The framers of the new Grand Prix rule have determined at this point to not allow boats with canting ballast to participate under the rule. On the surface, this makes sense from a cost/complexity/performance tradeoff.

However a closer look at what the aerospace industy calls "life cycle costs" might be cause to seriously reconsider this issue. Simply put, life cycle costs are the total costs of purchase, parts, labor, materials and overhead for the life of the system, whether its a plane or a boat.

First, my background and biases. I live in Long Beach, California. I sail a lot, mess with design a lot (one 60 foot racer/cruiser built 20 years ago, so I know just enough to be dangerous) and read a lot about my sport. The last four years I have crewed primarily on Schockazulu, Cita and On Point in the CTBF Schock 40 fleet, and while I have no financial interest in the company or boat, I think it's a breakthrough design, and the most fun I have had sailing outside of my old 505 or a Melges. On a pure performance level, it feels very much like something between a multihull and a 505 or Melges, putting far beyond a conventional keelboat. On a dollar per unit of performance/fun, its way ahead of any monohull 40 footer.

Back to life cycle costs. Surely, most owners of serious racing inshore/offshore (Grand Prix) boats would name crew costs as a major expenditure year to year. The size of the crew has a significant impact on this cost. A Farr 40 or any similar size boat is regularly sailed with 8-12 crew. Feeding and housing these people is expensive, even if you are only (?!!!) buying crew dinners, drink tickets and lunches at a weekend regatta in your homr area. Adding plane tickets and hotel rooms at Key West, Cowes and so on really runs it up.

A Schock 40's, and presumably any similar canting ballast 40 footer rarely races with more than 6-7 crew, inshore or offshore. The boat's systems don't need the hands, and with a displacement of 7000 lbs, crew is a significant fraction of the boat's sailing weight. With its narrow beam, there is little if any advantage to tripping over more bodies, especially on an offshore race. This represents a straight forward savings of 30 to 50% in crew costs, and much simpler logistics since you need to round up 2 to 6 fewer people for any given event.

I submit that one or two regattas at most will save the owner the additional cost of the canting ballast system, so it would seem the initial cost/investment argument is moot. Further, hydralic systems of this type are extremely well defined and reliable The performance of the Open 60 and 50 fleet around the world would seem to demonstrate that, aside from the fact that more experience and engineering insight into these systems is accruing daily. If you tack or jibe or knock down with the ballast on the wrong side in a breeze, its an embarrsing, flat on your face knockdown, but that's all. Its demonstrably not a saftey issue.

Granted, the "what happens when you ground at 12 knots," issue is out there, but it is a straight forward engineering issue, and the loads placed on the ballast/strut/hull are little different than they are for any modern high aspect ratio fin/ballast bulb boat in a hard grounding. As you read this, you know that every top design firm in the world is addressing this issue as they look at new Volvo 70 and Maxi CTBF designs. Again, the performance of the existing canting ballast fleet in this area leaves little to choose when compared to conventional boats.

This brings me to my closing point. The best, most fun, fastest monohulls that we all admire and would kill to sail on are now all canting ballast boats, whether we are talking ocean crossing Mini's, Schock 40's, Open 40's, 50's and 60's on up to the multi-million dollar Schockwave/Alfa-Romeo, Zephyrus and other Maxi's. Do we really want the rule that we all want to build and race to for the next five, 10 or more years to exclude the established, breakthrough technology that has finally lifed monohuls out of displacement sailing, especially if the cost/complexity issues are not issues, and if in fact canting ballast may represent a net savings for the owner? Do we really want to start out already a step behind?

At a minimum, should we at least look at having classes in the rule that allow canting ballast. I suspect the mathematic can be made to allow canting ballast and fixed ballast boats to race equitibly together. If not, we should consider an alternative fixed ballast or canting ballast 30 foot, 40 foot, 50 foot and maxi class under the new Grand Prix Rule. That is, two classes at each size level under the same basic rule, and let the market decide what you want to build and sail in.

Give it some serious thought.

Regards,
Dave Beck