Skandia officially launched

New partners come on board for Nick Moloney's Vendee campaign

Nick Moloney's revitalised Open 60, formerly Ellen's Kingfisher, was on the Thames yesterday to be rechristened Skandia in her new livery and sail through Tower Bridge.

Aside from the new colour scheme Offshore Challenges, who run Moloney's campaign for the Vendee Globe were also announcing three new partners in the project - the leading international fund management companies, Invesco Perpetual, Gartmore Investment Managers and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, who have signed up with Skandia to form what is now known as the Skandia MultiManager campaign.

Invesco Perpetual, Gartmore and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers are partners in Skandia's pioneering MultiManager investment programme that is celebrating its 20-year anniversary this year. The Open 60 will continue to be called Skandia but now also carries the colours of Invesco Perpetual, Gartmore and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. These companies will benefit from corporate hospitality and marketing opportunities through their distribution partnership with Skandia.

Aside from the new paintjob Moloney and his team have been busy over the last months giving the boat a complete work over.

The boat is now at maximum stability according to the IMOCA rules - which it wasn't for the Transat Jacques Vabre last year. This they have achieved by increasing the angle of keel swing.

Moloney, a sailmaker by profession, has also been trying out new higher aspect sails and changed the rig geometry on board. "We have halyard locks now which is a bit of a risk, so we might lose some of our past reliability but you’ve got to do something to stay with these guys [the new Open 60s], otherwise they’re just too quick." They have also moved the deck ram from the Solent stay to the genoa to provide more control over the mast.

Over the past seasons that Moloney has been sailing this boat he has been cataloguing the changes he would like to make to her. Down below it is now a very different beast.

"Before it had the discomfort of it being designed for a 5ft 2in tall chick," says Moloney in his best Australian. "We’ve done a heap of mods to the ergonomics of the boat. We have gone as Spartan as possible. We still have the mid-ballast tanks, but they are a performance element you live with. The nav station was never practical or comfortable. Now it is for me. The whole seat has gone, just the tanks are there."

The nav station is now up against the keel bulkhead (like the new Lombards) and the table has no 'V' shape in it. Instead of an athwartships bunk Moloney will now navigate and sleep in a reclining racing car seat that will tack. "And it is facing fore and aft," he adds. "I found pushing this boat I could never sleep athwartships. In Le Defi Atlantique I hit a big fish and the boat pulled up from 17 knots to about 7 knots and my face was on the nav station because I was lying across the boat. So I was quite paranoid to sleep there after that.."

While other boats have bucket seat arrangements on Skandia Moloney's seat is wider and has wings. "I can lay on my side without it forming to my body. We are doing a lot of studies and there is a degree where when you’re sitting up at a certain height you don’t fall deeply enough asleep to be recovering as you should be in a catnapping situation. So you need to lay down." From this position he is still able to see out on deck and up at the sails.

For a supposedly rough tough Aussie, Moloney is quite a sensitive soul and he has painted the interior so that the decor is no long bear-carbon black. "I want the boat to feel like it is lived in. Before she was black and gloomy. It is no secret I am a bit of a head case. Our nav station is this kacky yellowy mustard-type colour and that is because we did a study on mood colours and three parties came back with that colour given in mind that we’ll be in the Southern Ocean so long. We are trying to knock off the hills and fill in the valley with the moods..."

Aside from this Moloney has also allowed himself a proper drying locker for oilskins. Previously they would lie on the engine box and then end up getting soaked again in the bilge following a tack.

The cockpit layout has also changed with the addition of three speed winches. "You need to be furling in sails as fast as you can," says Moloney. "At the moment we just have one on the mainsheet. We have done a lot of work on cross-sheeting to the point that we have got the pedestal twisted and I am not facing forward I am facing downhill so I am using the gravity element from the heel of the boat to put more effort into the pedestal."

For the new sails they have had to relocate padeyes and like Mike Golding's Ecover he has changed over to athwartships headsail sheet tracks. "They allow us to reach harder. Why these boats have fore and aft sheeting tracks has always killed me."

In terms of the sail development Moloney says he wil be carrying some specialist sails rather than the general all-purpose wardrobe normally carried on shorthanded boats.

"We have done a few things which will be faster that will make my life a lot more difficult. I am going to be working pretty hard during sail sail changes. Our genoas are going to be like gennikers - lock, back, unfurl. So we have a bit more stuff going into the cockpit. And we have another system for dropping spinnakers because that was my real Achilles heel on the way back [in the Defi Atlantique]. I was hopeless sail handling downwind. And the Frogs were pushing and it was killing me because I wanted to be with them. At one point I had two badly furled gennikers on the foredeck and a spinnaker in the water. And you just can’t afford to do that. So I was scratching my head and I went on a research mission to find out how they do it."

Moloney says the solution is simply technique. The French sailors are applying many of the go-faster sail handling lessons they have developed in the Figaro class. Dropping kites for example: "They do a majority of it from the cockpit and they wind the snuffer down over the spinnaker. They get to 2/3s snuffed and then they blow the tack off and then wind the rest of the snuffer down on their pedestal to a padeye on the foredeck to windward. That gets all the foot out of the water and on to the foredeck and then you go forward to ease the halyard."

When at the mast Moloney has had a frame fitted, like a cruising boat, which he can hang on to. "The boys are giving me some lip about that being my Zimmer frame."

Skandia is due to set sail from London today bound for Plymouth with a quick stop in Cowes, for the start of the Transat. All the boats must be in Plymouth Yacht Haven by this Saturday.

More photos on page 2...