Banking on winning

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

Down below the boat feels - well, unbearably claustrophobic was our initial impression, not helped by the black carbon fibre interior and kevlar inside of the coachroof.

The 'saloon' area is dominated by the normal Open 60-style navigatorium, with a V-shaped seat/berth (to be on the level on both tacks) and an array of electronics that would not look out of place on the space shuttle. All is based around a built-in computer - from the performance instruments, to radio, satcoms, autopilot controls, barometer, active radar reflector controls, etc etc. There is a small sink and cooker on the forward side of the cockpit bulkhead. We liked the giant carbon fibre tube that surrounds the chart table area and acts as a handhold.

Aft of the chart table area is a narrow trench where you can stand up - Dalton senior is not a small bloke and all this will be a bit of a squeeze. There are pipecots to port and starboard and forward of this are shelves with deep fiddles to take Curver boxes for stores and spares. Immediately forward of the chart table is a water ballast tank and the giant hydraulic keel canting mechanism, enclosed between the main bulkhead and a half bulkhead aft. Forward of the main bulkhead is...a big black empty space.

So lots of lovely new technology, a boat that is probably the fastest Open 60 in the class at the moment and, significantly, the only new boat built to date since the last Vendee Globe. But is it a race winner?

"Certainly when you get out on the race course, perhaps not on the Atlantic, but certainly around the world - design is not going to win you the race. Bad design can lose you a race, but a couple of bad gybes, some crap maintenance by the shore crew, some poor interpretation of the weather by the skipper, all the design gains you make in the world can go up in smoke. Before a major race most of the talk in the bar is how heavy your boat is and who made your sails, but at the end of the race it is all about the bad gybe they made or the piece of kit they broke. It is the whole package that is the important thing which is why Kingfisher is so good."

Still sailing a lighter, more powerful Turbo-ed version of one of the most successful Open 60s ever built, can only be a reassuring feeling for her newbie solo sailing skipper.