New Sotto Voce

A Judel/Vrolijk 72 designed to race under IMS, IRC as well as Caribbean handicap

One of the hot new boats currently taking part in the Giraglia Rolex Cup is the new Judel/Vrolijk designed Sotto Voce for Dutch owner Arien van Vemde. The new boat replaces van Vemde's previous boat, a Swan 60R now called Sotto Voce One and sold to fellow Dutchman Patrick van Heurck.

The new Sotto Voce won the first two days of inshore racing at the Giraglia with former Amer Sports One tactician Boewe Bekking calling the shots and other notables such as Britain's Ossie Stewart on main sheet and Jens Christensen of North Denmark on board.

The boat was recently finished at Cooksons in New Zealand and shipped to the Med. Her first race was at Porto Fino, where she was up against a similar fleet to the Giraglia Rolex Cup including all the local maxis and Wallys. "It was very windy but we were fourth and we missed a race because of a problem with one of the sails," Stewart said of the regatta. They then went on to Capri for the IMS Worlds, a rather different proposition where they found themselves up against many more smaller boats optimised specifically for IMS, such as IMS45s and 40s and one-off IMS 50s. "We were a bit less competitive there," commented Stewart.

One of the unique aspects of the new boat according to designer Peter Judel is that she has been designed so that she can race competitively under not only IMS, the favoured handicap system in the Med, but also IRC and the CSA system they use in the Caribbean. Their primary modes though are IMS and IRC and as a result they have two interchangable keels. "The whole thing is set up so we can change the keel in a day," explains Stewart. There are also slight differences to the sail wardrobe.

Stewart thinks that one of the reasons they have been doing well at the Giraglia Rolex Cup is because they are optimised for light conditions. "We exceed our polars and rating in the light stuff, which is why we are able to keep up with the maxis," he says. "But in the windy stuff the rating evens out a lot more against smaller boats."

Aside from having remarkably attractive line, the hull shape of the boat shows marked influence from the America's Cup - fairly slab-sided, relatively narrow and with short overhangs. Her three spreader carbon fibre mast is from Southern Spars and conventionally rigged with in-line spreaders, although a configuration with swept-back spreaders and non-overlapping headsails has also been considered.

On deck, there are few aspects that are particularly remarkable. She has a wide, shallow open ended cockpit as one would expect with a central mainsheet island. Her wheels are a long way forwards to concentrate weight in the centre of the boat as much as possible.

Most of the deck gear is by Harken, including some smart carbon winches, with the remaining by Fredericksen. Further America's Cup influence can be seen with the sheet leads for the jib which are hydraulically operated (for speed) to move the sheet athwartships or fore and aft.

Sotto Voce will continue on the Med circuit before going into IRC configuration in time for the Nioulargue in October.

See page two for Sotto Voce's vital statistics and more photos on page three