Neville Crichton

The Daily Sail talks with the owner of the 90ft maxi Alfa Romeo

Tomorrow will see a real treat in store for the Cowes Week competitors. Neville Crichton’s state--of-the-art 90ft maxi Alfa Romeo/ Shockwave will leave her visitors berth in Ocean Village and make her UK racing debut in the prestigious Britannia Cup.

For racing anoraks Alfa Romeo is heaven. She is an out-and-out racing boat with no pretensions of a cruising lifestyle. Her mast is taller than an America’s Cup rig, the asymmetric spinnaker pole sticks out 3m over the bow and 8.5 tonnes of water ballast can be pumped into the windward side in 20 seconds. Designed for line honours in the Sydney Hobart race, Alfa Romeo is set up to race under IRC.

The Daily Sail spoke to her Sydney-based owner Neville Crichton about the boat, her programme, and life as a maxi boat owner. As someone who has owned a succession of race boats, Crichton holds has some very interesting views and strong opinions.

The Daily Sail: So what is your schedule for the rest of the summer?

Neville Crichton: We’re doing the Britannia Cup and the New York Cup, then after the Fastnet we go to Sardinia.

TDS: Are you looking forward to the other maxi competition here?

NC: Yeah, very much so. It’s going to be good to race against Zephyrus and Canon ( Leopard), two very good competitors. Who knows - I’ll tell you how smart we are after the Fastnet! I think on paper Zephyrus is pretty close to us, and Canon we have had some great racing against them in Sydney. We beat her, but it was good racing. The guys on Enigma – it’s a much smaller boat – but they sail it really well and I think as a handicap thing it will be bloody competitive.

TDS: What is your view on Charles Dunstone’s move into big racing yachts with Enigma?

NC: They sail that boat very well and they are very competitive. I haven’t met him [Dunstone] so can’t really comment on what he’s doing or where he wants to go. There are now though several boats out there like Enigma that are on the market and that can be bought quite cheaply and it's good sailing. I’m not sure I would want to sail the boat in the Sydney to Hobart - I don’t think they’re designed for that.

TDS: Tell us how the programme has been going in Europe?

NC: Yeah, we’re pretty happy the way it’s gone, we knew that we wouldn’t be competitive under IMS because we can’t rate the boat under IMS. So we really came up with the intention of getting line honours everywhere we went and we have been able, with the exception of one race, to achieve that. We’re not prepared to go and modify the boat for IMS, I don’t want to go and slow the boat down and turn it into a pig.


Alfa Romeo racing in Porto Fino

TDS: Are you happy with the performance of the boat?

NC: Very happy, we have put a lot of work in but we learnt a lot from the first boat. I think the development learnt from the first boat and since this one has been in the water - it’s getting better and better. Before the Sydney Hobart, we were sailing the boat twice a week, every week. Once we won that the boat went straight to New Zealand, to do the Millennium Cup, where we won line honours. So it’s been good, it’s a good boat.

TDS: Alfa Romeo is water ballasted, what are you views on canting keels?

NC: What the canting keel boats will do I don’t know. There are some major questions to be asked over the safety of the canting keel boats and I am still not convinced that it’s the way to go personally.

TDS: Is that because of the forward rudder or the mechanics involved?

NC: No I think it’s because there is a very real chance of tipping the boat out. I am sure you can get the boat up, but in the meantime all your crew have gone under the water because you deck is over at 90 degrees. So that’s why I think there are some major safety issues. Wild Oats Chinese gybed twice during the Admirals Cup and on both occasions they had people in the water. Well I think that is a major safety issue.

TDS: Because you’re water ballasted you can dump that problem pretty quickly?

NC: We would never go that far over anyway, we only cant by nine degrees anyway. Nine degrees is nothing and we can sail the boat with full tanks to leeward without too much problem. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not going to tip you out. I think you are going to see a fatality with them [CBTF] and I think that’s going to wake a few people up.


TDS: What are your views on the current rating issues?

NC: I think it is a major problem. I think the rules are a mess, the sooner we can get all our designers together and agree upon a rule, then let us build to it. Right now I support IRC because it will rate everybody, and a reasonably fair rating for everybody. I think IMS is dead and buried - why the Italians are persisting with it I really don’t know.

Even the stupid CYCA have gone and adopted it for the Sydney to Hobart race for the overall handicap winner, which just doesn’t make sense. It is just ridiculous. They were influenced by one particular sailing committee member and I guess he got his way. We planned to go back and sail the Sydney Hobart again this year, but we’re not, we can’t even sail in our own race.

TDS: What IMS maxis are there?

NC: There aren’t, there hasn’t been an IMS maxi built for ten years.

TDS: So did the CYC come and ask you, as a prominent maxi boat owner?

NC: No, I was against them on the rating limit [for the last race under IRC] and I am against them on IMS and have lost both cases. I tried to protect a local Sydney guy, George Snow with Brindabella, which is a ten year old boat which is now a dog, it’s now outdated and that’s happened and we can’t do anything about it.

But I don’t know the answer, I really don’t. I would like to see a box rule say for 90 foot boats. So you say that’s it, overall length, draft, sail area, weight restriction, and then the designers can go and build whatever you want.

TDS: What is your view on what the other owners think of this?

NC: There have been a lot of owners sitting, waiting. I went ahead and built two boats, and I have sort of pushed IRC because at least it gives you the base of a handicap, and I think it does a bloody good job. It’s not a grand prix rule and we all acknowledge that, but what is a grand prix rule unless you go Farr 40 sailing. Maybe we should all go Farr 40 sailing, but there are people who want to sail maxi boats and break records and I am one of them. But I would like to have other boats of similar size to race against.

We don’t want to get to the stage where I build a 90, someone goes and builds a 95, then someone else a 98 - where does it stop?

TDS: If you had your box rule, where would the maxi vlass be in five years time?

NC: I could quite easily see ten boats. With Hasso Plattner and Roy Disney trying to get the maxZ86 off the ground, but it isn’t happening - they have just done two boats. I think the public are a little nervous because they have seen what Roy Disney has done with the Transpac, where when he gets beaten he changes the rule so he can build a new boat. I mean ten years ago you could buy a Transpac boat for $350,000 which would be competitive, now your looking at $5m for a boat that could win it.

So once again, that maxZ86 rule is quite complicated, and can be quite restricting.

TDS: Do you have a maxi owners association anymore?

NC: No, not at all any more. The Italians have got the Maxi Worlds, but really it’s a joke. We want to go and race in the Worlds. We have the most modern and technologically advanced Maxi in the world and we can’t because they are running it under IMS with a rating - speed limit on it. It’s ridiculous, so again a ten year old boat will win the regatta, which is not progress.

Right now there are about five maxis around the 90 foot mark, which we could form a rule around to accommodate them all, we could include the maxZ86s if they wanted to play, then we would have seven or eight really good boats, which would all be very different.

TDS: What’s the future now for Alfa Romeo?

NC: Well the boat is for sale after the Fastnet. I had the opportunity of selling it before the race but I didn’t want to. So it’s for sale now and if we don’t sell it we’ll campaign it for next season - probably leave it here in Europe and campaign here again. I have enjoyed the European summer, but it has been expensive, flying people up [from Australia and New Zealand] for every regatta, we would have to have a look at how we do that again. Qantas have been very good with us in this area.




So it looks like a little bit of chicken and egg. Where the future of a maxi boat rule lies is anyone’s guess. Surely this must be driven by the owners and supported by the key designers and the events where these boats will race.

What would be an important first step is to get all the owners together and to get them talking to each other about how to progress. If you come out of that with some common ground then it could be the start of a long period of dramatic and stunning group of boats that have some great inclusive racing together.