K-One Design 33

A new Mini ACC boat from the board of Juan Kouyoumdjian

Alongside their prospective bid for the America's Cup, so K-Yachting have conceived and are now marketing a new one design, primarily aimed at match racing.

Designed by Juan Kouyoumdjian, currently of the Prada design team, K-Yachting's Stephane Kandler says that the K-One Design 33, is best described as a mini America's Cup Class yacht. "It’s strange - the 12m had the smaller classes, so why doesn't the America’s Cup have a smaller class now?"

From their experience selling Mumm 30s and being involved in the management of class rules such as the IC45, Kandler says they learned several lessons. "It is interesting because when you look at the market, the Dragon, 6 metre and 5.5 metre classes, they are the most active classes on the water and they are the oldest boats." He says that often the owners of these spend more on their boats than a Mumm 30 owner might.

"And then you have all these newer concepts like Farr 40 and Mumm 30s, but they are more dedicated to high level racing with top sailors. And we thought about all the things and what we heard from our customers who were saying ‘this is not right - people buy a Mumm 30 and sell it after two years because it is too technical’ and so on. So we thought about this and then the problem of towing the boats from one harbour to another. So we said, okay we need a small America’s Cup boat." Kandler adds they could do with such a boat in any case for their training with their America's Cup challenge.

As the lines below show, the new K-One Design 33 is very mini-ACC in its appearance with slab sides and long overhangs. Beneath the water it has a high aspect ratio rudder, a substantial bulb where more of the boat's 2 tonne wieght will lie and a trim tab on the foil. On deck the mainsail has a pronounced roach and there is a conventional spinnaker arrangement.

In terms of stability the new one design looks like it is going in a similar direction to an ACC boat - ie it should be pretty stiff. The boat is designed to be sailed by four with a maximum weight of 300kg although up to 40kg of corrector weights are allowed. This is definitely not a boat that will behave in the same way as the modern generation of high-powered light weights, ie it is not going to surf...

The central cockpit arrangement appears to be similar to other small keelboats. The boat will also be fitted with a small inboard diesel of 8hp.

The boat is designed so that it can be towed throughout Europe on a road trailer or equally at 33ft it could easily be put in a container for transporting abroad. Kandler hopes that other America's Cup team might be use the boat for their training but equally it might be suitable for newcomers to racing who want a modern boat and don't want to hike.

The plan is to build six boats by May 2003. Construction will be slightly unusual with a carbon fibre outer skin, balsa core and glass inner skin, made with pre-preg epoxy resin.

Price of the boat will 99,000 Euros (ex VAT). A circuit for the new class is planned for this season and, significantly, this will be the new boat in which the One Ton Cup is raced

Technical details :

LOA 10,00 m
Beam 2,00 m
Draft 1,87 m
Displacement 2,00 t
Ballast 1,00 t
Main sail 28 m²
Genoa 18 m²
Asymmetrical spinnaker 64 m²

Contact: K-Yachting
Address; 14, rue Bayard, 31000 Toulouse, France
Tel: +33 (0)5 61 63 67 68
Fax+33 (0)5 61 99 36 89
E-mail: info@k-yachting.com