Rivals’ grizzles boost N.Z. yachting hopes

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 33

Rivals’ grizzles boost N.Z. yachting hopes

By

PHILIP WORTHINGTON

Desperate to nullify the proven superiority of New Zealand’s maxi ketches, opponents in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race have prevailed upon race organisers to inflict eleventhhour requirements on rigging that has been quite acceptable until now. The natural justice of these manoeuverings is that the disgruntled rivals have removed a potential chink in the Kiwi armour, increasing the prospect of New Zealand domination of the race.

New Zealand’s entries, Steinlager 11, skippered by Peter Blake, and Fisher and Paykel New Zealand, under the control of Grant Dalton, are both ketch rigged; that is they have two masts, the smaller one aft. The general preference of the rest of the fleet has been a sloop rig; that is a single mast. In the past, sloops have dominated round-the-world races, much as they have come to dominate most classes of yacht

racing. The distinction can be made that a sloop rig, with only one stick and web of rigging in the air, presents less windage when going to windward — the most difficult requirement of a windpowered vessel and the one point of sailing, all other things being equal, where the greatest gains in time and distance can be made. A ketch rig, on the other hand, pays the penalty of an extra mast to windward, but has the advantage off the wind of being able to spread more sail. In the trade-off to date, sloops have had the upper hand over ketches.

Two things have changed. One is the course for the Whitbread this year. Political considerations have prevented Capetown being a port of call. The new course, by way of South America and a long loop under the Cape of Good Hope, has increased dramatically the amount of off-wind sailing to the benefit of the ketches. The second difference is the Kiwi ketches

themselves: they have raised the science of two-masted design in a quantum leap above what has gone before. Partly because of the established advantage of sloops over ketches, most design of racing yachts in the last 20 years has concentrated on sloops. This left a void which the expatriate Kiwi, Bruce Farr, was quick to exploit in his creations for Blake and Dalton. It also has to be said that Blake and Dalton were prepared to take the gamble — for gamble it certainly was — and build ketches. After all, Farr has half a dozen other designs, all sloops, in this race; sloop-rigged because the owners-syndicates wanted them that way.

The ketches are all that was expected of them. In the recent trans-Atlantic race and in the Fastnet, the performance of the Kiwi ketches was such as to throw fear into the rest of the Whitbread fleet. If those performances had been dismal, nothing would have been heard about staying requirements of the mizzen

masts. Because those performances were nothing short of electric, adversaries had to find something to niggle at, and the obvious edge was the second mast. Hence the nitpicking. It is likely to rebound. Back in March, having sailed a couple of hundred miles on Steinlager II on its proving trials, I wrote in "The Press” that the “mizzen mast which is the ketch’s advantage, however, might also be a weakness: it whips and pumps dramatically and the system of checkstays leaves no room for error

... some of the standing rigging is due to be beefed up anyway ... to finish first, one must first finish ... the chief task now is to make sure that it will all hang together for the world’s longest, toughest yacht race.” The checkstay system has gone at the insistence of opponents. The permanent forestays now fitted at the insistence of the competition will eliminate the whipping and reduce the pumping. In their panic to find an answer to the Kiwi ketches, rivals have made it a little more certain that Steinlager II and Fisher and Paykel New Zealand will hang together for the world’s longest, toughest yacht race.