The nuts and bolts of Ran 2

In part one we speak to Niklas Zennstrom about his new Judel Vrolijk 72 and start the guided tour to her innovation

The project keeping most of the top UK sailors occupied over these last months has been the new Judel-Vrolijk designed 72 footer, Ran 2, belonging to Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom. Ran 2 recently competed in the Hublot Palmavela and this weekend is racing at the Regate Pirelli for the Coppa Puri Negri out of the Italian hotspot of Santa Margherita Ligure.

Of the present crop of purpose-built grand prix Mini Maxis, Ran 2 is the largest and compared to the new STP65s, Luna Rossa and Container, she was not built to a box rule. Aimed at racing under IRC, less constraints have been placed on her design and while this is more a case of logical evolution than radical development, she has many features new to boats of her type.

But first, a little about her intriguing owner, for we all use Skype, don’t we?

For Niklas Zennstrom, a London-based Swede, Ran 2 represents his latest step up the yacht racing ladder.

In Sweden, with its magnificent coastline and numerous archipelagos, sailing is a massive sport and Zennstrom says he has been sailing since the age of seven. “When I was small I was racing Optimists and Europe dinghies and Lasers and I was cruising every summer with my family for many years.”

Professionally, Zennstrom, 43, holds dual degrees in Business Administration and Engineering Physics and his business background has included working in telecommunications. But his real metier has been peer-to-peer technology over the internet, through companies he set up including KaZaA and Altnet and ultimately the well-known Skype, the internet telephony and messaging service, which is also based on a peer-to-peer platform. Skype was sold to Google in 2005 for 1.2 billion Euros. With his long term business partner Janus Friis, Zennstrom is currently working on the peer-to-peer TV platform Joost and has a venture capital firm Atomico Investments.

During his successful business career Zennstrom had to put his sailing on the back burner, although he says he occasionally chartered a boat for a week or so a year. However he gradually started racing again when he competed in some of the RORC’s channel races aboard chartered boats, such as Yeoman and Incisor of Wight.

“Then we started doing more and more and then we got more competitive and decided to get our own boat,” says Zennstrom. This came in the form of a Marten 49, they acquired at the beginning of 2007. “That was a fantastic boat for both racing and shorthanded cruising. But then when you are lining up against racing boats, you realise you don’t need the nice teak deck and furniture. You want to be more competitive.”

The next step up was purchasing of Eamon Conneely’s second Patches TP52, bringing it to the UK and modifying it to race under IRC. With a supreme team crew led by Tim Powell, the newly christened Ran proved herself to be one of the leading boats in her class both in the UK and in the States, winning for example IRC1 at Acura Key West and Miami Race Weeks this year and Class Zero at Cowes Week and the RORC’s Cowes-Dinard race in 2008.

Zennstrom still owns these boats. Now the Marten 49 is in France, where she is used for cruising, while the 52 is back in the UK and will race the RORC’s IRC Nationals this year.

Interestingly Zennstrom, who says he enjoys sailing as a great way to unwind and relax from his business activities, seems to have little preference between inshore or offshore racing. For example last year Ran competed in the Rolex Middle Sea Race, coming home third, although somewhat further down the fleet under IRC. “I think both have their charms,” he states. “They are very different, but we like both. Round the cans is great fun because it is very intense, but offshore it is completely different. And with this boat [ Ran 2] we have optimised it for inshore, but we have made sure we can do offshore racing on it.” And so the program for Ran 2 this year will include the Mini Maxi circuit in the Mediterranean such as Giraglia and the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, but also the Rolex Fastnet and Sydney-Hobart races.

So why 72ft long? “It was always a toss up,” says Zennstrom of his new vessel. “We knew that there were a few boats being built at around 69ft. And there was Numbers which was 66 and we knew we might see a 75 footer. So we thought 72 – if it is a very close fleet you’d rather be a little bit bigger to give you an edge on the start line. Then you have the STP65s – I think one thing for sure is that it is going to be a really interesting class and I think the boats will be different, optimised for different conditions.”



Ran 2- the new weapon

As mentioned, Ran 2 is a Judel-Vrolijk design and with Dan Meyer’s Alinghi-crewed 66 footer Numbers, proving herself to be the top IRC Mini Maxi since her launch at the end of 2007, it is perhaps no surprise that the three new Mini Maxis to be launched so far this year, all have been J-V designs as has Sir Peter Ogden’s newly launched IRC60, Spirit of Jethou. Designer Rolf Vroljik says it will be interesting to see how his new generation boats of varying lengths perform under IRC. The new Jethou, Vrolijk informs us, is aimed more at Mediterrananean-style light airs racing while Ran 2 has more the facility (and suitable structure) to compete offshore too.

In terms of her hull shape and deck design, The new Ran 2 is clearly related to Numbers, but coming a year later, she has a chine in her aft sections, as does the new J-V STP65, Luna Rossa. She has more beam for her length than the STP65s and considerably more flair above the waterline aft. She features a fixed bowsprit, the normal open-ended cockpit and sidedecks running all the way to the transom that we have seen in the newer generation TP52s, allowing the crew to shift their weight all the way aft – vital for getting these boats to perform downwind. With her silver grey topsides, white deck and antifouling and precious few lines running across her deck, along with a two tone black (carbon) and white finish below, the overall effect is sleek and modern. Boat captain Anthony Haines, who previously ran Panthera and Chris Little’s ill-fated Bounder, admits that they have intended on making Ran 2 as stylish as they can for what is otherwise an uncompromising grand prix race boat.

The conception of Ran 2, prior to and during her build at Green Marine, was as a team approach to pretty much every aspect of the boat. As their wizened navigator Steve Hayles observes: “More than any project we have had a lot of people in early - like the winch package and the hydro side, it hasn’t just been one guy. It is a very collaborative effort. A lot of people had input and a lot of guys, like Shag [James Stagg], who helped manage the build, is now a key part of the sailing team.”

Aside from Judel Vrolijk and builders Green Marine, the build was project managed by Richard Clampett while boat captain Anthony Haines and James Stagg came on during the second half of the build to handle the deck gear and systems.

Like the STP65s we looked at week before last, Ran 2 has a bowsprit integral to the boat (rather than a bolt-on), although they have a spare in the container that they could use to replace it in the event of a major collision. She also has a Cup-style spinnaker line-drop set-up, where kites are pulled down below at a rate of knots by the grinders. However Ran 2’s set-up differs to those we saw on the STP65s. The take-down line attaches to the middle of the kite and runs across a giant roller below the aft side of the foredeck hatch, as normal. However then the line passes through a large Kevlar hoop, similar to that used on a spinnaker snuffer and mounted on the port side of the mast, and aft down the port side of the boat in a long sleeve (also like a spinnaker snuffer), back to the transom, across to the starboard side and forward. Here there is another difference with their set-up.



While on the STP65s the drop line exits into the cockpit, ending up at the driven pit winch, on Ran 2, it is also wound in on the pit winch, but on a separate ratcheted drum mounted inside the boat, directly beneath the pit winch. Anthony Haines compares it to a highly geared fishing reel. Not something you would want to stand near when it was in motion. All of it is of course built in meticulously detailed carbon fibre by a variety of suppliers from one in Holland who made the drop line drum and who makes similar gear for BMW Oracle and Ericsson, to another company in Italy that makes parts for MotoGP bikes.

Once the crew get fully up to speed, drops should take as little as 5-10 seconds. Once the kite is in, then the ratchet under the drum is released, the line is pulled off, the spinnaker pulled out of the sleeve and through the hoop and then packed, ready for rehoisting.

Like the STP65s, Ran 2 comes with considerable hydraulics. As on the STP65s these include the headstay, jib tack, outhaul, vang, Cunningham, mast foot and lateral and up-down controls on the jib tracks. In addition to this they also have hydraulic ‘deflectors’ - two lines which attach to each backstay, a few feet down from their attachment point to the mast. Haines explains what these do: “It acts like a checkstay. So you pull that into the mast and straightens up the top third of the rig. With these boats you always get a lot of backstay load to tighten your headstay so you wind the rig back and you end up with a very flat top section of main or very twisted, and it is hard with the big leech as well to close the top of the leech down. With this you can straighten the top section of rig with the deflector.” The Telefonica Volvo 70s are believed to be using a similar set-up.



The hydraulic package was conceived by Ian Lovering of Ashdown Marine, who has previously worked for the likes of Offshore Challenges, on Cup campaigns like GBR Challenge, and for Ericsson and Telefonica in the Volvo.

But where Ran 2’s set-up is unique among her peers is that the hydraulics can also be operated by the grinders, through the use of a rotary hydraulic pump. We have come across this before – the ORMA 60 trimarans used them for years, particularly for mast canting, but it seems that this has only recently filtered across to the single-hulled world, although we imagine some Cup teams also used them. The advantage of course is that compared to a laborious hand pump, grinder-driven hydraulics are much much faster.

“I haven’t used one before,” admits Haines. “Now I have, it is pretty impressive. It knocks out some fluid!” He gives an example of when it might be used: “On the outhaul, mast deflector, vang, etc – on a reach when you want to bring it in after a big dump. On the old Farr 52s, if you eased the vang it was a major to get it back on, but with this it is seconds.” So typically the grinders drive the hydraulics on anything that would otherwise take an age if done by a conventional hand pump.

While we figured that some of the fine tuning might be done on the hand pump, Haines says the whole operation can be done by the grinders and the system is so powerful that they can even move the mast foot with it. However this comes with risks – potentially it would be very easy to overgrind or to accidentally punch in one of the hydraulic systems to the grinders. Fortunately there is a proliferation of load cells on the rams and the important numbers are displayed all around the cockpit on B&G’s cute new little 1010 displays. “Potentially you could have the rotary pump on and be trying to wind the mast heel in when you are trying to wind a sail in,” warns Haines. Thus, chief grinder, the one who operates the buttons, suddenly has considerably more responsibility than before. In addition to all his normal sail trimming and hoisting duties, now he also has to deal with the string drops and the hydraulics. The downwind mark is a busy time…

Ran2 has a Lewmar winch package and in the cockpit are four pedestals – one more than the STP65s. The hydraulic rams are titanium affairs from Navtec. Conception of the winch-hydraulic union was masterminded between James Stagg, Ian Lovering and John Williams, a specialist also previously involved with the Cup, who customised Ran 2’s winch package.

Attached to the underside of the cockpit sole, is the heart of what they came up with, codenamed MBT, which in the absence of a proper name is short for ‘middle belt thingy’ as part of this includes a belt drive - all very Wallace & Gromit. For in addition to linking the grinders to the hydraulics the Ran2 set-up also offers pretty much ultimate flexibility in terms of which pedestal can drive which winch or hydraulic pump. And of course, all this can be done simultaneously if required, as Haines points out: “For example you can have the mainsheet grinder running the rotary pump and have the aft grinder and the two forward grinders running the utility winch. It is a way of dispersing the features, otherwise you end up with a scenario where your forward grinders do the utility and the aft grinder does the mainsheet but they can’t mix or overlap between functions. This has taken a lot of work from John and James and everyone, but it has been superb so far.”

Compared to the STP65s and probably because she is a bit longer, there is a little more structure down below, with two longitudinals running forward from the keel. All the structural engineering was done by Steve Koopmans of SDK in Rhode Island.

Her build at Greens was unusual in that rather than having separate deck and hull moulds, she was built in two halves, joined down the centreline of the boat, with the cockpit added later. Some Wallys and Cup boats are also built this way, but rather disappointingly in the case of Ran 2, the reason was more due to the lack space for moulds at the yard. Construction was mostly in carbon/Nomex, but to prevent delamination when blasting along offshore, most of the hull laminate forward of the keel is foam-cored in order to withstand slamming impacts. Due to the joined-down-the-middle construction in areas where there were tight turns, like the topsides to deck, the Nomex core had to be specially pre-shaped for them.

Other structural elements include her tie rods. The ones either side of her mast are made from a Marlow (who supplied all the ropes) derivative of Dynex and are lashed, rather than having bottlescrews. As on the STP65s, Ran 2 uses Southern’s EC6 continuous carbon fibre rigging where the terminals are within the mast and the chainplates are internal to the boat (creating a small problem of keeping the aperture through the deck watertight). The bronze end-fittings on the EC6 screws into titanium chainplates.

To read part two - click here

More photos on the following pages...