Alfa Romeo's designer speaks

Jim Pugh compares Rolex Fastnet Race leaders Alfa Romeo and Zephyrus V

An instrumental figure when it comes to boats at the top end of the Rolex Fastnet Race is Jim Pugh, one half of the yacht design house Reichel-Pugh. The San Diego-based design team have not only been responsible for Alfa Romeo, but also the maxZ86 Zephyrus V currently lying second on the water, Charles Dunstone's Nokia - Connecting People and Mike Slade's Leopard - in fact the boats most likely to be the top four finishers.

"We are pretty excited here about the Fastnet, it's definitely one of my favorites," Pugh told The Daily Sail. "It's too bad Bols didn't show up..."

Zephyrus V and Alfa Romeo are similar in concept, says Pugh, in terms of displacement: length ratio and sail area: wetted surface area, although Alfa Romeo has a 4ft length advantage being 90ft compared to Zephyrus V's 86ft.

"Both boats I am sure have excellent crews," says Pugh. "The Alfa Romeo crew has more time in the boat and Neville is pretty fanatical about preparation which as you know is key to any race. The impact of this may be somewhat negated by the light air."

Both boats have fractional rigs with non overlapping jibs. Pugh thinks Zephyrus V may be carrying her Code 0 straight luff masthead genoa which would put her rating up above Alfa Romeo's. Alfa Romeo's TCC is 1.664 compared to Zephyrus' 1.693. "If she got a chance to use it close hauled reaching in under 8 knots she would be very fast. Alfa Romeo carries an IRC Code O measured spinnaker which they can carry up to 80deg TWA in under 7.5 knots."

However Pugh says these boats really come into there own in real breeze and sea and if anything they are biased away from light air. However in the light one difference may be that Alfa Romeo has no exposed propulsion drive whereas Zephyrus V has a sail drive. "In light air in particular an exposed drive is significant drag."

Alfa Romeo has a trim tab which Pugh adds can be very effective versus the tab-less Zephyrus V.

"We are glad they are in England competing in the Fastnet," concludes Pugh. "Thank heavens there is a format (rule) under which these boats can participate in classic offshore races. If there was only the IMS Rule with it's school zone speed limits, these high performance offshore racing boats would never get built.