It almost sounds like a joke: the two monster multihulls Alinghi 5 and BMW Oracle 90 are currently the greatest thing under sail. But they can only do it in coffee winds. Wind force 4 is the limit, which is exactly when sailing really starts to get fun.
There is, of course, an explanation for this: both boats are more advanced than anything that has gone before. They are wide, they are light, they have gigantic sail areas. They are thoroughbred racers. But this has its price in reduced versatility. "At around 8 knots of wind, the windward hull lifts off," Alinghi's design coordinator Rolf Vrolijk told YACHT. "At this moment, the boat has maximum stability." In other words: this is when it is at its fastest. And fast means significantly more than 20 knots on the cross, and more than 30 knots on the beam reach, which means the crew is exposed to an apparent wind of around 40 knots, sometimes even more. On the Beaufort scale, that's wind force 8.
In addition, the venue has not yet been finalised. Although the invitation to tender states Valencia and February because the New York court had ruled so, Alinghi's latest appeal means that the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah is hypothetically still in the running. And very light winds usually prevail there in February.
Challenger BMW Oracle launched its monster trimaran more than a year ago, when the venue was still being kept secret by defender Alinghi. Since then, however, the boat has been radically modified for light winds. The 57 metre high wing mast is just one facet of this. "When we started, we had to design a boat for a wide range of conditions," BMW Oracle design coordinator Ian Burns told YACHT. "Theoretically, Alinghi could have chosen Cape Horn as the venue."
The question to both teams was whether the boats could also compete in more wind, and what would that look like? Vrolijk: "You can always sail. You just have to ask what regatta sailing is supposed to be: Sailing fast or surviving? Both boats were already travelling at 20 knots, but at the moment the upper limit is 15 to 16 knots, above that you have to depower. But if you cut off the mast and halve the sail area, you could go faster."
In plain language: these two boats are gigantic, and also gigantically fast. And hellishly high-bred.
