Friday, November 27, 2009

A longer bowsprit for Alinghi 5

[Source: Alinghi] After a few long days and late nights for the shore crew and some of the sailors and designers Alinghi 5, the Defender’s giant catamaran, emerged from the boat shed at the team base in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, on Friday. If you look closely you’ll see the difference!

And in case you can’t spot the modifications, Alinghi.com catches up with Grant Simmer, Alinghi design team coordinator:

What’s been happening in the shed over the last few days?
Grant Simmer: Since we started sailing in Ras Al Khaimah six weeks ago we have been out on the water almost every day and subsequently developed a long job list of things to develop and things to do. These last few days the shore team and sailors have been working really hard on getting those jobs done. The big ticket item was replacing the forward spine; we now have a longer forward spine tube, with all the rigging associated to that. Fitting the new spine and making sure that the rigging is tensioned correctly is a big part of the job which is happening today. The spine took approximately 4,000 man-hours to build in Villeneuve, Switzerland, and arrived in Ras Al Khaimah last weekend. The boat came out of the shed this morning and we are doing some structural checks before sailing again on the weekend.

Alinghi 5 with the new, longer bowsprit. Ras Al-Khaimah, 26 November 2009. Photo copyright Javier Salinas / Alinghi

What affect will this longer bowsprit have on Alinghi 5’s performance?
Grant Simmer: The longer bowsprit gives us the opportunity to add more sail area and change the balance of the boat downwind. It won't have any affect on the upwind sailing; only on the downwind performance of the boat.

How – logistically – does a development step like this come about?
Grant Simmer: All these projects start off with the sailors and designers defining the development areas; then it goes to the engineers to design the components; then it goes to the shore team and boat builders base in Villeneuve, Switzerland, where they manufacture the part and finally it comes here under the supervision of people like Tim Gurr who runs the shore crew here in Ras Al Khaimah. Once it arrived at the base, Piet van Nieuwenhuijzen, the boat captain, organised the installation, always under the watchful eyes of the engineers who make sure that everything goes together properly so that we can get out sailing safely over the weekend!

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10 Comments:

At 2:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So that's the secret weapon? A longer bowsprit? I somehow expected something more radical...

 
At 2:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, it is not a longer bowsprit, ....it is the shorter hulls!

 
At 2:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

....It is not a longer bowsprit, .....it is the shorter hulls!!!

 
At 2:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seems alinghi is running out of ideas, if i look at BOR.

 
At 3:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@2:43PM It's enough innovation to sail sucessfully agains broken-mastet BOR!

 
At 4:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

to 3:40 PM anon

but is it enough to beat the wing???

 
At 4:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No one said it was a secret weapon, the boat is fast enough as it is.............. Now faster downwind.

 
At 6:19 PM, Blogger Norby said...

as the bard from stratford-upon-avon would say "too much ado about nothing". all this fuzz because of a longer prod? tsk, tsk, tsk.

 
At 7:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a secret only for a longer bowsprit? There must be omething else....................

What is under these plasticbags on the foto?

 
At 8:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

...and uglier upwind and downwind too

 

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