New horizons

Russell Coutts discusses his forays into the worlds of yacht design and event creation

This article follows on from part one here

Russell Coutts - designer

Aside from his hectic sailing program Coutts has also now turned his hand to yacht design.

In conjunction with designer Andre Justin, Coutts has co-designed a 44ft one-design racer. "It is a pretty - what I’d call standard, although it’s not that standard - little racer but it is a pretty powerful boat in terms of sail area. It is built in carbon. I shouldn’t say too much more about it..."

The boat is due to be launched in August and Coutts has been asked by the same company to create a follow-up. "The 44 is a pretty conservative boat, but we are due to design a 60...and that might not be so conservative," he says with a twinkle in his eye.

Although previously he has shown his skill in design during the America's Cup one gets the impression he is more fired up by what he sees elsewhere in our sport:"I think the sailing world is exciting now because you have got all these new materials; people have learned how to use carbon more, composite rigging, things are getting lighter and people are starting to use carbon even in cruising boats now.

"There are some pretty neat engine packages out now where you can move ballast around - water ballast or other types of ballast - just the whole mechanics of it. All these things are becoming options whereas previously you’d put it in the 'too hard' basket. I will be interested to sail on Morning Glory. The concept is great, but is has got some compromises still though. You are still dragging a lead bulb through the water and the lead bulb is doing nothing other than ballasting the boat. Water is 1000 times more dense than air so if you came up with another system... Plus you have to have a forward rudder. Cookson has come up with a new style with a trim tab on the canting keel, which sounds interesting". Could we be looking at an completely internal movable ballast system in the future? Watch this space.

As it stands Coutts' 44 footer has a conventional fixed keel with a trim tab on it. Trim tabs are now almost standard fit in the America's Cup class and Coutts believes that this system will become increasingly commonplace in yachts generally.

"In the future that would be the minimum. It has been around for years, it’s just the stupid rules used to say you shouldn’t do it or they'd penalise it for no good reason. Why do you want to penalise something that doesn't make the boat unsafe but helps the performance heaps and just makes it more interesting? I certainly get a kick out of sailing boats that move along nicely and feel nice to sail and are responsive - I think most people like that. They don’t like to sail on old slugs that hardly move. So the world is changing. I think the fact that we have looked at the sport and got rid of some of the old rules is a good thing. We have got to simplify the sport and I like there being some good one design classes coming to the front".


Russell Coutts - event creator

Another area where Coutts is known to be active is in organising a new race circuit with Paul Cayard. Much of the organisational infrastructure is believed to be in place for this but Coutts won't get specific about it until such time as it is becomes a reality. However what he will say gives a good indication of the direction in which he and Cayard are heading.

"You get all this talent developed in the Olympics. Last year I was lucky enough to see some of it and I was super impressed by the standard and quality of the sailing".

He digresses into a brief discussion about the Olympic classes, how exciting performance boats like the Tornado and the 49er are great for the Olympics, how boring boats like the Yngling aren't and do women's sailing no favours, how the classes need to modernise.

"It is a great thing for the sport," he continues. "And then some of the sailors are fortunate enough to win medals but then there is nowhere for them to go. And I think that is a bit of a tragedy, without learning a whole new discipline like ocean racing or match racing".

So we can look forward to a highly international circuit including spectacular racing, bringing the racing to the public but more specifically it seems most likely to involve fleet racing in some sort of large, high performance one design.

"We don’t see that there is the need to rush to put on something that isn’t anything other than a very very top top standard. Plenty of people have tried this type of thing before and to be successful it has to be really really well thought out. We have seen a lot of things about the sport over 20 odd years. Some of the changes are obvious, some of them were the result of looking at other sports and going ‘wow, that’s interesting. Maybe sailing could learn from that’.

"It is an exciting concept. It doesn’t compare I think with anything in sailing right now. It is nothing like the Volvo or the America’s Cup. What we tried to do is look at it from a fresh perspective and see what was needed. You have got the Olympics and most of the people who do the Olympics are younger set, apart form the Star boat. The emphasis is on fleet racing, and then you have offshore racing, the Volvo and the Vendee Globe and then you have the America’s Cup, but there is a huge gap for the fleet racing side, particularly with the Admiral’s Cup gone".

Bearing in mind that the most spectacular side of the America's Cup is the fleet racing, Coutts and Cayard may well be on to a winner - assuming they can get the funding lined up.