Mike Golding Yacht Racing

60-foot monohulls are among the fastest modern racing monohulls. Built using composite materials, they are designed to be as light as possible whilst at the same time being solid enough to withstand the worst conditions you can find when racing on the open oceans.

Mike Golding’s Owen Clark/Clay Oliver designed Open 60 (formerly Ecover 3) underwent major optimisation work at Green Marine in the UK. Mike talked us through the modifications:

“Gamesa has a brand new rig which has been designed and built by Future Fibres in Spain. We have a long relationship with the company and with the very experienced and talented David Barnaby who is there. We have finally moved away from the wing rig type of configuration. On paper the reliability of the classic rig is better. We are utilising a continuously wound carbon rigging system which means this rig does not have as many terminations as a conventional classic rig. And the rig is lighter. Because of the way the IMOCA rule is configured now, boats which are choosing to use a wing rig are choosing to take a bigger risk, because their masts have to be built with a lower factor of safety. We feel that we will have a rig with a higher factor of safety with the goal of finishing races.

“The boat is substantially modified. We have simplified the cockpit to reduce weight, making it more dedicated towards solo sailing, and we have this new coachroof style and I have abandoned steering wheels and gone for twin tillers. That’s a big change for me. I always preferred looking forwards and not sailing twisted for hours. But the new coachroof offers much, much more protection and the tillers mean I can steer with the canopy covering me with forward vision through the ‘eye’ window. The coachroof shape is unique and has already been compared to a komodo dragon, or a frog. I prefer to align myself with the ferocity of a komodo dragon!

“The mainsheet track is moved forward so the whole working cockpit is more compact and more protected.  We have done away with the aft pedestal grinder, dieting from seven winches to three and from two pedestals to one. That’s a very significant weight saving but it was at times pretty tight for Bruno Dubois (my co-skipper on the Transat Jacques Vabre) and I working twos up!

“All of this working area looks exactly as we would have designed it if we had started from scratch with a design more dedicated to solo sailing.”

The Designers:

Owen Clarke Design (OCD) LLP is recognised as being at the leading edge of high performance yacht design.  OCD is known particularly as a pioneer in the field of canting and lifting/canting keels for racing and cruising boats. Their design portfolio spans yachts from the 6.5m Mini Transat class to the 32m superyacht Paragon and includes their sixth Open 60 – ECOVER III. 
www.owenclarkedesign.com

Clay Oliver. A principal designer for Team New Zealand since 1995 and an active member of the sailing team, Clay Oliver has been involved in six America’s Cups, including four winners. Recent design projects include record-setting Mari-Cha IV, and some new generation high-performance swing keel yachts, including the 100ft sloop Maximus. He is a graduate naval architect from the US Naval Academy.

The Builders

Hakes Marine Construction: Led by boat builder Paul Hakes, Hakes Marine, Wellington is purposely set up for the production of composite racing yachts. The team at Hakes has been involved with a series of world class yachts including the build of the 30 metre maxi racing yacht Zana and two America’s Cup syndicates – Prada, Italy and Le Defi France during the Louis Vuitton Cup 2003.

Hakes is the class manufacturer for the new Yachting New Zealand one-design keel boat – the Z39 and recently completed two Transpac 52 – state of the art racing machines including the highly successful Mean Machine. www.hakesmarine.co.nz

Designers: Owen Clarke Design LLP / Clay Oliver

Composite Engineering: Gurit / SP Technologies Ltd

Build Project Manager: Owen Clarke Design LLP

Operational Project Manager: Joff Brown

Builder: Hakes Marine Construction, Wellington, NZ

Construction: Pre-preg carbon/honeycomb sandwich

Daggerboards: Twin asymmetric daggerboards

Steering: Twin wheels, vectran lines to carbon quadrants and twin pilots systems

Rudders: Two prepreg carbon rudders, conventional fixed system

Bowsprit: Fixed prepreg carbon max rule 1.82 metres bowsprit

Keel: Carbon fin and lead bulb with hydraulic canting system

Water ballast: 10 tanks each with a capacity of 0.8t

Mast:  Classic rig by Future Fibres

Rigging: Carbon by Future Fibres

Sails: Carbon/Spectra 3DI by North Sails, France

LOA (Length overall): 20.1 metres

LWL (Length along the waterline): 18.26 metres

Beam: 5.8 metres

Draft: 4.5 metres

Displacement: 8.0 t

Mast Height from deck: <27.3 metres

Sail area upwind: 300 sq metres

Sail area downwind: 580 sq metres