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PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

In the 2005/06 Volvo race sail longevity is a major factor. Only 24 sails are permitted during the 32,000 mile around the world event. This is a radical reduction from the previous Volvo Race 2001/2002, where each boat was allowed to use up to 38 sails. The latest requirements for the Volvo has therefore created new design and technology challenges for each of the teams, in creating sail inventory for the race.

Of the 24 (excluding storm sails which are unrestricted), a maximum of three can be mainsails, with a likely choice of one light and two ocean going. The sail limitation rule and how it is managed by each team is going to be critical deciding the overall race winner.

The rule allows each boat to have eleven sails on board for each leg, consisting of one mainsail, four jibs, two reaching headsails, two fractional spinnakers and two masthead spinnakers, plus storm sails which are not counted as part of the eleven sails.

To help balance the boat, any of the sails not in use can be stacked on the deck on the windward side. So when the boats began the first leg with 11 sails, they were basically halfway ino their sail allocation.

With the demand on long-life performance and reliability, the Volvo fleet has almost exclusively gone with North 3DL working sail inventories.

Kevlar instead of Carbon

With the Volvo rule restriction of not allowing carbon fibre in sails , we are using Kevlar Aramid. The use of carbon fibre in sails has been disallowed due to the inability of teh satellite tracking system to beam through the material.

With a majority of the overall points available from Rio De Janeiro to the finish, each team will be aiming to save sail slots to add light air sails after the Southern OCean legs are finished in Rio.

Design

Each sail is designed to have a wide wind range which is made tougher in the Volvo 70 due to the high speed of the boats and the large apparent wind speed changes.

Most of the boats' mainsail inventories are similar with mainsails featuring America's Cup style larges raoches, but with three reefs. The rule allows a maximmum of three mains for the entire race and in an ideal world, we would only use two, leaving a sail slot open for later stages of the race.

When designing each sailm the designer has to look at how much space each one has to fill on the sail chart and how it will overlap with other sails in the inventory. Other considerations are the waterline beam of the boat.

Sail cloth weight is always an issue, especially in spinnaker's fine enough to fly in light are and strong enough not to break in heavy air. With only two masthead spinnakers permitted, a damaged sail is very expensive in terms of lost ground and a possible lost sail slot. Damaged sails can be recut, but not in such a way that their area is increased. The VOR70 rule permits replacement of up to 20% of the cloth in a spinnaker repair it is deemed to be a new sail slot.

Spinnakers vary in weight from the lightest masthead 1.0oz nylon to 0.75oz spectra cloth for the smallest fractional spinnaker.

The four allowable jibs consist of maximum area jib (the J2), heavy weather, J4 jib, a blast reacher and one of the key sails, a genoa staysail. The genoa staysail ends up close in total sails hours to the mainsail.

The two allowable reachers with a maximum LP of 13m are big sails, around 190sqm in area. With several teams electing to optimise one for upwind sailing, leaving the second sail as conventional Jib Top of maximum LP.

The max LP reacher (upwind sail) has an upwind shape with four battens to suppport the roach and can be used at wind speeds up to 10 - 12 knots. Whilst it is difficult to tack a large genoa with battens around the mast and rigging, every team has overcome the difficulties with adjustments to batten location and layout.

Spinnaker Decisions

The two fractional spinnakers are the interest and difficult choices for each team to make and probably one of the key ones to the overallsail programme.

One of the big influences in deciding which way to go with the fractional options is whether you originaly measured with a spinnaker pole or not as some of the Volvo fleet do not use poles. This has a two fold advantage, it enables you to put he weight of the pole and the fittings into your keel bulb (bewteen 90kg and 120kg) and also makes for easier sail handling.

In the currnt seven boat fleet, Movistar, Brasil 1 and Ericsson measured with spinnaker poles. The positive side of having a pole is a wider range for the limited sail inventory. The decision to measure with or without a spinnaker pole has been a tough one for most teams, with the majority of the fleet opting for no pole.

The fractional sails are quite varied from boat to boat, from furling Code O type upwind sails, to heavy air reaching spinnakers with various constructions and cloths ranging from nylon to spectra to 3DL.