Banking on winning

madforsailing has a crawl around Graham Dalton's Kingfisher development Hexagon and talks to designer Merf Owen

Right: The daggerboard can be trimmed giving it asymmetric properties

The boat has a single symmetric daggerboard midships in front of the mast rather the twin interchangable asymmetric board arrangement on Kingfisher. "One of the things we haven't been able to do in our development program so far is prove or disprove the relative merits of single daggerboards over twin daggerboards," says Owen.

"We do know that twin daggerboards are quicker upwind, but it is heavier and when you test the boat under the Open 60 rule you have to have those daggerboards in the worst position. So that means you have to carry more weight on the bulb. So it is double edged sword." Perhaps it is also relevant that Michel Desjoyeaux's PRB, the boat which won the Vendee only had a single board (as well as a rather talented skipper). Owen also says that having twin boards is also the cost of an Open 60 mainsail more expensive than a single daggerboard set up - an interesting performance toss up.

Owen also points out that Kingfisher was optimised for the run up the Atlantic back to France and doing without a daggerboard for that stretch of water was inconceivable, hence she was fitted with twin daggerboards that were interchangable. This was fortunate as Kingfisher did suffer a collision and Ellen went through one of the greatest struggles in the race to swap the boards over (we won't forget those particular tears in a hurry).

"In Around Alone you can take a calculated risk," explains Owen. "If he [Graham Dalton] breaks the daggerboard before Cape Horn, he will be stopping in Salvador where he can change it".

Hexagon's single board can be trimmed to give it assymetric properties, says Owen. "You can alter its angle of attack. The idea is to optimise the lift to drag of the underwater sections of the boat." The single daggerboard is larger and gives the same balance as Kingfisher gets with her smaller twin smaller boards and gives the same amount of lift, although he admits it is less efficient because it is on the centreline and therefore its root is closer to the surface of the water. "She should go upwind at least as well as Kingfisher".

Her twin rudders are identical to Kingfisher's, but no call has been made yet on what system they will have for an emergency rudder system.

One of the most fundamental differences the new boat has not just with Kingfisher but other Open 60s as well, is her cockpit. This is much larger and more open and, significantly has twin wheels rather the normal Open 60 arrangement where the tillers are attached directly to the top of the rudder stock.

The result is a hybrid between the deep, small, fully enclosed cockpits normally found on Open 60s and the trench cockpit of a VO60 or a conventional fully crewed race boat. However it could be argued that for a singlehander it is more dangerous as there is a larger space to fall around in. However Owen has strong views on this: "The trench cockpit, the twin wheels and the lower coachroof is a statement by us of where we view Open 60s being in two or four years time".

Continued on page 4...

Twin wheels and a low cabintop