Article by Richard Gladwell on the Olympic Nacra 17 catamaran: ISAF's experiment gets big tick from top crew

From the following article on Sail-World by Richard Gladwell:

http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=118082

The Nacra 17 is enjoying a stellar rise amongst the sailing and multihull community, both because of its design pedigree from US design team of Melvin and Morelli, and the fact that mixed gender crews are offering a new dimension to Olympic sailing.

The great experiment has worked.

Since the introduction of the mixed gender crew concept, and then the trials conducted by the ISAF to select a purpose designed boat for the 2016 Olympic event, the sailing world has been pondering the options.

Now these are starting to emerge, but as yet no best combination of roles in the boat, weight and height combination, or set up have really emerged.

All crews in the Nacra 17 at December's ISAF World Sailing Cup Melbourne acknowledge that they are on a steep learning curve and are learning with each race sailed.

A new crew having racing their first regatta together at Melbourne, are Olympic Silver medalists Darren Bundock and Nina Curtis.

Bundock (42) oozes multihull experience – a former World Champion in the Tornado class, and Olympic Silver medalist in the same year, 2008, the tall, slightly built Australian is acknowledged as one of the top racing multihull sailors in the world.

read more here

ISAF Sail Melbourne, Darren Bundock and Nina Curtis win overall in the Nacra 17 catamaran

Despite being on my doorstep this year I was not able to get down to Sandringham and watch the Nacra 17's race.  The results from the event are below and a short highlights video.

Race results

http://www.sailingresults.net/site/event/35/Overall_8.html

ISAF Sailing World Cup, Melbourne, Australia December 1st to 8th 2013

The Notice of Race has been published for the ISAF Sailing World Cup to be held at the Sandringham Yacht Club December 1st to 8th 2013.  The big news from a multihull perspective is the integration of the Nacra 17 racing catamaran as a class.

The NoR can be downloaded here

The Sail Melbourne website is here

Nacra 17, the new OIympic racing catamaran over 200 orders placed so far.

Nacra 17 orders pile-up

From the following Sailweb article:

http://www.sailweb.co.uk/Multihull/2585/nacra-17-orders-pile-up

It is expected that over 100 crews from more than 30 Nations will launch an Olympic campaign in new mixed Olympic discipline with the Nacra catamaran 17. The multihull with curved boards also seem to be creating interest in the open market. According to Nacra Marketing Director Gunnar Larsen orders for more than 200 catamarans have been placed.

 

read more here

 

and a couple of videos of the Nacra 17 in action:

 

 

 

 

New Nacra 17 racing catamaran, intended for usage in the mixed multihull event of the next Olympics

Thanks to Sail-world and Ferdinand van West for this article

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/New-Olympic-Multihull-Nacra-17---Update/103412

The production of the Nacra 17, which is the new Olympic multihull for Rio 2016, is continuing at pace at Composite Marine International (CMI) in Thailand. By the end of the week, boat number 70 will be laminated and the first containers are underway to Europe.

Since the Nacra 17 was chosen as the multihull for 2016 a lot of work has been done, the production of the Nacra 17 is spread over three continents and has been fine-tuned and the quality control has been optimised with the expectation to develop a class with a high one-design integrity and the best possible reliability. The progress also includes a fully revised version of the well know Nacra rudder-system with CNC-milling technology and a Q-bond system to glue the sail panels together before they are stitched, for a durable high strength.

'This is an exciting time for us,' said Peter Vink, technical director of Nacra, 'The last couple months we invested a lot in order to get a fine product up to Olympic sailors’ standard on the market. The Nacra 17 will be out of the box ready to go sailing, to put it simple plug and play with equal equipment for every sailor. The Nacra 17 one-design class rules will be published soon to make sure the class will keep its strict one-design integrity.'

more here