Helicoptered from his old boat in the Middle Sea Race, in October 2007, Stephen Ainsworth will have his new Loki launched on December 10th and will be lining up for the 2008 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race.
Loki - it was blowing a wee bit - Marcus Jones
Sail-world talked at length to Stephen this week about the old and new boat. He began in the Mediterranean. 'We were in the Middle Sea Race - there was a strong Mistral blowing - which is a cold, northerly wind. Probably averaging 35 knots - it was pretty solid - three, maybe four metre seas.
'We were flying along hot in pursuit of Rambler. They'd run into trouble; they'd had their hatch blown off and all sorts of things, as we found out later, which is why we were catching them. They're quite a bigger boat. We had double reef and a number six up and we were feeling comfortable. We had been in a lot worse weather than that on the east coast of Sydney in the Southport race, so no problem at all, then bang, we lost steerage and we thought we'd snapped the cable.'
'Cameron Miles, who was steering, jumped to the other wheel. It felt the same. He looked behind him and went 'oh no, there goes the rudder.' It bobbed up to the surface.
'So we rounded it up, got all the sails down and thought what do we do here - we were about 15 miles off the Sicilian coast with the Mistral blowing us straight on to the Sicilian coast, dead lee shore - is try to get a tow in, But it was to no avail. We had radio communication problems, our Sicilian was not very good. It happened late afternoon - this race is held late October, so in the northern hemisphere it gets dark fairly early - within a couple of hours it was getting dark and the Mistral was building - we couldn't seem to find a way out of it, and the shore was getting closer and closer.
'Eventually we accepted the offer to get helicoptered out courtesy of the Italian air force. We had to jump into life rafts. There were 16 guys on board and the chopper could only take eight at a time. It was all done under control, because no one jumped into a raft until the chopper was there.Then we set ourselves loose - one by one we had to jump out of the raft and be winched up by the diver.
'Looking back, it was pretty well handled by everybody, because everybody had done the survival at sea course. I heard later that the air force was pretty impressed with how we did it, because they had no problems at all. The survival training has been a massive step forward. I've done it twice now, so being in a life raft at night, although a lot worse than being in the Qantas pool, it's not a totally unfamiliar situation.
'We all got off that night by 11.30. The next morning we were preparing a police report By that time the police had a report saying that a boat had been sighted in trouble off the coast a few miles from us. They said it could be our boat because the last guys off had thrown an anchor over in the hope that it held - and it had.
'So Cameron and I jumped into a cab with a couple of salvage guys - and there it was, about a kilometre off the coast outside the line of breakers. I put the salvage guys in touch with the insurance company. They then dropped us back at the hotel and said we have to see the coast guard to get permission to go out (because the port was closed).
'The previous night, a tug boat did come out, but they had to turn back - they'd closed the whole coast, so no boats were allowed out.
'There was a long disagreement between the salvage guys and the insurance company about the price - so while they were arguing, the anchor dragged or the line broke - we're not sure - and by that afternoon, Loki was on the beach getting pounded. I'm sure you've seen the 'you tube' video of the locals jumping onboard once they got a line on it.That was that afternoon.
'It all happened very quickly, because we didn't know where it was until the next morning A couple of guys jumped on board and said "its been stripped bare, its been ratted. The boat was a right-off.
'That was 22nd, 23rd of October 2007, so it's just over a year ago - we've been running pretty hard to get a boat designed and built.
'The new Loki is a Reichel Pugh 63.
'Limit's very similar from everything I've heard and seen - same size, they were designed at much the same time. They're custom boats, so I'd imagine the deck layout and the interior layout have some differences. But the hull form and the appendages are reflecting the current Reichel-Pugh; state of the art.
'The boat's being built in McConaghy's Mona Vale. I wanted it built in Australia. I wanted to support Australian boat builders.
'It's a fast tracked project It's a lot easier to manage it when it's in your home town - I'm going up there once a week.
'The last Loki - the 60 footer -had more cruising amenities in it. I had the idea that I might use it for some cruising and I was just about to do that when it got wrecked.
'This time I thought what the hell and it was a compromise. I've come round to thinking that compromises usually don't work and I was better off having a racing boat and having a cruising boat, keeping the two separate. So I ordered a Palm Beach 50 powerboat from Mark Richards, which is being launched today. I've gone for another quality Australian product. ' 'So the new Loki is very much a race boat. She has a very long bowsprit that's going to make it interesting on the start line. It'll take a bit of getting used to. The bowman isn't on the bow; he has to judge it himself. It's a fixed bowsprit, same as Limit.
'
McConaghy Boats in Mona Vale, Australia - building the Reichel-Pugh 63 Loki - McConaghy Yachts
The IRC rule is not penalising bowsprits rated slightly lower than a pole, however, the trend seems to be to make them a bit longer to project that spinnaker out a bit further. It seems to be worth whatever penalty is applied to do that.
'We have a brand new boat that is likely to have its keel on and be on the water on the December 10th, so just two weeks before the race.
'So we don't have a lot of time to play around with our sails. We have a Southern Spar Rig and full North Sails where all the design elements are integrated. In past years we just could not have had the boat ready.
'Now the key thing is that the mast and sail design are integrated so you don't have any problems matching you luff curve of mainsail; it should fit perfectly.
'We'll have to hit the ground running, but with things like that the keel should go on as it's been dry fitted already so that shouldn't pose any problems. The mast should drop straight in and the sails should fit straight on. The tuning should be 90% almost straight away.
'The experience that the people have had with these Southern rigs and North sail combinations - the last one was Wild Oats XI - they had a rush job. They had to get a brand new mast after they lost it in Sardinia. Ian Smith was organising that and he said it was fantastic the way it dropped straight into the boat and the sails fitted. They were 90% plus with their rig tune within a day or two and they went on to take Hobart line honours.
'David Samson (a.k.a.Hightower), has been managing the new Loki project with the assistance of Cameron. We had Ian Smith doing the mast and the keel separately. The fin is from Italy - it's a fabricated fin - and the bulb, a big torpedo bulb, we're getting made locally. The deck hardware's Harken and we have a Lewmar winch package. O Electrics have supplied the electronics. It's B & G for wind instruments - haven't gone overboard with electronics - trying to keep it to what we really need.
'Over the last year we've lost a couple of guys to other programs. However, you'll see if you look at the crew list that the majority of them are from the previous crew.
'So in a year we've gone from a 60 to a 63 We are expecting it to be faster - it's three feet longer, it's got a bigger sail area and it weighs a tonne and a half less.
McConaghy Boats in Mona Vale, Australia - building the Reichel-Pugh 63 Loki - McConaghy Yachts Click Here to view large photo
'There's less stuff on board, but I haven't gone lighter on the engineering of it. The clear instructions were that the boat was designed and built to go to Hobart and get there in one piece - it's not a regatta boat, it's an ocean racing boat. McConaghy's have got a great record building racing boats. I think they're one of the best boat builders in the world of this type. They've been leaders in that field for quite a few years.
'And Reichel-Pugh continues to deliver the goods. Jim Pugh's the interface, John Reichel draws the lines of the hull, and Mark Roberts has done a lot of the rest. They have their own in house engineers. Normally in the past SP have engineered the boat or High Modulus.
'We are looking forward to the Hobart race. This year all these fronts seem to be coming through pretty regularly, so if that pattern persists you won't have a scenario like last year where it was pretty much a run the whole way. Instead it will be a more typical Hobart where we're going to get pasted with one front, no matter how fast the boats are; that's what it looks like.
'There's not many Hobart's where you don't get belted once. You need a boat that's good upwind and downwind in IRC, and this is an IRC design. Generally they're good, seaworthy boats and good all round boats.
'In order to get some racing time in the boat what we hope to be able to do is go out and do the big boat race - that'll be the first time we've sailed it in the race. We'd like to do a couple of the races in the Rolex trophy. We can't do the whole series, that's too much time, but to be able to line up against other boats and check to see if we have speed, if our height's okay - you can't do that unless you're racing other boats.
'We will have another 63 footer, Limit to measure ourself against.
'It's a bit like Alfa Romeo and Wild Oats - two very similar boats launched fairly close together.
'Limit and Loki should be going at it toe to toe. Hopefully we'll be nipping at the heels of the Black Jack and staying well in front of the TP 52's. It's a pretty good fleet.
'The hull's getting painted this weekend, and McConaghy's have risen to the challenge and done a terrific job getting it across the line. One point of difference between Limit and me, that I know of, is Limit's gone more manual, in other words everything's driven by pedestals whereas we've opted for an electric mainsheet winch.
'Also we have a very strong rudder.
'We will have less crew than Loki. Darren Senogles who was bow when we were in Sardinia has moved back. He'll be running the middle of the boat - a lot of bowmen are really good at doing that. He's the boat captain too, in charge of maintaining the boat, making sure it all happens. It'll be keel on and mast in on the same day. It'll leave the McConaghy factory on the night of the ninth and into the water on the morning of the 10th. It is going into Woolwich Dock in Sydney, where the mast now is waiting for it.
'We'll get it in the slings, and get the keel on. We're not sure yet if we'll put it in the water before we put the mast in or not, but within a day or two we'll be sailing. There's a lot to do; we've got to weigh the boat, get John Anderson down to finish his measurements, IRC certificates, and safety things. Between then and the 16th there's going to be a lot happening - rigging the boat - a million and one little jobs. 'By the 16th we hope to be racing in some form and we'll be ready for Hobart.'
The accelerated development time in recent year is significiant. Australian North Sails Australia CEO Michael Coxon says, 'initially Stephen did not think there would time to make the boat competitive so he was going to miss Hobart, but we can make that happen.'
'But computerized design technology has slashed development times. Back in the mid 90s North Sails began working with the University of Auckland in the Twisted Flow wind tunnel. From that work came computer analysis of sail shape and sail stress, three-dimensional mold design and gradient spinnaker analysis.
'At that time, it took serious computer grunt to analyse data over and over again and only the best funded America's Cup campaigns could justify the expense. Now the programs have been developed and desktop computer power has grown, so this technology is now in the North lofts and it's having tremendous benefits for all our clients. We don't just use this for big campaigns, we use it for 35-40 footers.
'Before we had our Flow and MembrainT software we would build a launch set of sails and then a year later we'd build a second set, incorporating all the little things we'd learned during the year and so on. Now we launch with fourth of fifth generation sails.'
North Sails Richie Allanson will be sailing south on Loki ' He commented today 'There is a lot to do in very little time. These are complex machines. There are an endless number of little jobs when getting it ready to go to Hobart; however from the sail program perspective, everything will go smoothly.
We used Flow for analysing loads produced in sails and MembrainT to analyse how the sail/rig combination reacts to external loads such as backstay or sheet tension.
'So we got the details right, the sizing of the jibs, luff curve on mainsail, perfect straight out of the bag and all the deck hardware loads are right, so we don't get little surprises.
'All because, in the computer, we are able to tune the rig, load the boat up and by the time we launch we are up to fourth or fifth generation sails. This gives us a huge saving in time and that is why Loki will be on the Rolex Sydney to Hobart start line two weeks after she leaves the factory.'
by Rob Kothe
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Cape Leeuwin, WA
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