Latest hardware

We have a crawl around Geoff Ross' new Reichel Pugh 55 Yendys

As mentioned Yendys has a fixed bowsprit, but the ability to use a pole if required (there is the necessary room around the pulpit). Two tacklines head out to the end of the sprit via two tubes. "We have it set up with the Talaskas that have got the in-built firing device similar to what the VO70s have got, with a built-in martin breaker," our guide tells us.

The green lines are used as a trip so the bowman never has to go out to the end of the prod to fire off the spinnaker. The kites are set up from the bow. "You can gybe or do whatever you like and when you want to drop the spinnaker you just ease the tack up and it just fires itself. It does work. Last week had 30 knots of breeze and were doing 25 knots down the run and at the time we had to drop the chute - and off it went."

The red line is for the Code 0 that is flown from just in front of the forestay - none of the sails are furling. This is on a 2:1, the downhaul running back along the cockpit to another 2:1 at the front end of the cabin.

All the headsails are on Southern Spars locks - they have two masthead locks and two for the jibs. Thus there is a hydraulic ram for the jib Cunningham working through an A-frame and the ram is mounted in a covered deck trench running fore and aft up the middle of the foredeck, as we have seen with several of the TP 52s. Also in this trench is a ram handling the jib lead up and down on both sides.

The mast is obviously carbon fibre and made by Southern Spars. The section is the same of Southern's new TP 52 one but Yendys are the first to try it with three spreaders. "Tor the Hobart and offshore you really need the three spreaders to try and lock the whole thing in going upwind," says Ratty.