VIDEO – Wally Rocket 51 (15.5 m): the super racer to win between buoys and offshore
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Seeing two words like Wally and Rocket joined on the same line would make any sailing and racing enthusiast jump in his chair. Wally, a world leader in yachting innovation and two-time winner of the ADI Compasso d’Oro, wanted to try its hand at an ambitious project and create its first pure racing model. The name is most apt: rocket, rocket. Since 2019, the shipyard founded by Luca Bassani has entered the Ferretti Group, and the Wally Rocket represents a very special project in the brand’s new era.
In fact, the shipyard in its past has always produced boats outside the box, has anticipated and dictated so many trends, has always built models with a sporting philosophy that have excelled on race courses, but had never built a boat that was avowedly 100 percent racing. Indeed, behind the Wally Rocket is the desire to put on the market an exclusively racing boat, which was born as a One Design, but which can also be used for IRC and ORC rated regattas. We were in Valencia to try her out with the team led by Vasco Vascotto, who is preparing the campaign for the next Admiral’s Cup, scheduled for July 17-31.
Born out of a determination to create the world’s fastest racing boat in corrected time, as well as a Waves Design, Wally Rocket 51 is the child of a long history of innovation and meticulous attention to detail, supported by the expertise developed in the America’s Cup by Botin Partners studio, which signed the lines along with an exceptional pool: super sailors Vasco Vascotto and Guillermo Parada.
WALLY ROCKET 51 – THE VIDEO ON BOARD
THE WALLY ROCKET PROJECT
The boat was born as One Design, and the goal of the yard, which will build 5-6 boats in quick succession, is to create a class and circuit by 2026. In the One Design version the crew will be 11-12 people maximum, depending on the weight of the individuals, and the boat will be equipped with electric winches, ballast and trim tab on the rudder. In the configuration to race to rating there is no trim tab so as not to affect the rating certificate too much. In this case the crew can be up to 15-16 people, there will be no electric winches, and two coffee grinders are installed in the cockpit; ballasts remain instead.
Rocket51’s length is 15.5 meters and its weight stops at just 6.3 tons. All this is possible thanks to the lightweight lay-up layered with carbon foam, but it is also thanks to the High Modulus spars and AeroSix rigging also made of carbon: as you can tell, everything on board is pulled to the max.
THE FULL TEST OF THE WALLY ROCKET 51, WITH 6 PAGES DEVOTED TO THE BOAT, WITH ALL THE PHOTOS AND ISSUES, IN THE MAY PRINT ISSUE OF THE SAILING NEWSPAPER
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