IRCing TP52s

We look at how the former Patches 1 and 2 have been converted to become Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge and Rán

If there is such a thing as ‘good value’ in these circles, about as close to it as you can come in big boat racing at the moment is acquiring a secondhand TP52 from the Audi MedCup circuit.

Several canny owners have been quick to jump on this bandwagon - Benny Kelly was the first, buying the early Farr design Beau Geste (one of the few Transpac 52s to have actually sailed in the Transpac - in 2003 with original owner Karl Kwok). Kelly’s Panthera was the recent winner of Stanford Antigua Sailing Week. Another early adopter was top Irish owner Colm Barrington who added to his impressive collection of racing yachts with Michael Illbruck’s second generation MedCup boat Pinta, now called Flash Glove.

Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone has been wooed back into yacht racing, originally buying the TP52 built by Richie Faulkner for the first MedCup season (although it never made it out of the UK) and naming it Red. In March this year Red was passed on to the John Merricks Trust and it is now being sailed by a youth team from the Volvo RYA Keelboat Program. For this year Dunstone has replaced Red with Rio, the Judel-Vrolijk designed Stay Calm that Stuart Robinson campaigned during his second season on the MedCup circuit.

Robinson himself bowed out of the MedCup circuit last year, but has hung on to his original Farr-designed Stay Calm (that he campaigned in 2006) and intends to campaign this in the UK this year - in addition to the Swan 70 he sails in the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

But probably the heaviest hitter to join the exclusive UK TP52 club this season is Swede Niklas Zennstrom, one of the co-founders of Skype who has acquired Eamon Conneely’s former Patches 2 and renamed it Rán, after the sea goddess from Norse mythology who tried to capture men who ventured out to sea. Tim Powell is running the Rán team with an all-star cast including navigator Steve Hayles, tactician Jeremy Robinson, Lou Varney on main, Andy Heming and Jerry Eplett trimming headsails and kites, Jonathan Taylor, Mo Gray, Willy Beavis and Freddie Shanks.



So why do they represent such good value for money? Once they have become uncompetitive under the TP52 rule racing in the Audi MedCup boats typically drop in value by about 50%. If a new TP52 costs around 1.5 million Euros to build, good boats are on the market for around 750,000 Euros, but can be acquired for considerably less than this ( Cristabella for example is on the market for 500,000 Euros). With this a buyer gets not only the boat but a container full of sails and gear...

Rán’s boat captain David Lindsay explains: “You have running costs, but then if it is a 52 or a 55 or a 60 your running costs are going to be the same. If you buy a boat, it will come with oodles of sails because that is what they do on the TP circuit - change sails at each regatta.” When they bought her, Rán came with around 30 sails. “We haven’t changed any sails yet, but we have our own sail development program, so we are always taking the older sails and tweaking them slightly.”

Once a boat has been acquired few major changes need to be made to alter them for IRC - surprising given that the TP52s race in the Audi MedCup under a tight box rule originating from the IMS.

In IRCing TP52s, they are in effect being heavily turboed. To rate as TP52s the boats typically carry around 500-800kg of internal lead ballast. IRC is believed to hate this, so this is removed and extra weight added to the bulb. So immediately the boat is lighter and very much more stable. While the upwind sail area remains similar to the TP52 configuration, downwind it is very much enlarged through the addition of a bowsprit and converting to an A-sail set-up. Thus spinnaker poles and associated tackle such as pivoting jockey poles are removed, further saving weight, but also lowering their rating.



Bowsprit arrangement on Rán

“Under IRC to go to an A sail configuration and dropping the pole out completely I think it is something like 10 or 12 points,” says Lindsay of the IRC advantage had from going down this path. “It makes the boats easier to sail, although you have to sail hotter angles. When you look at the bowman now, it looks like they have a nice little job! Before it was hard work.”

According to Tom Wilson, boat captain on Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge, going down the A sail-only route also tidies up the deck layout considerably. “All the stuff you wouldn’t use under IRC - like code zero tracks and all the jockey pole fittings – have been taken off, making the boat a lot more simple. You really do only have two kite sheets and two jibs sheets as your main controls. Obviously all the tweaky bits, the jib cunninghams are still on there but the deck layout is very very simple, making the boats easier to sail.”

The main area teams have been experimenting with is how large to go with kites and how much heavier with the bulb. For example Flash Glove is believed to have recently been modified into a heavier mode with more lead added to her bulb and large downwind sail area. Tom Wilson describes what they have learned from their campaign: “Having bigger kites means that we can’t sail the boat at such hot angles, so maybe we wouldn’t be optimising the hull speed as much as we could be. Having smaller kites means you have sail it higher and a bit faster. So smaller kites are coming back into favour again.”

Lindsay reckons that earlier TPs can be a better bet for IRCing as with newer boats the structure has been pared down to the minimum and therefore they can’t take a massive increase in bulb weight without more structure being added. Thus for example Flash Glove has substantially more lead on its keel than newer 2007 generation boats such as Rán or Rio. However a downside of older boats is that they generally lack beam and hull form stability compared to newer examples.



Unique among the IRCed TP52 crop is Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge, the former Reichel Pugh-designed Patches 1, which is the only TP52 to have been originally conceived with IRC as well as the TP52 rule in mind. “Although they had problems with the structure, but it has been designed to go offshore, to do the Fastnet and things like that with it,” says Tom Wilson.

Following on from their Mills 36 and Farr 45 Cutting Edges, Yorkshire-based owners Rob Luterner and Martin Elwood acquired Patches 1 over the winter and have since had it converted. Wilson reckons around 500kg of internal ballast was removed, a portion of which was popped on the bulb. A bowsprit of around 1.85m was added and the A sails enlarged by 30sqm. The result is a lot faster, particularly downwind, however David Lindsay reckons Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge have been going extremely well upwind too. An obvious point perhaps, but the TP52s originally designed to race in the Transpac, such as Pantera, are inevitably better downwind than the MedCup boats.

Another advantage of Patches 1 having slightly more offshore capability is that she is more watertight, for Rán certainly isn’t, as Lindsay explains. “A lot of control lines run into the bow and after a nice windy Solent day, it is amazing where the water gets. But the through-hull fittings are much better, so the trimmers tell me. We have bilge pumps fitted but we are looking at some of the water proofing issues, because they are very wet boats down below. If we are going to go offshore there would be a lot of things that we’d have to change.” Lindsay will have his work cut out, for the Rán program this year may include the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Not only is Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge better set-up for less ‘Mediterranean’ conditions, when her new owners acquired her she came with a lot of offshore kit, such as a liferaft, pipecots, that normally wouldn’t be on a MedCup TP52 inventory.

Neither Rán nor Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge have had to make changes to their rig configuration aside from the spinnaker mods. On Rán they have put two tack lines on just in case they need to peel. However Charles Dunstone’s Rio have gone a step further and added a flat-top main.

While Rán has a full-on team of rock stars on board, Henri Lloyd Cutting Edge is more pro-am. David Lindsay warns that the boats can be a handful for amateur crews. “They are cranky boats to sail. They have small rudders. I don’t think anyone is changing their rudders for IRC but then obviously the pros like the smaller rudders and it makes the boats go faster. You have to change gears very quickly so obviously the trimming team and the helmsman really have be on the ball. It is amazing how quickly it has to be done. The boat speed can change by two knots in seconds.”

Another difference between racing in the MedCup and under IRC is in the number of crew. Under IRC TP52s boats can typically take around 18 crew who’s weight is not restricted, whereas crews typically are around 15-16 strong with an all-up weight of 1273kg.

While sadly the IRCed TP52s are too big to compete in the Rolex Commodores’ Cup, they are developing their own circuit which kicks off tomorrow with the Vice Admiral’s Cup and follows two weeks later with the RORC's IRC Nationals. Most will probably compete in the Round the Island Race, but the biggest events of the year for these boats will be Cork Week and Skandia Cowes Week where as many as eight boats will be racing – not the 20+ fleet of the MedCup, but certainly a highly respectible number for these shores.

Whether the TP52s will win overall under IRC remains to be seen. Typically the Farr 52s have always done well, one theory being that IRC likes this particular size of boat. David Lindsay reckons the new IRCed-TP52s will do well either in light or heavy conditions. Tom Wilson believes the newer boats will have a little more pace than the older ones and the newer boats will be faster in the light. But, hell, maybe it will just come down to how well they are sailed?

It is great to see such a collection of boats in UK waters with owners getting good value from their yachting. Several crew on these boats sails on the Audi MedCup and one wonders if tales of their blasting around the Solent on turbo-charged TP52s will have any effect on the class down there.

More photos of Ran on the following page...