Victory Challenge has been allocated sailnumber SWE-96 for its new boat

[Source: Victory Challenge] Victory Challenge today announced that the team has been allocated sail number 96 for new boat that is being built for the 32nd America’s Cup. SWE-96 has been designed by Mani Frers and his father, German Frers, and their team at the design office in Milan. The boat is being built at Lindholmen Science Park in Göteborg, under the management of Killian Bushe, boatbuilding manager for the winning boats in the two last Volvo Ocean Races.

The announcement was made at a press breakfast with Magnus Holmberg, skipper and helmsman, and with Mani Frers and Killian Bushe, at the Nordic Sea Hotel in Stockholm today.

SWE-96 is the 14th sail number that has been allocated to boats participating in the 32nd America’s Cup. The sail number is allocated after the building of the actual hull has begun. This means that the process of making the boat ready for next year’s races in Valencia has come a long way.

Construction is taking place in Victory Challenge’s boatbuilding yard at the Lindholmen Science Park in Hisingen, Göteborg, in a cluster of high tech and development-intensive companies which have grown up in an area that was previously part of the city’s mighty shipbuilding industry.

There is really no shipbuilding activity remaining, instead there are companies like Volvo Cars, Volvo Technology, Ericsson, IBM, Semcon and WM-data Caran, as well as Göteborg University, Chalmers University of Technology and the joint IT University.

It is difficult to think of a more suitable place for the building of a boat for sailing’s Formula 1, in an area with its roots in the shipbuilding industry but which is today characterised by innovation and optimism.

At his disposal he has a newly-built 40 metre-long oven, which is an important part of building a carbon fibre composite boat. This is not the only new thing; the entire construction process has changed since Örn (SWE-63) and (SWE-73) Orm were created for the America’s Cup in Auckland, 2002-2003.

Last time, in the same boatyard, Victory Challenge used a male mould. Then the boat was built on a wooden plug, which was somewhat smaller than the actual boat to get the right size. It was quicker, but also required more finishing work with filler which, in turn, made the hull heavier.

This time a female mould was used. Therefore a wooden plug was built first, exactly according to Mani Frers’ drawing of the boat. A carbon fibre mould was laminated on to it, which was then hardened in the oven, just like when the actual boat is made.

The boat, with one layer of carbon fibre, one layer with a honeycomb of kevlar, and another layer of carbon fibre, is built inside the mould.

It is that part of the process that is now taking place.

There are many advantages to this more time-consuming process of building an America’s Cup boat. One obvious one is saving weight. A lot less filler is needed – and simply that reduces the weight of the boat by more than 100 kilos.

Then remember that the hull of a 24-metre-long America’s Cup boat that is built on a male mould weighs about 800 kilos.

Using a female mould means that more than an additional 100 kilos can be moved down to the bulb, which increases the boat’s speed.

The total weight may still not exceed 24 tons.

At present Victory Challenge has 25 people on the boatbuilding team in Göteborg, with 14 different nationalities represented.

That they are part of the team is also about innovation and development.

Boatbuilding manager, Killian Bushe, is uncompromising in order to achieve the best possible result. He also built the winning boat for ABN AMRO for the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006, and for Illbruck for the round the world sailing in 2001-2002.