My ride on Zephyrus V

madforsailing spoke to watch leader Gordon Maguire about his ride during the Pacific Cup

The West Marine Pacific Cup which concluded last weekend saw a David v Goliath contest for line honours between Bob Miller's ketch Mari Cha III and the brand new maxi of Bob McNeil, Zephyrus V. Impressively the new Zephyrus, at a mere 86ft compared to the giant Mari Cha at 147ft, won the contest over the course between San Francisco and Hawaii.

However the outing was also significant for being the first real outing for an example of the new maxZ86 class of which Zephyrus V is the very first example.

Zephyrus V is a design by Reichel-Pugh, who aside from being the gentlemen behind Dennis Conner's new Stars & Stripes ACC boats (something of a mixed endorsement considering recent events) are rapidly getting to the stage where they are the firm of the moment when it comes to frighteningly quick offshore maxis.

Inspired by the west coast turbo sleds like Pyewacket and Zephyrus IV, the aim of the maxZ86 class is to create a boat without the constraints of class rules and so the rule allows huge stability, not only from their deep, heavy keels, but also from movable water ballast and all this combined with a sail plan bigger than an ACC boat. They are also around 10ft longer than the previous generation of west coast Turbo sleds - all told they are the embodiment of 'an exciting ride'.

So Zephyrus V is 86ft long and weighs just under 20 tons of which almost half is carried in the bulb and this is before the additional 5 tonnes of water ballast is brought into effect.

Irish offshore veteran Gordon Maguire was a watch leader on board McNeal's new boat for the Pacific and gave madfor sailing his verdict on what the new boat was like and how the Pacific Cup had gone. "It is massive. I think the design brief was that there should never any way to turbo it. In other words it is 'fully turboed' and to be honest it is. We were doing jib top reaching, double headed with jib top and staysail at 130degtrue in 23 knots of wind and doing 20 knots. And that was in flat water in San Francisco bay. The performance curve is absolutely breathtaking for a monohull.

"It is interesting - in a curious turn of fate, these incredibly expensive boats are actually cost conscious in that they've built the box rule around the size of boat where you are able to get off the self equipment and deck fittings without having to go custom which adds enormously to the cost of the build of the boat and the maintenance, the year in year out running of the boat. So you can buy them off the shelf now!"

Maguire recently stepped of News Corp having completed his fourth round the world race. Compared to the VO60 he said the new Zephyrus V is like a big brother. "It is exactly the same. We raced without water ballast, and so subsequently used a heavier bulb. The bulb was about 7000lb heavier. I've not been on board when they use water ballast and I've never sailed a sled, so I don't really have a comparison. But for me I was very impressed with how quick the boat reached, she was very stable and how powerful she was and not just as a downwind ULDB. Power reaching is something that Mari Cha does very well - and she'll be 147ft and we're 86ft - and we were probably going half a knot quicker taking on average about 10 miles a day out of her reaching and the same running."

On board they sailed with18 crew led by owner/skipper Bob McNeil and with Australia II legend John Bertrand as co-skipper. Bertrand and Maguire were watch leaders. Dee Smith was on tactics with Ian Moore navigating. Other Volvo stars on board included ASSA ABLOY crewmen Guillermo Altadill and Richard Mason. In addition thee was Larry Leonard of Quantum Sails, who was responsible for Zephyrus' sail wardrobe.

"I have to say the sails were fantastic," continued Maguire. "He [Leonard] built a really nice set of sails straight out of the mould. He'd done a lot of testing in the wind tunnel at the Maryland Institute, and it really paid off. A problem with these high speed modern boats is that the apparent wind angles are very shy, so even with your running spinnakers, your apparent wind is forward of 90 even with a 150 deg true wind. So they're actually reaching chutes."

During the race the entire fleet were becalmed for 12 hours during the first night... "and still only missed the course record by a couple hours which we would have shattered if we'd had wind all the way," says Maguire. "This boat is destined to break a lot of course records. The average wind speed for the race was about 15-20 knots, so medium air. But the boat really seemed to come into its own in the 20 knot bracket."

Aside from this the big incident, which one gets the impression they have been desperately trying to keep under wraps was when 'someone' [believed to be owner, Bob McNeal but Maguire won't confirm] fell overboard on the second night.

"It was on the second night out and 2am, during a spinnaker change, peeling spinnakers. He went over the side and was recovered safely 15 minutes later," says Maguire. In fact at the time they were carrying out a bare headed change and 'someone' went in as the old kite was coming down. "We took it down, got the foot under control, luffed the boat up and released the man overboard module (MOM). So we went for a crash stop basically, which in an 86 footer is quite impressive - there's a lot of noise! It is quite an exercise to get all the kit down on these boats."

They got the staysail down gybed round, dropped the mainsail and returned on a reciprocal course. Fortunately what could easily have been a disaster was all thanks to the man overboard module. Fortunately 'someone' had swum to the MOM which had a light on its top and on board Zephyrus the crew were easily able to see it in the dark. "The MOM worked perfectly" says Maguire. "He swan to the light. We were fortunate that the MOM deployed and it all worked. The person who went over the side didn't have a torch, so therefore location would have been very difficult without the man overboard module. It was a very dark, moonless night."

Despite the MOB incident and being becalmed they finished just over five hours ahead of Mari Cha.

Meanwhile SAP boss and Team New Zealand sponsor Dr Hasso Plattner has a new maxZ86 in build at McConaghys in Sydney, while Roy Disney has another, a new Pyewacket, under construction at Cooksons in New Zealand. An order for a fourth is believed to also be in the offing.

Maguire is part of the regular crew on Zephyrus V, but is also Farr 40 racing in Australia, where he now lives but will be returning to Europe for the Swan Worlds in the next few weeks to sail on the Swan 60 Sotto Voce for Australian Leslie Green.