Up at the pointy ends

Former Groupama crewman Jan Dekker discusses the bowman's role on Alinghi 5

When word came through from the New York Supreme Court that the 33rd America’s Cup would be a Deed of Gift affair in multihulls, the only person with experience of the French ORMA trimaran circuit on the Alinghi sailing team was their French/South African bowman, Jan Dekker.

While prior to his joining Alinghi in 2006, Dekker was best known for his three fully crewed round the world laps of the planet on the Volvo Ocean Race with Silk Cut, Tyco and ultimately winning in 2005-6 with Mike Sanderson aboard ABN AMRO One, from the late 1990s Dekker was a regular on the French 60ft trimaran circuit racing with the likes of Marc Guillemot on Biscuits la Trinitaine, with Fred le Peutrec on Bayer CropSciences and eventually with Franck Cammas on Groupama 2.

Understandably Dekker has remained on with Alinghi where he continues to share bow duties on board with Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen and mid-bowman Curtis Blewett.



The bowman’s job on board Alinghi 5 is quite different to that on the previous Version 5 monohulls. In comparision for example there are very few sails on board - possibly as little as four come race day. This is for reasons of weight, but also because sail changes and moving sails around is agonisingly slow simply due to their sheer size. "That is good, but that is the way it is on a fairly short race - two hours on a multihull - you definitely don’t want to be changing sails," says Dekker. "You may have to do one or two - but preferably none. If you could go around the course with the same sails the whole way round there are definitely big gains to be had.”

The question comes down to one of maths: Will being downspeed for a few minutes, as a sail change is made, lose more ground ultimately than continuing on the wrong sails at less efficiency. It should be born in mind that the AC33 multihulls are apparent wind machines par excellence and even on the downwind legs the AWA will be way forward.

"In certain wind speed it can be done," says Dekker of the possibility of going around the race track without making sail changes. "The difference in boat speed when you are sailing at 100% or 80% on a normal AC monohull is probably a knot if that. On a boat like this it is more like 8 knots. So 8 knots for two minutes is a lot of distance lost. So if you can sail at 100% all the time - even if the 100% might not be 100% of the boat’s potential, it might be a bit of a compromise but it still ends up better."

Push button sailing has also affected the bowman’s job to some degree, although the sails still go up and down just as they did before. "The main difference is that a lot of my mates aren’t here any more, which is a shame," says Dekker. Thanks to the hydraulic winch package, the team has shed the four or five grinders from their sailing team but with them the considerable weight of four pedestals in each hull.

In addition to moving sails around and loading up Alinghi 5’s giant headsails, Dekker’s job also involves scaling the giant spar.

"We like to check - we do a lot of that," says Dekker of ascending the rig. "We quite often go up just to check. It is better to do that than finding out later when its too late. And its not too bad in RAK because the sea is flat, so it is not too bad here. The sea is flat, it is not uncomfortable to go up, but I’m sure it will be in Valencia. Hopefully by then we will have done all our checking..."

Beyond his bowman’s responsibilities, Dekker is also on Alinghi’s rigging team so how the carbon rods performance is also his concern. While sailing on Alinghi 5, it is not only the leeward rigging that goes slack, but also some of the rigging beneath the beams. "That is all normal. It is quite complicated - you really have to understand how it all works. When the traveller goes a long way out then certain things start loading up when they weren’t ten seconds earlier. So things change and you have to keep in mind how it all works. But it is interesting and so far so good."

As mentioned previously, to prevent breakage Alinghi 5 is an ultimate exercise in sailing by numbers. Dekker says that this was the case with the last America’s Cup too, only on the big cat it has been taken to a whole new level. The boat is fitted with more than 100 fibre optic sensors - all continuously monitored while sailing. "It is really well monitored and we have a guy on a computer that keeps an eye on all these loads at all times. So it is actually fascinating and it is working well. At any time we know exactly how much load there is on any piece."

While in the past this has been something of a guide, now it is essential to how the boat is sailed and Dekker says they completely trust it. "We cross checked it with load cells in the early days. You have to back yourself. You can’t design something and build it and not believe it is right. You have to believe in it."

So how does Alinghi 5 compare with the other big multihulls Dekker has sailed on? "It is an inshore and also I would say a light air sort of boat. It never feels very fast, but then again it performs really well in terms of VMG angles and VMG boat speed. And it goes upwind really well. It is high performance, but maybe [in terms of] ultimate speed and ultimate excitement, it is not as fast and as fun as the big offshore trimarans but it is not designed for the same thing. Still it is quite impressive how good the numbers are upwind and downwind. The excitement is more looking at the numbers or afterwards when you do the testing."

So while hitting 40 knots on a maxi-multihull like Groupama 3 or Banque Populaire V offshore in 35 knots might be the ultimate in sailing scariness, on Alinghi 5 it is a difference sort of experience, says Dekker. "You can definitely feel the boat loading up, more so on this boat because it is such a web of rigging [beneath cross and fore and aft beams as well as aloft] and all that loads up. On a normal boat where there is a hull, it is all panel structure and you don’t get a feel for how much it is loaded. You look at a panel when it is loaded or unloaded you don’t really see the difference. When it is all made of rigging, even though it is all carbon you can definitely feel that things are loading up. It does get your attention and you do get concerned, especially when it gets windy - which for us is 15,16, 17 knots."