Launching speech for the Bavaria Cruiser 40s

8:53 AM 0 Comments

My name is Patrick Shaughnessy, and I am the President of Farr Yacht Design, and today I very happy to be here participating in the launch of the Bavaria Cruiser 40s.

Farr Yacht Design is acknowledged as the top racing-yacht design team in the world based upon one of the most extensive and impressive records of winning yacht racing results ever compiled by a single design group. Our long-running record of achievement dates back more than 25 years and includes 40 World Championships and a multitude of design successes at prestigious grand prix yachting events such as the Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup, Vendee Globe, Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Barcelona World Race, Transat Jacques Vabre, Copa del Rey and many others. So having said that you can imagine that we were very happy to oblige Bavaria when they requested a sport version of the Cruiser 40.

When you have an existing platform you need to be very careful how you add performance. It is possible to float the boat too light, and add too much sail area, and to generally ruin a good boat’s characteristics. We needed to be responsible in order to maintain the goodness of the Cruiser 40, but to add performance, and do it in a cost effective way that could fit within the pricing, and assembly logic that has made Bavaria so successful.

We determined that an overall weight reduction targeted at 250kg was the maximum that the hull should be allowed to float up. This has been achieved by increasing the hull core thickness, and eliminating superfluous nonstructural interior components along with removal of a toilet, and the swim platform.

We’ve lengthen the mast tube 440mm, and the boom 390mm. The combination of those changes has allowed us to add 5.6m2 of sail area to the boat focused on improving light air upwind performance. Near masthead asymmetric and symmetric options provide the boat with ample downwind sail area to complement the upwind performance. Sail area / Displacement ratio increases from 4.4 to 4.6. The sails can be controlled in a racing environment by a full German mainsheet system on a traveller, adjustable jib leads, and full spinnaker controls.

Below the waterline a cast iron fin keel increased in draft to 2.3m and achieves an IRC friendly keel geometry which should produce an improved upwind sailing efficiency. The steering system has been changed to a full mechanical component system which should improve steering feel.

With all of those changes we’ve produced a boat which has a measurable performance increase over a standard Bavaria Cruiser 40. As an aside fact it turns out that the average racing windspeed is almost exactly 12 knots when considering the whole worlds racing venues. And so a comparison of the Cruiser 40 and 40 Sport in 12 knots TWS show that the Sport version is 96 seconds per mile faster VMG upwind, and 33 seconds per mile faster VMG downwind. A typical 2 mile windward leeward racing course twice around would have the Sport version finishing 4 and a half minutes earlier. While the performance remains relatively modest in a true grand prix sense we are confident that the Cruiser 40s has the sail area it needs to sailed in light air venues, and the performance versus handicap attributes to be successful under both ORCi and IRC.