![]() Wingsails have been around for decades too, but with their adoption by the last two America’s Cups and the confluence with foiling technology, they have undergone rapid and revolutionary development. “We did quite a lot of wind tunnel work early on as we felt that was really the sweet spot for it, and people will be stunned at how efficient these are.” The future of the wingsail “These include two at the moment that are twin-masted DynaRigs,” he says. He has teamed up with Southern Spars and, with their additional resources, expects evolution with several new projects. “Sloops are more conventional looking,” he says.ĭamon Roberts says there is still development work to be done. ![]() He also points out that the clipper ship look is not to every owner’s taste. So with all these advantages, why has the DynaRig been chosen for only two sailing superyachts? For some designers, such as Malcolm McKeon, it is partly to do with compromises imposed by the large mast tubes and bearing diameters on the internal structure and layout, “particularly in the cockpit area,” he says. ![]() You can luff up, bear away, tack and gybe at any time and really enjoy sailing the boat without any apparent fuss.” There are no highly loaded sheets or ropes or flogging lines. On other boats it takes six minutes to get the sail cover off.”ĭamon Roberts of Magma Structures, which built the rigs for Maltese Falcon and the only other DynaRig yacht to date, the 106-metre Black Pearl, says: “You can do any manoeuvre easily it’s like sailing a dinghy. Maltese Falcon can sail on and off the anchor and can set 2,400 square metres of sail in six minutes. The beauty of the DynaRig is that its automatic systems can be handled by one or two people and, notes de Vos, “you don’t have to get out of your chair to go sailing. But on a larger yacht the DynaRig becomes an alternative because there is no rigging, no highly loaded sheets, low-tech sails and no big winches.” “We wouldn’t advise putting a DynaRig on a small yacht because there are other ways to manage sail handling. The DynaRig is not as efficient upwind as the Bermudan rig, and is probably not the best solution for a yacht smaller than around 65 metres, suggests Jeroen de Vos of Dykstra. The idea was ahead of its time, so much so that its first realisation came nearly 40 years later when American owner Tom Perkins bought the residual technology and commissioned Dykstra Naval Architects to create a three-masted DynaRig for Maltese Falcon, his 88-metre Perini Navi. The DynaRig has been around as a concept since the 1960s when German engineer Wilhelm Prölss devised these free-standing, rotating rigs as a fuel-saving solution for large commercial vessels. ![]() It is not straightforward.” But, he adds, “I think we know the advantages of a sloop: if you want all-round performance you can’t beat it, even at the top end.” Advantages of a clipper rig The downwind sails are pretty complicated once you start hoisting and retrieving, even with drum and reel systems. “The loads are enormous,” he admits, “but it is all scalable.” His 85-metre design concept Apex, developed with Royal Huisman, would be the largest sloop-rigged yacht in the world. However, British designer Malcolm McKeon, the name behind the high-performance, sloop-rigged carbon composite superyachts Missy and Ribelle, is pushing the sloop rig to new heights. The windage at 120 metres is not only more but the centre of effort is so much higher, and so the heeling loads all go up.” If you are on anchor, that’s no problem but you’d have to be able to cope with being on the docks in 70 knots. Also the mast is a windage problem when the keel is up and you are beam-to. “If you are day sailing in the Med, a sloop would be awesome, but I am not sure if you had fewer sails you would be able to well enough. Tripp is not convinced of the wisdom of a much larger single-masted sloop rig. ![]() But over the years, boom furling systems and MPS stored on a drum, for example, have made sail handling safer. “You have to have a lot of deck gear and captive winches below decks and the machinery for that. “But with that comes a highly loaded rig, many tonnes of compression from tension in the rigging, and you have to build structure in the boat to accept that,” explains Paul MacDonald, founder and superyacht sales manager of Southern Spars. Over the last decade, sail handling technology has steadily advanced to allow sloop rigs to grow larger and larger. At larger sizes, however, things start to become trickier, and the trade-offs get interesting. For good reasons, it is the first choice for nearly every modern sailing yacht up to around 60 to 65 metres for cruising and regatta racing alike. It is efficient upwind, while downwind the sail area can be significantly boosted with a big gennaker or spinnaker. The Bermudan rig is the all-rounder, able to perform well at all angles of sail. ![]()
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