First of the new crop

We have a look around the new VO70 Ericsson 3 and speak to her designer Juan Kouyoumdjian

Aside from this year's Volvo Ocean Race taking a new course up through India and Asia, one of the interesting aspects of the race will be having the wider variety of designers involved than we have seen at any time in the race's recent history.

Since the Ericsson Racing Team arranged an exclusive deal with Juan Kouyoumdjian, designer of Mike Sanderson's winning ABN AMRO One from the last race, so the Spanish Alicante team have come up with a similar arrangement with the normally prolific Farr office. This has left other teams scratching their heads as to who to get to design their boats. Judel-Vrolijk were to have penned Peter de Ridder's now defunct Mean Machine VO70 and have chosen not to work with an 11th hour campaign. In the States Ken Read's Puma team have chosen Botin & Carkeek, a company not known for their offshore race boats, while in Ireland the Green Team have gone back to Reichel Pugh who penned Eamon Conneely's Patches TP 52s and who are well known for having created the majority of the 90-100ft offshore maxi boats of the last decade. Meanwhile Andreas Hanakamp's Russian team have chosen Humphreys Yacht Design.
Last week in Barcelona the first of these new generation boats was launched for the 2008-9 Volvo Ocean Race. Designed by Juan K and his team in Valencia, the new Ericsson 3 is a clear development of ABN AMRO One with her heavily chined, powerful hull shape.

An oddity about this boat is that Juan K worked on the development of the boat at a time when Ericsson had the Volvo Ocean Race's 2001-2 winning skipper John Kostecki running their campaign. Kostecki has since departed the team to join Russell Coutts at BMW Oracle Racing and has been replaced by former Brasil 1 skipper and Brazilian Olympic sailing legend, Torben Grael.

Grael admitted to us that Ericsson 3 was pretty much a done deal when he signed up with the team in October. However he, as well as the other key crewmembers, notably Brad Jackson, Mike Sanderson's number two on ABN AMRO One, have had considerable input on Ericsson 4 that is currently under construction up in Stockholm and due for launch in June.

Grael had been close to find money for his own campaign in Brazil once again, but says that the time was not good to try and find money in his own country. "We had the Pan-American Games in Brazil and now we haver the socvcer world championship going there and a little bit of turbulence in the economy worldwide. So it was not the best time. And our main sponsor last time, Vivo, was also going for some changes and it was not a perfect time for them. So all those things put together made it hard for us."

Another attraction to joining the team is that at present it looks to be clear favourite having been first out of the blocks with the winning designer and builder (Killian Bushe) from last time. "We had a very good experience with Brasil 1 last time and I had an opportunity to join a well-prepared proper campaign this time, so I thought it was a good opportunity and it is. It is not any guarantee it is going to go our way, but if you do things in the proper way the chances of things working out are bigger, and that’s why we all try to prepare in advance and test and do all this stuff, because your chances of doing well are better," Grael told us.

The Ericsson Racing Team is once again being run by Richard Brisius and Johan Salen's company Atlant, based in Sweden - and yes, popular race veteran Magnus Olssen, is once again involved... However since the autumn the team have set up their training base in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. This is a perfect location for training, the crew able to leave the harbour and head straight out into oceanic conditions. As Kiwi man mountain Stu Bannatyne told us: "It's nicely set up with a sail loft and a workshop. It is pretty much what we’re going to have in the stopovers. It is a fantastic training base. You can leave the harbour, hoist the sails and be sailing in 5 minutes from leaving the dock. It has a great climate there and great breeze. We’ve seen a great variety of breeze, so we can achieve a lot."

The plan is to stay in Lanzarote training until such time as the boats have to be in Alicante for the start build-up. However it is possible that Ericsson 3 may also head north up to Sweden and carry out her qualifer for the Volvo Ocean Race sailing back to Lanzarote with Ericsson 4, giving them a greater opportunity to do some more two-boating.

And interesting aspect of the Ericsson sailing team is that they include members from all the competitive boats from the last race. The crew line-up is:

Torben Grael, skipper, 47, Brazil ( Brasil 1)
Jules Salter, navigator, 39, UK ( Pirates of the Caribbean)
Brad Jackson, watch captain, 39, NZ ( ABN AMRO One, Tyco, Merit Cup, New Zealand Endeavour)
Stu Bannatyne, watch captain, 36, NZ ( movistar, illbruck, Silk Cut, New Zealand Endeavour)
Horacio Carabelli, crew, 40, Brazil ( Brasil 1)
Dave Endean, crew, 29, NZ ( ABN AMRO One, Tyco)
Ryan Godfrey, crew, Australian, 28
Phil Jameson, bowman, NZ, 30
Richard Mason, crew, NZ ( Ericsson Racing Team, Assa Abloy)
Tony Mutter, crew, 39, NZ ( ABN AMRO One, Swedish Match)
Joao Signorini, crew, 31, Brazil ( Brasil 1)

(So, not entirely Kiwi and with Godrey and Dave Endean fulfilling the two mandatory under 30 spots on board. The team's 'media person' has yet to be filled.)

Obviously Grael sailed a Farr boat in the last race (which has since been acquired by Bouwe Bekking's Alicante team and had a new stern and twin rudders fitted) and says that Ericsson 3 (as well as Ericsson 2, the former ABN AMRO One they have also been using for testing) is a much more powerful boat than Brasil 1. Faster everywhere or just reaching? "Not everywhere. The Brasil 1 boat was pretty good in light air. Now we have big Code 0s for light air which makes it even better for this kind of boat because for those big sails you need stability as well."

Since the last race, the Volvo Open 70 rule has been amended, the principle changes being:

- max weight of keel fin and bulb - 7.4 tonnes
- overall weight range reduced to 13.86-14 tonnes (was 12.5-14)
- all spinnakers can be furled and one masthead spinnaker added to the inventory
- appendage configurations limited to twin daggerboards and one or two rudders
- spinnaker poles banned
- no titanium keel rams

(to read the full extent of the revisions - click here)

While Ericsson 3 has obviously been built to the new rule, Grael says that they haven't updated Ericsson 2 (although they will certainly have been trying out masthead code zeros on her). For sail development the team are working with Steve Calder who was with Pirates in the last race, with North Sweden building the sails.

According to Juan K the program with Ericsson has been quite similar to that of ABN AMRO. The first boat was designed rapidly with the build starting in March 2007, in order to enable the team to get out on the water testing at the earliest convenience. "The priority of that boat was to make an evolution but in a very short amount of time."

Ericsson 4 started building before the third boat was complete so, as was the case of the crossover between the ABN AMRO boats, there wasn't the opportunity to gain data on Ericsson 3 in the water prior to construction of the final boat. While it has yet to be formally spelled out, Ericsson 4 will almost certainly be sailed by Ericsson's 'international crew', while their 'Scandinavian' crew led by Anders Lewander will be aboard Ericsson 3. However Juan K and his team did have around two months more time to carry out R&D work into the new boat compared to last time. This, plus the input from Torben Grael and the sailing team, means that the evolution between the third and fourth boats is expected to be greater than between ABN AMRO One and Ericsson 3.

So what's different with the new boat compared to ABN AMRO One?

Her chines appear to have a more accentuated angle at the transom and extend further forward along the topsides.The transom also seems to be more elevated from the water.

Juan K says that part of this is natural evolution, but it is also down to the new course for the Volvo Ocean Race. Compared to last time the yachts are expected to encounter more light winds as well as more upwind work. As the race is much longer crews can expect to see a wider range of wind conditions and as a result this has affected the volume distribution along the length of the hull as well as the size and positioning of the appendages.

While the twin assymetric boards on board Ericsson 3 appear to be similar in length to ABN AMRO One, their positioning is noticably further inboard and they are less toed out. These changes, Juan K says, should improve their effectiveness upwind. Their profile seems to be the same as with ABN AMRO One.

The new masthead sail allowed also has had an effect on hull shape, says Juan K: "They have a direct input on how the boat sails in the lighter airs, therefore how much you can push the volume distribution. At the same time it requires the boats to be balanced in a very specific way."

Less obvious is that the beam of Ericsson 3 is the maximum permissible of 5.7m, whereas we understand that it wasn't quite with the black boat. So despite the lighter weather expected on the new course the hull is more powerful. This is due to the ever lower wind speeds the new generation boats will be fully powered up in given their new-found ability to fly masthead Code Zeros. It is expected that this time all the new boats will be at maximum beam and at maximum overall weight and keel/bulb weight.

The rule about the maximum keel/bulb weight was introduced to prevent teams pairing more and more weight from the internal structure of their boats in order to slap it on the bulb. However while this rule was well intentioned, it may have had the effect of replacing one problem with another - if the weight of the bulb and foil is limited then the onus is on designers to remove as much weight as possible from the foil to put into the bulb - not the smartest of moves by the rule makers.

While the substantial twin hydraulics rams used to crank across the top of the canting keel must now be made in stainless steel rather than costly but lighter weight titanium, Juan K says that they have been able to make up for the difference in weight. The figures may have come down a bit since the last race - when stainless steel rams each weighed around 140kg, around twice the weight of titanium ones (see our interview with Central Coast Hydraulics' Greg Waters here). Having saved what presumably is more than 140kg "elsewhere" as Juan puts it, the designer confirms that despite being within the 7.4 tonnes limit Ericsson 3 still has a bigger bulb than ABN AMRO One.

The canting keel rams and hydraulics have been provied by leading Italian manufacturer Cariboni. In terms of the canting mechanism, Farr's highly dubious 'bomb bay doors' around the keel foil's pivot point, as featured on their designs in the last race, have been prohibited this time and one imagines that most teams will have their pivot point for the canting keel within a hollow in the hull. Above this on board Ericsson 3, Juan K says they have improved the canting mechanism, specifically in terms of the way they connect the individual components. "Fundamentally it is the same thing, but we've added more flexibility to the whole system. All the different components of the system are free to self align individually, so they don’t friction against each other, and don’t over stress against each other. They are all free to move and accommodate themselves of course within some tolerance."

In terms of design methodology Juan K says that they were able to draw heavily on the CFD 'tools' they created for the last race and develop them further with the added bonus of real data from the ABN AMRO boats themselves. Getting the contract to be principle designer for Team Origin, his design company has invested heavily in a new 'computer cluster' that is capable of churning through much more CFD simulation. Thus he says they ran three models in the tank early on to further verify their 'tool' but have since then relied solely on their increasing powerful CFD capability in developing the new designs.

Aside from that, Juan K confirms what Patrick Shaugnessy at Farr Yacht Design told us recently that when it comes to canting keel, multiple appendage boats, tank testing only has limited use. "It is very difficult to go to the tank with Volvo 70s. It is not an easy task to deal with daggerboards and dual rudders and canting keels in the tank. I think for this type of boat we are better off within a CFD simulation."

In terms of any particular areas of develop Juan says that they looked at everything, but especially focussed on the balance of the boat and the relationship between boat and sails, as well as the sails themselves. "Everything has been improved, but the relationship between the sails and the hydro is of key importance and we have improved a lot the way to deal with both."

For the engineering of the last race winner Juan K brought in Will Brook and Herve DeVaux to work on the black boat. This time though they have used Andrea Ivaldi, who Juan K worked at during his time at Prada and who is now on the Team Origin payroll.

On ABN AMRO One one of the 'secrets' of the boat was a fake bulkhead around a quarter of the way in from the transom, there as a sop to the rule. This time Juan K says the structure is quite different. "As far as I understand from the guys in Lanzarote, they are all very happy with it. They feel safer in the new boat than in the old one - put it that way!" The comment from the crew to us on this subject was that the boat felt stiffer than when ABN AMRO One was new. Sadly only team members are allowed down below at present.

Aside from the course going to India and Asia, another difference with the latest Volvo Ocean Race is that it is way, way longer going up from 31,000 miles in 2005-6 to more than 40,000 this time, including the race's longest ever leg from Qingdao, China across the Pacific, round Cape Horn and up to Rio.

So will the boats have to be more robust in terms of their engineering this time because of the longer course? Juan K says they have indeed made their boats more robust, but not because of the race's duration. "I think the peaks that break boats are still there in the race. In fact I would argue that the peaks are more intense in this race than in the last one. Boats of the last race, would have a tougher time in the next than in the previous one because the new route, particularly the leg that goes from Singapore up to Qingdao, between China and Taiwan it is very tricky there. You can get a horrible swell. It is not the weather that breaks these boats it is the swell."

For the boy racers, the speed of the new Volvo Open 70s will of course be higher than the previous generation, but this will most obviously be the case in sub-10 knot winds when the new masthead canvas comes into play. Aside from this Juan K says it is down to refinement. "If you just put the same rig and sails as you had last time they’d still be considerably faster boats. So it is that there is a brand new rule and we are into the third generation. E4 will be the fourth generation. Every generation you make the boats faster."

We look forward to seeing the other offerings out there in due course...

More detailed photos of the new Ericsson on the following pages...
Compare this with Mark Christensen's video guided tour to ABN AMRO One ( part one and part two )