a 6ft sugar scoop to the stern to increase waterline length.

"Upwind we've got a boat that in loose terms is 3/4 knot faster in anything above 9 knots. The boat tended to drag its arse but now it sails on its lines." Since the mods, they've had the boat over 30 knots on two occasions. Downwind,Langman adds, the boat jumps on the plane quicker. The only thing they haven't investigated is how the boats behaves in waves, but like most lightweight fliers of this type the answer is probably - badly.

So how does Langman rate the competition in the Sydney-Hobart 2001? "This year I've discounted the Volvo boats - that may be arrogant, but we raced against the last crop and we were significantly faster. Nicorette is the battleship I believe. She's virtually indestructible. Wild Thing (see below) is an unknown." Langman says that the ideal conditions for Grundig would be for a mixture of 50% upwind and downwind - provided the new sugar scoop stays on. "If it's constantly on the nose we're going to have reliability problems," he admits.

As we speak the measurers are outside and Langman is fretting about hull stability. For the Hobart race the rules require that boats have 115% of positive stability as calculated under IMS. The sugar scoop somehow has made the boat illegal and he must sort it out. "We do the final float test tomorrow and I'll be underwater below the boat blowing bubbles," he jokes.

For the future the development is not over for Grundig Xena. Langman is considering fitting a wingmast to the boat next year and will again look at breaking the 24 hour record. But he has more ambitious plans for a new boat to be designed by Andy Dovell of Murray, Burns and Dovell. This will be the boat he truly wants - a 75ft offshore skiff, with a canting mast and with 8ft wings on which the crew can sit out. That will be some boat...

Grant Warrington's Wild Thing