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After six years of sailing at the
leading edge of international maxi yacht racing with his
maxi and ‘super’ maxi yachts Alfa Romeo and Alfa Romeo
2, Neville Crichton, the Australasian businessman and
yachtsman, is ‘down-sizing’ - but still retaining the
Alfa Romeo marque.
The Sydney-based New Zealander has
dominated maxi boat racing in the Mediterranean with his
90-footer and his 100-footer, both named Alfa Romeo, sailing
the latter to line honours in a remarkable 135 races. In
contrast to the ‘super’ maxi, Crichton’s new racing yacht is
a 69-foot ‘mini’ maxi named Alfa Romeo III. His objective is
closer racing competition.
Alfa Romeo III will make her racing debut
in the new Mini Maxi Division of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup at
Porto Cervo, Sardinia, from September 1-6. However, she will
be sailed there by the Ericcson Volvo Round the World team,
headed by Torben Grael.
Neville Crichton will skipper his
100-footer Alfa Romeo in the Maxi Division, but will take
command of Alfa Romeo III for the Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez
regatta in France at the end of September. He plans a full
campaign with the smaller boat in the Mediterranean in 2009.
Like her predecessors, Alfa Romeo III in
every respect is at the cutting edge of yacht design,
engineering and construction, and in rig and sail design and
in sailcloth. With a conventional bulb keel, she is a
striking-looking racing boat, with a long bowsprit
protruding from a powerful, beamy hull driven by a sweptback
spreader rig.
Designed specifically for competition in
the Mediterranean, the hull is exceptionally light, the
total weight, fitted with engine, deck gear and rudder, when
leaving Sydney was just 3.8 tonnes. Her racing displacement
will be about 15 tonnes.
Weight has been saved in every possible
way. A new lightweight foam has used in the sandwich foam of
the hull, while almost every metal fitting on the boat is
titanium, including the pulpit, pushpit and deck staunchons.
The weight saving has even been extended to the colour of
the hull, which, unlike the silver-painted Alfa Romeo maxis,
is plain white - saving 15 kilos in the weight of paint.
However, it is below decks that is the
real eye-catcher, in style and colour, with the engine box
paint a rich metallic red from a direct view that appears
black from an obtuse angle. Visually the paint is constantly
changing. In fact, sitting at the navigation console is like
being in the driver’s seat of the limited edition Alfa Romeo
8C sports car and it is from the preproduction concept 8C
that the engine cover’s colour is taken. The Alfa concept
can be seen throughout, even to car badges at strategic
places on the deck and a companionway that looks like the
grille of an Alfa.
Why, after years of campaigning boats
among the biggest and fastest racing yachts in the world has
the New Zealand speed enthusiast - in cars and boats -
‘down-sizing’? “I would have loved to have built another
100-footer, but the level, quality and quantity of
competition in this class is simply not at the level at
which I would wish to continue competing,” Crichton said in
Sydney after returning from successes in the Giraglia Rolex
Cup and Super Yacht regattas in the Mediterranean with his
100-footer Alfa Romeo. There are probably ten yachts in this
class in the world that are competitive, but it has proven
very hard to get a reasonable number of them, let alone all
of them, together for the same event. With Mini Maxis there
will be more of them built and this means strong, more
varied fleets, and that’s the sort of racing in which I wish
to compete.
“I’m confident that the Mini Maxi class
of yachts between 60 and 79 feet LOA will become very
popular, with several yachts in this class being built,
making for very some competitive sailing,” Crichton
added. “At the same time, this class of boat is still large
enough, in the right event and under the right conditions to
take line honours.”
Like its predecessors, Alfa Romeo III is
a Reichel/Pugh design built in Sydney by McConaghy
Boats. The hull and sails, from North Sails Australia, left
Sydney by ship on 2 July for Genoa, Italy, from where it
will go to Antibes in France to be fitted with the keel,
mast and rigging under the supervision of project manager
and boat skipper Wade Morgan. A former America’s Cup sailor,
Morgan has been a regular crewmember of Alfa Romeo. He also
crewed on Rosebud, the US-owned overall winner of the 2007
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, one of three Australians in
the crew.
“I have now had four boats designed by
Americans Reichel/Pugh and I am extremely pleased with the
quality of their designs and the support I have received
from them,” Crichton commented. “There are only three
designers in the world who could produce a yacht of this
quality and the success rate we have had with the previous
yachts speaks for itself. So they were the obvious choice.
Likewise, this is the fourth boat built for me by McConaghy
Boats, along with sails from North Sails in Sydney, and they
have maintained their quality products with Alfa Romeo III,”
he added.
RACING PROGRAM:
Alfa Romeo III’s first campaign will be
the Mini Maxi Division of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup to be
sailed out of Porto Cervo, Sardinia, from September 1-6.
However, Crichton will skipper the super maxi Alfa Romeo,
now extended to 100 feet LOA, at Sardinia, while Alfa Romeo
III will be sailed by the Ericsson Volvo Round the World
Race team with Torben Grael as skipper. Wade Morgan and
Michael Coxon Jr, the two-times World 18-footer champion,
will also sail on the Alfa Romeo III. Crichton and has Alfa
Romeo crew will race Alfa Romeo III in the Les Voiles de
Saint-Tropez regatta in France on September 26 and in 2009
will campaign the 69-footer throughout the Northern
Hemisphere summer.
DESIGN:
American yacht designers Reichel/Pugh
have designed this latest boat for Neville Crichton to
comply with the new Mini Maxi Division for the 2008 Maxi
Yacht World Cup (basically 60’ to 79’ feet LOA with
conventional fixed keel), electing for a 69-footer as the
optimum size under IRC ratings. Alfa Romeo III follows their
design of a similar-sized Mini Maxi, Belle Monte, for a US
owner, which was launched in May 2008. With a long
protruding bowsprit for asymmetric spinnakers, the hull is
powerful and beamy with a deep, conventional bulb keel. To
achieve stability with the fixed keel, the beam of the
69-footer is almost the same as the 100-footer. The rig is
sweptback, thus eliminating backstay runners, but adding new
challenges in rig set-up before each race.
HULL & DECK:
Unlike Crichton’s more recent big boats
with hulls painted in metallic silver, Alfa Romeo III’s hull
is white – which has meant a significant saving in the
weight of paint used. The deck layout is simple, with a long
flat cockpit running from the open transom through to the
companionway and a short, low coach house. The cockpit is
clear except for the two black carbon fibre steering wheels,
which have their pedestals canted outboard, and three coffee
grinders. All deck gear is by Harken with hydraulics by
Nautec.
CONSTRUCTION:
With New
Zealand-based High Modulus as the engineers, McConaghy Boats
of Mona Vale in Sydney, built the hull, their fourth big
boat for Neville Crichton and their 14th maxi or mini maxi
yacht built in carbon fibre composite by the internationally
renowned boat builders. Using a male mould, the hull is
carbon fibre over Nomex honeycomb, with Corecell foam in
high load areas. Weight has been saved wherever possible,
with titanium used in all metal fittings.
KEEL & RUDDER:
The keel and bulb for Alfa Romeo III has
been built in Italy using Weldox 900 stainsteel for the
keel. The bulb weighs about 7500kg. The rudder, built by
McConaghy Boats, is a solid, high modulus blade, with hollow
rudder stocks. A French company, JP3, has built the titanium
rudder bearings.
ENGINE:
With no hydraulics needed for a canting
keel, the engine is a Fiat marine diesel. As they did for
Alfa Romeo 2, McConaghy Boats have designed a propeller
retraction unit, which lifts the four-blade fixed prop back
into the hull, leaving a flush surface when under sail.
MAST & RIGGING:
The superbly finished and shaped carbon
fibre mast, which will tower 31.5 metres above the deck of
the 21.4 metre hull, has been built by Southern Spars of New
Zealand. They have also made the EC6 carbon rigging which is
30 per cent lighter than the once conventional stainless
steel rigging and even lighter than carbon fibre
rigging. The rig will be fitted to the yacht in Europe. With
sweptback spreaders, no backstay runners are required, but
the crew has the ability to adjust mast rake for before a
race with the use of a shims under the mast step and by
adjusting the forestay for tensioning or softening the rig.
SAILS:
North Sails Australia have once again
provided the 16-sail inventory for Alfa Romeo III, designed
by their principal designer Keith Lorenz and project managed
under the watchfulul and experienced eye of Alby Pratt. The
3DL working sails were constructed in the US and downwind
panel sails at their company’s recently expanded loft in the
Sydney suburb of Mona Vale. Lorenz combined his spinnaker
design expertise with another North designer Steve Calder, a
member of North International’s Performance Resources Group
(PRG), who is in change of sail development for the Ericcson
Volvo Race team. Keith and Steve spent a week at the
Auckland University’s wind tunnel, synonymous with America’s
Cup sail development and testing. The spinnakers for Alfa
Romeo III have been made from Cuban Fibre, a hand-made,
high-load material developed by a company recently taken
over by North Marine Group.
Michael Coxon, managing director of North
Sails Australia and also tactician and sailing master aboard
Alfa Romeo, explained that the sail engineering and design
specifications for the beamy fixed keel Alfa Romeo III vary
considerably from her larger big sister, the streamline
100’er, with canting keel. “Unlike the 100-foot canting keel
Alfa Romeo, the apparent wind will not be as far forward, so
we have made deeper spinnakers,” he said. “It will be a
much different boat to sail, a very powerful hull in which
crew weight and the beam of boat will be the key to
stability, rather than a canting keel.”
Coxon said that while the sweptback
spreader rig eliminated the need for runners it also meant
it would be more complex in tuning the rig for specific
conditions. “Before the race, we will be able to adjust mast
rake and rig tensions via hydraulic rams which adjust the
forestay length and shims under the mast step, increasing
the tension or softening the rig according to the wind
forecast. That will be OK for a short race, but in long
races it could present some difficulties with weather
changes,” he added.
BELOW DECKS:
McConaghy Boats managing director John
Morris, who regularly races with Neville Crichton on his
maxi yachts, designed the striking interior of Alfa Romeo
III. “Knowing Neville’s passion for high performance cars, I
decided to create an interior based on the Alfa Romeo 8C
sports car,” he says. “We collected all the information we
could about the 8C to develop the styling, with Steve Moxham
doing a lot of the shaping for the final moulds. The Alfa
concept begins as one descends the companionway – it
resembles the grille of an Alfa, even with an Alfa badge at
the top. Seated at the navigation station is like being in
the seat of an 8C, with twin silver-painted bucket seats
facing a silver console set into a streamlined engine box
painted with Standox Water Bourne ‘Red Rocket’, a
translucent metallic red on a black base with a clear
polyurethane over the top.
The result is a rich metallic red from a
direct view that appears black from an obtuse angle. The 8C
concept is carried on even to the crew pigeon holes behind
the settee/bunks on either side of the long cabin, to the to
galley and to the hanging saloon table. The cabin sole
completes the styling with its chequered plate look.
CREW:
With a conventional keel, Alfa Romeo III
will use its wide beam and crew weight for stability and it
is likely she will carry a crew of 20 to 21 sailors, much
the same as the 100-foot canting keel Alfa Romeo.
MINI MAXI DIVISION:
The concept of a Mini Maxi Division
within the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup came into being at a meeting
of maxi yacht owners following last year’s event in which
the 98-foot Morning Glory covered the smaller 63-foot Loki
in the final and deciding race to the extent that Loki was
forced back down the fleet and out of an overall win. As a
result, two divisions have been created for this year’s Maxi
Yacht Rolex Cup – the Maxi Division is now for yachts
between 80-feet and 100-feet LOA, the Mini Maxi Division for
yachts between 60 feet and 79-feet.
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