The latest technology
Friday May 16th 2008, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom
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| With Open 60s it is easy to spot the difference between them - a wingmast with hinged spreaders or deck spreaders or a conventional fixed mast is fairly evident. With a far tighter rule and with boats now into their fourth generation (or later if you include developments made to early boats in the US) its takes an extremely keen eye to spot the differences between the new TP52s joining the Audi MedCup in 2008.
This year as we have mentioned there are eight new boats due to race on the Audi MedCup circuit this year, seven of which are currently competing in Alicante. Of these the majority are Judel-Vrolijk, only one - Quantum - is from Botin & Carkeek while the new sisterships, Artemis and Larry Ellison's USA 17, are Reichel-Pughs, although one wonders given last year's Artemis being a Judel-Vrolijk and winner of the circuit, if the choice this year wasn't partly motivated by the present rift in the America's Cup world: it would not have been entirely appropriate for Alinghi's principle designer to be drawing the new BMW Oracle Racing TP52. While the new Artemis and USA 17 are sisterships with the same hull and deck, electronics, hydraulics and winch package a significant different will be that USA 17 has a HallSpar rig whereas Artemis' is from Southern. The big bits In terms of hull shapes the general trend for 2008 is to go for higher form stability. The reasoning for this is that in 2008 the MedCup is visiting venues such as Marseilles and Cagliari while the Worlds are in Lanzarote and overall the average wind speed expected this year will be around 14-16 knots instead of 10-12. With the 2008 generation boats beam max appears to be at the limit of the rule with the new R-P boats, while the J-Vs appear a fraction narrower. However the beam waterlines are believed to be similar between the latest generation R-Ps and the J-Vs while a look at the transom of the new Botin & Carkeek designed Quantum indicates that they still seem to prefer a slightly softer section shapes aft. But we are talking very small differences here. While eight of the boats are new, several of the older boats are also effectively new having had their bows and sterns replaced in line with the current trend to go for increased stability. As Chris Hosking, boat captain on Artemis told us: "Last year’s Artemis was a good performer in the heavier stuff, but now we are seeing it being really competitive in the light because the new boats have been moded more up the wind range. So all of a sudden the old Artemis is looking good in the light air whereas previously Caixa was the strongest light air boat. We’ve all gone with these wider, higher stability boats and the old [unmodified] boats have become good light air boats." As we saw last year both new and old boats have also been taking steps to carry the maximum beam on deck well aft in order to maximise the righting moment brought about by crew hiking. So if the boats are moded for a slightly higher wind strength what happens in light airs? According to Mean Machine's long term boat captain Chris Reid, despite optimising their boat for more breeze, they also hope to be maintaining their performance in the lower wind ranges. "It's sails and just learning to sail your boat - getting to the back of the boat. We are very conscious of the trim - particularly with the fatter boat - being really conscious of crew weight. It is more like sailing a dinghy." As is typical in classes like this, the boats become harder to steer as designers strive to reduce hydrodynamic drag from the appendages by going for more spindly, high aspect ratio appendages. This makes turning corners harder - the trimmers have to be more involved in this - but improves straight line speed There is also a trend for moving the rudder forwards in the boat. This is apparent in both the new J-V and R-P boats. "Last year we moved our rudder forward and reduced the wetted surface area," says Brendan Darrer, boat captain on Cristabella. "We noticed that when you are heeled over there is a lot of the rudder out of the water and a lot of disturbance. By moving it forward at heel angles we were able to use a smaller rudder but have more rudder working." In past years in the MedCup the two major spar manufacturers involved with the class - Southern Spar and HallSpars - have offered a choice of two or three spreader rigs, the former prefers by some teams in the light Mediterranean conditions. However now with the more powerful boats optimised to sail in more breeze all the new rigs are three spreader. Impressively with every year tube section sizes go down - one crewman who'd been on the MedCup from the outset told us that it is possible to fit the mast sections for the last four years inside one another. And yet at the same time as they have been getting more spindly, rigs have also been getting stiffer. All the new rigs are believed to have been built in high modulus carbon fibre, such as M40, at the limit allowed by the TP52 rule, and of a higher modulus even than that permitted last time in the America's Cup. As a result rig set-ups today are both straighter and stiffer fore and aft than in the past. The little bits Of the new boats the two that stand out in Alicante in terms of their refinement are Mean Machine and Artemis (you can add the new BMW Oracle boat too when she arrives on the circuit). A close inspection of their cockpit and deck layouts indicates that both teams have made a concerted effort this year to reduce windage and lower the centre of gravity. Reducing CoG means a smaller bulb can be fitted reducing hydrodynamic drag. On Mean Machine for example the pit winches are hidden behind the rather bulbous cabin top (a requirement of IMS origin, but still demanded in the TP52 rule). "We are very happy with that - it’s worked out a treat," says proud father Chris Reid. "I built up a couple of mock-ups in my garage at home. It was trial and error. Even when we built it, we weren’t sure if it was going to work." Above: on Mean Machine the pit winches are hidden by the cabin top 
On Audi TP52 powered by Q8 turning winch bases are still used. Check out the jammer mounted on its side and the carbon lever operating the hydraulic pump In an effort to remove weight and lower CoG, both teams have sunken their winches and removed the secondary turning drum in the base of their primaries use for lines coming from the pit or the kite sheets. "With this new Harken system we’ve got we are getting the line speed without needing the bigger drums on the bottoms of the primaries," says Chris Reid. "With that you are saving 4-5 kg and you get the winches down." On the new J-V designs the cabin top includes added volume over the hatch area between the pit winches, however part of this slides forward to enable cross sheeting for the pit lines. On Artemis the winch package is particularly special - developed by Lewmar in conjunction with John Williams. These winches are lower profile, but most noticable is that they have a cream-coloured ceramic coating which is believed to maximise the grip on the drums, enabling the winches to be down-sized and for the team to use smaller diameter rope on them. In addition to this teams are typically mounting jammers on their side to reduce windage and on Artemis they have gone a stage further by even paring down the weight of the jammers themselves.... 
Recessed ceramic coated Lewmar winches on the new Artemis Given their backstay arrangements, all TP52s have a hydraulic forestay, while some also have it for the outhaul and code zero. On the new Mean Machine for example they have it for the forestay and code zero only. On deck the most obvious varation between boats is in the shape of the cabin top and aside from how this affects the pit winches, but there seem to be many schools of thought over the mounting of the headsail tracks. Some have these mounted on the cabintop, others have them on a special beam (more windage) protruding from the side of the cabintop. Perhaps the neatest set-up is on Artemis, where the track is recessed into the cabintop. Artemis also have a chainplate set-up where the D1s and caps are adjusted from down below - fiddly but once again the low windage and low CoG option. 
Audi TP52 powered by Q8 - separate bracket for the jib track and a sliding hatch to enable cross sheeting the pit lines 
The set-up on the B&C designed Quantum 
Recessed jib track on Artemis When it comes to mainsheet set-ups there seem to be three schools of thought. Many still use the 'German' system where the sheet effectively loops around a block on the traveller with both ends leading forward up to the boom, then down below deck, re-emerging by the main sheet trimmer in the cockpit. However many of the newer TPs have a simpler two-part set-up comprising either a Vectran/PBO strop around the boom or a single Vectran/PBO cable attached to a bar inside the boom. The bottom of this attaches to the mainsheet itself running through three blocks over the cars, and out sideways where it either enters the side of the cockpit coaming before re-emerging by the trimmer (as on Mean Machine) or is simply fed forward on deck to the trimmer via a block (as is the case with the new El Desafio). The newer set-ups have less windage, less turns in the mainsheet, usually less plumbing below decks and allow for a shorter mainsheet and reduced compression in the boom. 
Mainsheet arrangement on El Desafio 
'The German system' main sheet on Matador With main sheet tracks some boats have gone full width, others haven't. Most boats seem to be using an 8:1 block and tackle set-up, while Lou Varney's revolutionary below deck system (read more about this here) is slowly gaining acceptance, requiring more set-up time. Interestingly the choice of traveller system depends upon the mainsheet set-up - the German system for some reason inflicts less load on the traveller than the newer set-up described. On Mean Machine Chris Reid says they have solved this added load on the traveller issue by buying the man operating it a pair of gloves...! Mean Machine are also using Harken's new MX grinders where the gear change button is in the top of the pedestal. "It has two separate chain drives inside and you can go from overdrive to standard by punching a button in the middle of the axle at the top," says Reid. "You can bang it with your hand or a paddle. We are still developing that." 
Not just a foot rest for the mainsheet trimmer - all the controls for the mainsheet emerge from here on Mean Machine The new Mean Machine also has a driven pit winch whereas the old boat hadn't. "The speed we are getting off the driven pit winch - we are getting our hoists down to about 3 seconds. Artemis had that last year. They were 1:2.8 but this is 1:3." While the deck layouts on the TPs seem clean, below decks they are a cat's cradle of lines and block and tackle arrangements. In addition these days you see no rope bags in the cockpit - all sheet and halyard ends are fed into bins below deck. There remain a number of aspects of the TP52 that seem a bit dumb for what is unashamedly an out-and-out grand prix race boat. There is the ugly cabin top, although this may be a necessary evil for resale if they are to be IRCed when they might venture out of the Mediterranean, offshore even. They still have an IMS-style single backstay that inevitably snags on the top of the mainsail whenever the boat goes through a manoeuvre. Fitting runners and would allow a more contemporary flat top mainsail to be fitted and should generally improve the sail handling experience. While leading teams are now looking at removing grams of weight rather than kilograms from their build or the fit-out or the equipment, on the other hand they have the crazy situation where they end up carrying around 800-900kg of lead correctors weights, around 15% of their all-up weight. On Cristabella for example they currently lug around 836kg of correctors while with the new Mean Machine they have got around 800kg, having chosen to put more back into the structure. As Chris Reid explains: "The difference between this boat and the last is that we threw 150kg of fibre at the boat just to stiffen it up. It is noticable how much stiffer this is." Surely a large chunk of this should be removed and teams be allowed to put this lead into the bulb? Perhaps there should be a fixed bulb weight? This mod would work well if introduced at the same time as the flat top mains. This would also be a smart move, considering that most TP52s once they are no longer competitive on the Audi MedCup are now heading for IRC, where as a matter of course their correctors will be removed and slapped on the bulb. Obviously this would require more internal structure to be fitted to withstand the increased loads from the keel as well as the rig spec being increased generally, but considering that most teams will build a new rig each season this wouldn't be much of a problem TP52 Class Manager Rob Weiland is currently polling owners and teams to see if they are in favour of such mods or whether they should attempt to consolidate the class more - in which case they might as well look at turning it in a Judel-Vrolijk one design class. On page two see compative aft views of all the boats...plus more detail shots on the pages following |
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