Lidingo Runt – Stockholm’s major opening race of the sailing season. "HiQ" a 60 foot trimaran 2006: 55 minutes. "HiQ" 2007: 5,5 hours!

On Saturday May 12th the annual Lidingo Runt race was held in very light winds, if any wind at all. Last years race caused a problem for many boats due to very heavy sudden gusts of 30+ knots. This year only 51 boats out of 450 managed to cross the finish line within the maximum time set to 7 pm. A large part of the boats that managed to fulfil the race were multihulls….

Lidingo Runt is gathering more than 60 trimarans and catamarans thanks to many multihull missionaires like Magnus Olsson (60 fot trimaran and Volvo Ocena race sailor) Mats Leander (Chairman of Swedish Catamaran and Trimaran Sailors Association) and Mats Johansson (of Gransegel).

An excellent site for more information on Lidingo Runt and sailing News in “Scandinavian” is http://www.skota.se/.

Trimaran float (ama) buoyancy

From time to time we get questions like: “Can you sail on one hull only” or “On one of the videos you can see a float almost submerged in the water, does it not indicate to little buoyancy”. (In one of our old videos a sequence was shown where the float was partially submerged. This we thought would show how kind the Seaon behaves, however it seems to have caused more questions than answers.)

Basically these questions boil down to: Why don’t you have more buoyancy in the floats? This is a relevant question. I will try to elaborate on this.

Already at the requirement specification phase the float displacement is to be defined by the intended use of the boat: Racing without interior, racing/performance cruising etc.

For racing purposes only, the float buoyancy would be generous enough to be able to lift the main hull out of the water and the leeward float will carry the whole weight of the boat. So why are not all trimarans designed this way? Sailing on one hull will obviously improve performance due to reduced wetted area, however you will also sail very close to the stability limit of the boat, meaning you will be sailing close to capsizing. A small increase in wind force could turn the boat upside down.
Obviously this needs very active and proper sailing by an experienced racing crew. There is little indication whether being on the right side of stability (and yes….there is occasional capsizing with racing trimarans and in rare cases also with cruising trimarans).

Another important consideration is the volume in the float compared to the length. If you design a light weight racing boat to a certain length and want it to fly on a hull it is possible to achieve this with a slender float design that cuts the waves nice and even in lights winds. On the other hand, if you design a heavy cruiser with the same objectives, the float will be blunt and will have to much reserve buoyancy in light winds, witch will cause the boat to respond to excessively to wave action and slow the boat down in choppy light wind conditions when sailing upwind.

How much displacement and its distribution through out the float is part of the sailing characteristics of the boat. Amongst other it influences performance for upwind sailing, power reaching etc. Furthermore it defines the “predictability” of the boat. It is very important to design a predictive and smooth behaviour of the boat. One does not want a boat that reacts with surprises. To achieve this it is important to have the longitudinal buoyancy distributed in a suitable way. For power reaching you need a lot of volume in the bow, but not too much to affect upwind performance. When pressing the boat hard upwind, it is also very important to have enough reserve buoyancy in the aft part of the float to avoid that the boat trims excessively backwards in longitudinal direction, when the boat is hit by a hard wind gust (due to sail center of effort moving excessively backwards when e.g. trying to luff to depower).

Summing up: There is no one single design that is right or wrong – it is the intended use that decides the design. A boat intended for top speed power reaching will look different than a boat optimized for upwind sailing and as mentioned, total weight of boat (building technology i.e. weight of laminate, interior, cruising amenities etc) also is part of the design strategy.

The Seaon 96crb design objective was to create a high overall performance (…if I remember correctly the marketing spec was: “The damn fastest boat with interior that a family can handle”) and to be as versatile as possible in various winds and courses. Also the objective was to minimize the power needed (mast length and sail area) for easy and safe handling, which is why we put some real efforts into the building technology (carbon, pre-preg etc. – for more information check our web site under “Production”). A light boat is fun to sail in light winds and the reduced need for power will make it easier to handle in tougher conditions.

We spent a lot of time and energy in designing the floats (and the rest of the boat of course!) and are extremely pleased with how well the performance, kind and predictable behaviour of the boat came out.

/Stefan

New web site!

Here we are live with our new website and very excited about the new the “Blog” and “Forum” functions, which hopefully will allow more dialogue and discussions! We though have to admitt these functions are quite new to us – so I hope there is some patience and understanding while we are getting in to this.

There has been little news from us for a while. Major reason for that is due to establishing our own production caused by unsatisfactory outsourcing acitivities. This is a chapter for itself - some of it is addressed earlier in this blog and is also why the website is somewhat more production oriented now.

To launch the new web has been a challenge and as always it means hard work defining and fulfilling: "What is it that our web visitors and potential customers really want to know and see?" We have to admit that we for sometime have been so overwhelmed by our own almost religious experience in multihulls, that we potentially forgot that it is not so obvious for everyone, especially if you have invested in an upmarket monohull.

The major challenge is to present the advantages of a multihull….and of course our Seaon 96crb.

Characteristics like SPEED, COMFORT, TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN….and on top of that CARBON are not enough to justify the advantage. Obviously this can be applied to a lot of yachts. So how do we tell we are twice as fast (sometimes three times…)? And about our technology – how many yachts are produced in “pre-preg” to achieve top quality light weight laminate….and not only “carbon reinforced”, but 100% carbon? And sailing with very little heeling but still with great power etc.?

Usually when thinking of multihulls many sailors think of top speeds….and yes they are fast! So far I have logged 24, 2 knots (not to steel Mats Leander’s official record 24,8 knots in SWE-1) with the Seaon 96 with 4 persons and (limited!) luggage for a week of racing. That was of course fun, but I much more enjoy sailing in 15-18 knots with Ulrika on a nice day in a sea breeze (approx 10-14 knots of wind in Stockholm on a good day) or even sailing 6-10 knots in very light winds. That to me is the feeling! Before when racing with larger monohulls I did not go cruising. It just wasn’t fun with the kind of yacht the family can handle. Now, when sailing multihulls it is almost the other way around. Everyday sailing is great fun, almost like a dinghy (but not as wet…) and I have the full interior with bunks, galley, marine head and the freedom to go virtually anywhere – remember, with rudder and daggerboards up there is very little draft.

And about design – trimaran is a challenging concept, especially since many of us have a touch of vanity in us. You want a yacht that sticks out at the dock….in positive way that is! Having (over)heard someone describe the Seaon “as hot as a Ferrari” (and that with a full interior) certainly appealed to my vanity.

However, all the above are just the underlying parameters to achieve….we certainly looked for the expression that describes it all and we could not find another way to say it than the “FEELING”. It is really about that.

Have we succeeded in conveying this “Feeling”? How many more out there "feel" the same?

/Jan

Ericsson Volvo Ocean 70 project

Sharing offices with Atlant Ocean Racing headed by Rickard Brisius and Johan Salén, being the team behind (with Mange Olsson as well of course!) Volvo Ocean Race entries EF Education, Assa Abloy, Ericsson and organizers of Nokia Oops Cup and Archipelago Race obviously opens a wide spectrum of discussions and also the opportunity to meet intresting persons such as e.g. John Kostecki and Juan K (designer of ABN Amro entries in last race and now designer of new Ericsson entry ) who we discovered is a trimaran fan!

Today Stefan and I had the opportunity to meet the team working on the next Ericsson Volvo Ocean Race entry. It was good to share some experiences on light weight laminates, various preg and core issues. The workshop (actually in Ericsson facilities, virtually on shouting distance to Ericsson head office main reception!) is really impressive, amongst other with an oven three times our size! But apart from that - there are a lot of similarities on how we build our boats.

Thank you for the tour Andy and Calle!

Read more about the Ericsson VO70 project on http://www.ericssonracingteam.com/

/Jan

Geneva experience

Back from Geneva having helped Jacques to launch SUI 2 was an experience, especially seeing the new Max Jib in action. A beautiful sail (Well done Mats! I have been in opposition to this sail for a long time - but then again you always get smarter with age….), easy to control the leech by operating the traveller car on the roof top. A few glitches (amongst other – do not forget to attach the double geared mainsail and screacher halyards…there are more fun things then taking the mast up and down!) and time consuming administration (amongst other inspection by Geneva lake authorities) reduced the sailing hours. Anyhow the boat looked really nice in the water and I was very proud!
The only bad thing about the whole experience was the having to go back without a beer and a picture with myself, the “Old Mug” and Bertarelli! We actually launched from “Societe Nautique de Genève”, but the Americas Cup Trophy was already shipped to Valencia leaving only an empty stand and a disappointed Stefan. I was one week to late!

/Stefan

Grey metallic Seaon 96crb in Geneva!

So finally (dark metallic paint was more than painful for the production - but it looks very nice!) Jacques's grey metallic Seaon 96crb is launched in Lake Geneva! Stefan was there and assisted during the launch and managed to sail a few hours. More to come on that.

Picture is actually taken by Sebastian (thank you Sebastian!) who is waiting for his blue metallic Seaon 96crb with first stop Lausanne/Lake Geneva.

/Jan

New sail design - the Max Jib

The main and self tacking jib has certainly been more than enough for new Seaon sailors and still is in most conditions. However it seems the "need for speed" will always grow when becoming more experienced. In very light wind conditions, approx less than 7-8 knots the more experienced sailor (and the racing crew probably up to 10-12 knots) will enjoy the added approx 9 sqm sail area of the new overlapping Max Jib developed by Mats at Gransegel (also a Seaon founder). On the pictures you can see a furling version (the Gransegel "Glider" concept) of the Max Jib. This means the Seaon 96crb will carry 70 sqm sail area upwind on approx 1400 kg.

/Jan

Seaon Stockholm Event

On March 5th we had a meeting with Stockholm Seaon owners (and close friends) with main objectives to discuss and inform about:

• Critical and difficult manoeuver handling issues. Discussion was led by our "Seaon Team Rider Expert Magnus Olsson" - one of the most merited Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Racing sailors and 60 fot trimaran sailors in the world.
• Racing program 2007
• Seaon status on production, developments etc

/Jan

Bernard says hello from Bretagne!

In the every day stress and challenges - This is the kind of customer feed back that keeps you going....

On November 19th Bernard wrote:

"This morning, between 11 am and 1 pm i have sailed with jean lou, an happy few. Wind s sw force 5 sometimes 6 flat sea and sun shinning -1st reef and small jib we have seen 23.9 kts on the speedometer with a right boat and without water in the face. For a longer trip we would have the second reef. One more time 12 kts to catch the buoy - what a foot!

Yellow "Eureka" arrived in Bretagne!

First boat out of our new (own!) production. Bernard's (and our!!) long waited for yellow Eureka has "landed" in Bretagne. On the agenda now it is sailing, sailing, sailing.....

Yellow Eureka was first launched in small harbour nearby our production. I cannot tell you how proud the staff was. With Bernard kindly enough to let all the staff to have a test ride it caused for a two night celebration including Bernard and his wife Michelle