The Sydney-Hobart? It will be a challenge between two superboats!

Is it possible for an 80-footer to beat a 100-footer in real time? That’s the challenge of the newly launched 25-meter Beau Geste, which wants to win the 2013 Sydney Hobart. But last year’s winner, the 31-meter Wild Oats doesn’t go for it and has equipped itself with two diabolical side wings to keep it from being overtaken. Here are the secrets of the new racing “monsters.”

It will be a big fight of maxi yachts, canting keels and other devilry at the upcoming Sydney – Hobart, the queen of the southern hemisphere’s big offshore races that starts from Australia next December 26 to reach Hobart in Tasmania after 628 miles. Great is the anticipation for the debut of the brand new Beau Geste, an 80-footer designed by Spanish studio Botin and built in New Zealand by Cookson Shipyard. It is a superboat of “only” 25 meters that wants to beat in real one of the five 100-footers (31 meters) that will be at the start in Sydney.

HOW AN 80-FOOTER CAN BEAT A 100-FOOTER
To win, the owner of the new Beau Geste, Karl Kwok, and his skipper Gavin Bady, demanded a boat that was very fast in the wide swells, the swell that usually characterizes much of the Sydney-Hobart, where they can play it safe with the 100-footer, which has an advantage upwind. Strong point is a huge canting keel with a draft of 5.5 meters attached to a particularly narrow hull at the waterline, designed to glide well ahead of the “heavy” 100-footers. Another feature that Gavin Brady relies on to win in the royalty is the ability to push the boat at 100 percent, even when due to weather conditions, larger boats are forced to lower the throttle. “A faster sail change or pushing a little harder makes a difference even in a long race like the Sydney – Hobart or the Fastnet,” Brady says.

THE 100-FOOTER RESPONDS WITH NEW SIDE WINGS
But the big 100-foot Wild Oats XI, winner of the last Sydney Hobart, did not sit still waiting to be beaten. In recent months he has gone into the pipeline to equip himself with a secret weapon, the DSS. It is a system of two retractable “wings” placed in the center of the hull. Depending on the walls, one of these wings is opened downwind to provide greater resistance to heeling. In practice, the boat thus significantly reduces heeling and thus can hold much more sail than normal, thereby increasing its “power” while remaining more “straight.” The new carbon fiber wing , which was made in New Zealand, is 55 centimeters wide, and when in use extends 2.75 meters out from the hull on the leeward side. The wing-shaped wing, when at rest slips inside the hull, housed in a horizontal box that extends through the boat near the waterline, between the mast and keel . The wing opens and closes controlled by hydraulic motors. Sandy Oatley, son of legendary 80-year-old boat owner Bob, is thus convinced that he can keep his 100-foot boat, built eight years ago, competitive, which over time has become a veritable workshop of mobile and fixed appendages. Now Wild Oats is a true monster equipped with the new side wings, a retractable forward rudder, two retractable daggerboards, the canting keel , and conventional aft rudder.