Fresh pastures

Alex Bennett discusses his Class 40 campaign

Following Phil Sharp's superb win in last year's Route du Rhum, so another wave of UK sailors are joining what is the fastest growing keel boat class around at the moment: the Class 40.

Owen Clarke seem to be the designers of choice for UK Class 40 campaigns. Following on from Jonathan Crinion's Friends of the Earth and Ian Munslow's Bollands Mill (sadly this property developer sponsor has pulled the plug and the boat has been sold to the US) so Miranda Merron and Fidessa Fastwave co-owner Peter Harding have the third boat to come from this run out of the South African yard, Jaz Marine. Meanwhile in Cowes six of the Owen Clarke-designed Express 40s are on order including one going to Plymouth-based sailor Stuart Dodd who will race her in this year's Azores and Back Race.

Last but not least - yet another Owen Clarke design is currently under construction just outside of Totnes in darkest Devon for Alex Bennett. 30 years old, Bennett seems to have been around the shorthanded offshore sailing scene forever. He finished a creditable fifth in the Mini Transat in 1999. He was one of Pete Goss' elite on board the maxi-cat Team Philips for its short life and won his class in the Transat Jacques Vabre in 2001 in Goss' Open 50. Bennett embarked on another campaign for the 2005 Mini Transat but was put out of the vital running to get qualified when his yacht was dismasted. Now Bennett like so many others, is turning his hand to the new game in offshore racing.





"Class 40 is an interesting concept," Bennett says. "It has given a lot of people an opportunity to compete at a top level in events like the Route du Rhum an the TJV and because of that the fleet is already massive and it is only going to get bigger. So that was a major magnet for me getting into the class. The utopia for everyone like myself, we all want top class racing in big fleets." He cites the Open 50 class which is all but dead, Open 60s which are also going supernova, but require giant sponsorship, while he has already ticked the Mini box. "The Figaro is great as well, but for me the Class 40 was the obvious choice. You are going to have great racing. It is affordable to put a campaign together."

Bennett reckons that to be on the start line with a potentially race winning boat costs in the order of £200,000 and requires a budget of up to £50,000 to cover annual running costs. He points out that these days you don't get much change out of £100,000 for a fully tricked up Mini.

As we speak the final inner layer of laminate is being applied to the hull of his latest Fujifilm, built in a new barn using female moulds. Leading the build team is Martin Boulter who has worked on various Volvo Ocean Race and Prada AC boats during his time at Green Marine. Female moulds have been built anticipating the extraordinary demand for these boats. Hi-tech construction in carbon, aramid or with honeycomb is banned from the Class 40 (read more about the Class 40 here) so the new Fujifilm is being built in SP’s Ampreg 22 with Corecell foam.

Like the Jaz Marine boats, Bennett's Class 40 is a full-on uncompromised racing machine. To the untrained eye, the new Fujifilm will look very similar to Ian Munslow's boat (read about that boat here), but there are a few differences. The most noticable will be the bowsprit. On Bollands Mill this was fixed but oddly this has now been banned by the class - something which will result in pretty much all existing Class 40s having to make modifications for this year's season.

"The Bollands' set-up is the ideal scenario - a fixed bowsprit, as long as the rule allows, (2m) and it is a structural part of the boat," explains Bennett. "So you can put a lot of load on the code sails with that." The new rule is similar to that of the Mini where almost all boats fitted with these ungainly stayed poles that pivot back inside the perimeter of the deck when not in use. The pole set-up on the new Fujifilm has yet to be finalised.

Downstairs Fujifilm will differ to Munslow's boat. There will be better facility to stack and the chart table has been moved aft from the main bulkhead to the bottom of the companionway, largely due to Bennett's poor eyesight. "I need to be able to look down the hatch and see what’s going on at the chart table so it can’t be too far forward," he says.

The rig will also be different. The mast on Bolland's Mill was from Southern Spars and had a spindly section and was the only Class 40 in the Route du Rhum with three sets of spreaders. The new Fujifilm is likely to have a two spreader rig from a French manufacturer.

Fujifilm is due to be launched in June and Bennett will then work her up ready for her first event - the Transat Jacques Vabre in November where a humungous line-up of Class 40s is expected. There is a possibility of competing in the Rolex Fastnet Race but this will depend very much on how quickly the boat comes together. After his Mini experience Bennett is understandably cautious.

"RORC has allowed a section in there for the class and it could end up being a really good event as it finishes on my doorstep," says Bennett who since his Team Philips days has lived in Torquay "But I don’t want to give us too much of a nightmare work-up period. At the end of the day we are on a tight time frame and I’d rather just get the boat in the water, and work the boat up to race-ready mode, rather than worrying about doing a race that at this stage isn’t our main focus."

After hopefully doing a Phil Sharp in the TJV, Bennett will compete in the full Class 40 season in 2008. This may include The Transat unless OC Group decide they can't accept Class 40s in which case it is likely the Class 40 Association will organise their own transatlantic race. Then in 2009 there is the OSTAR, another event Bennett is very keen to do.

Also special about Bennett's Class 40 campaign is its funding. The boat is sponsored - as his last Mini was - by Fujifilm Graphic Systems in the UK, a subsiduary of Fujifilm global. "This sponsorship has progressed through an association over the last few years with the Mini campaign. We have corporate commitments and such like so we will be at Cowes Week fulfilling those requirements, maybe not racing, but zooming about and enjoying the atmosphere. They are going through a global change of their brand image, tweaking the Fuji brand. They see this as just one thing to get that brand change out there in the public eye."

"I just want to get back out on the water and get sailing," Bennett concludes. Don't we all.