Ken Read interview - part 2

Today the Stars & Stripes helm recounts the story of USA-77 sinking, AC sail developments and North Sails' role

"JB Braun is a smart dude. He's doing an awesome job for us on the design side. He's kind of a scientist who has a practical sailor's mind, who happens to be an Olympic class sailor. He's designing us some great sails and that carbon 3DL stuff has never been better and it lasts incredibly long and we're very fortunate that our sail program is up to where we had hoped."
Black 3DL is still the material of choice once again but Read says that developments are being made in the thread layouts within these hi-tech moulded sails. "The shaping of the sail, is being shaped by the direction of the thread layouts very much now. And you can get sails to adapt to a so much wider wind range with the correct thread layout versus just throwing some threads on there to structurally not have the sail break. It is phenomenal. So I think that is where the 3DL process will take a huge step forward this time."

They have also been experimenting with different types of carbon fibre within the sails, although one gets the impression you'd have to be waving around a $1 million+ sail development contract before you'd find out more on this matter.

Impressively North Sails are making sails for all the challenger syndicates as well as Team New Zealand. To make this possible no design data is kept strictly confidential within the respective team and there is no central North Sails master database storing all the millions of dollars worth of R&D. Read cannot stress enough how important this confidentiality is.

While all of the teams have their own designers and work with different lofts and designers within the North Sails group, the only place where this all comes together is at the North Sails 3DL factory in Nevada. "They're really really really really careful at 3DL," says Read. "Everything is separated. The processors who process the sails - everything is separated through them. The moulds on the floors - moulds are not allowed to be seen by anyone there from any other program. If there is something that North Sails is serious about it is keeping everything separate and every team have their own sail designers, so the sail designs can obviously never be got at. If there is anything that North Sails are paranoid about, it is keeping everything separate."

With sail development programmes of the major campaigns now well beyond the 100 sails-million dollar mark for each campaign, the America's Cup is a huge business for Mr Whidden and his no.2.

As to Team Dennis Conner's prospects for the forthcoming Cup if there is one campaign likely to toss one of the 'big 4' out of the semi-finals, it will be they.