40 foot ‘Volvo 70’ skipper plans his Rolex Sydney Hobart from the office

• NEWS
• 23 Dec, 2006 02:42:00 PM

40 foot ‘Volvo 70’ skipper plans his Rolex Sydney Hobart from the office

When you talk to Andrew Buckland about his new boat, Mr Kite, you realise just how much has changed in ocean racing in such a short time.

When you talk to Andrew Buckland about his new boat, Mr Kite, you realise just how much has changed in ocean racing in such a short time.

A veteran of 19 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races, Buckland believes that modern, properly prepared canting keel yachts are not just faster, they are very seaworthy and kinder to their crews than conventional boats. On top of that, he says, these days, during the race, he is not particularly concerned about covering or responding to what his rivals are up to.

Most of the crucial decisions he will make in the race have already been taken in the solitude of his office, hours before he heads down to the water

By any standards Mr Kite is a pretty unusual boat, but Buckland says that, really, the basic idea behind her is simple.

"Mr Kite is just a 40 foot Volvo 70 designed for passage racing so it’s asymmetrical, with dagger boards, forestays and furling reaching jibs," says Buckland.

"We're only 40 feet long but we should be racing in the same bit of water as a Farr 50 and downwind we should have the same speed as a Volvo 60.

"It's a pretty small scale boat in that there is no need for sophisticated electronics - we can pull the keel up by hand and you can pick up any sail with one hand."

Buckland has made sure that Mr Kite is strong.

"In theory it can run aground at 14 knots without damaging itself so it’s a pretty robust yacht. I've been to Hobart a few times and I've observed that it's pretty tough on average," says Buckland.

He is sure that the engineering issues surrounding canting keels have been resolved, despite Mr Kite being forced to withdraw from her debut outing, the Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, when a component of the keel broke. It wasn't engineering, he says, it was human oversight.

"We failed to do due diligence on one of the smallest bits of rope tied to one of the blocks, for which we deserve to be shot," he says.

"I think the Volvo 70s proved that the engineering issues around canting keels have been solved."

Instead, Buckland reckons that canting keels make the boat easier and less tiring to sail.

"You can sail our boat downwind in 30 knots, the boat doing 20 knots, with one hand on the tiller," he explains.

"Because the hull is narrow, with low drag, we don't need big sails so there are fewer sail changes, there is less pitching and yawing and, really, we never need to sail at more than 15% of heel, which is comparatively upright, so doing everything is easier and less tiring. They are very seaworthy yachts."

Because of the freedom to experiment it allows, especially with new sail configurations, Buckland is an unashamed fan of the more open IRC rule.

"You pay for sail area but you can put the sails where you like, they're not telling you how to build your sails," he says.

During the Rolex Sydney Hobart Mr Kite will sport a number of sail configurations, including three staysails that you would never see on typical racing boats.

"You don't have to pay a lot of money to get a boat with pretty good all round performance," says Buckland.

"The initial IMS yachts were pretty good yachts but they were still stuck in the restrictive rule mentality, so I'm pretty happy with the IRC, I think. "

Buckland says that new technology, allowing meteorologists to make more accurate weather forecasting models and allowing him to predict the optimum performance of his boat in any conditions has made the way he approaches a race completely different from ten years ago.

He has enormous faith in the accuracy of independent sailing weather forecaster Roger Badham. In the hours before the race he will take Badham's race forecast to the quiet of his office and meticulously plan the route and the sail changes he will need before going down to the boat.

"Because of the accuracy of his forecasts I can pretty much tell the crew which sails we will use, the order and what time we will get to Hobart plus or minus 20 minutes, if nothing goes wrong," says Buckland.

"You know what the best path is and you don't vary from that.

"Despite what the others do, there is only one fastest path - it's different to 10 to 15 years ago when you went out and waited to see what happened.

"You know what you've got to do, then you just go out and do it." - Jim Gale