The Chicago Mackinac race is known as one of the greatest races anywhere in the world, and with good reason. Conditions change with frightening speed, chunky waves test boats and, moreover, crews and the quality of racing is top notch.
The white boat in this Yellow Brick tracker image is Baby Blue approaching the Mackinac bridge and finish line at the Island beyond. All the other boats in the image are from Class 6 (her class), Class 5 (bigger, “faster”) and Class 4 (even bigger, even “faster”). Baby Blue won her class handily and finished 6th overall in the under 40′ Mackinac Cup division.
Paul Bieker’s 40′ Blue design caught people’s attention when she appeared a few years ago sailing around and in front of much larger boats. This year, the Bieker designed and Jim Betts built Baby Blue rocked the Mac fleet with a resounding Class 6 win. In the process, she beat all the supposedly faster Class 4 and Class 5 boats boat for boat.
Congratulations to Peter Heppel, Evan Walker and the largely PNW crew. Hopefully we can get some first-hand comments about the race.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
Here’s a quick update from Fujin in the NYYC Multihull Regatta. It was an interesting day yesterday to say the least. We were again postponed for two hours at the dock. Again, the race committee did a good job finding a place to race where there was wind as we went north from Newport further into the bay. A northerly filled in shortly after we arrived at the racing area and quickly built to the higher teens by the time the race started.
Views from onboard.
We had a shorter windward-leeward type course this time around with a total distance of about nine miles. Our start was nearly identical to yesterday’s with us starting nearer the pin end with Gunboat 62 Elvis ahead and below, the only boat closer to the pin. The race can only be described as really good fun! I haven’t experienced anything quite like it. There’s something about sailing a 53-foot catamaran flying a hull going to weather at speeds approaching 16 knots, with a 62-foot cat doing the same thing less than a boat length away.
It was again a very tight race with Fujin and Elvis leading the way for the rest of the fleet. We are very closely matched in boat speed and swapped places a couple of times during the race. At these speeds laylines and mark roundings came quickly and we had to be on our toes and thinking ahead to the next maneuver. Our top speed on the second run was 26 knots! Fujin barely hung on to correct over Elvis by a mere 15 seconds.
The race committee wisely chose to call it a day as strong thunder storms were heading our way. On the hour-long motor back to the dock it rained hard with plenty of lighting and thunder. Evidently Elvis has rum on tap and they were kind enough to share, by mixing some in a 2-liter bottle with a bit of coke then the bottle over to us while under way. Little did they know that we were staying close to them on the assumption that any lighting would hit their taller mast not ours!
The forecast is for rain near the starting time, but the breeze should be blowing enough to allow for an on time start. Boat call is 0900 and it’s 0825 now. Time to wrap it up.
Ed. Note: Thanks again Brad. Keep it going PNWers! Regatta web site here. Results so far are lovely.
The stories, videos and photos of the Paul Bieker-designed catamaran Fujin keep flying across my computer screen. It absolutely screams for attention! Paul Bieker designed Fujin, and below provides some very keen insight into his process (plus some very cool flow dynamics images!) We’re honored that Paul shares it.
Despite Fujin’s current residence in the Caribbean, it’s really a Pacific Northwest effort. Owner Greg Slyngstad is well known here for his racing campaigns. And a regular path has been beaten to the Caribbean to get Fujin flying. Jonathan and Charlie McKee, Erik Bentzen, Brian Huse, Scott Smith, Jack Christiansen and Fritz Lanzinger have all been onboard at one time or another.
(Photos have been pulled from Facebook and other sites)
Fujin
Fujin
Fujin
Fujin
Fujin
Fujin
And “down below”
The happy crew by day
The happy crew by night.
It should be no surprise that there’s been plenty of success on the racecourse. She won the Round the Rock race at the St. Thomas International Regatta and placed a close second in the regatta itself. She tied for first in the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta’s Offshore Multihull Class. Unfortunately a slow Caribbean 600 and flight schedules forced Fujin to retire 120 miles from the finish.
We’d love to get some reports from onboard, but in the meantime let’s hear from Bieker, who took time from his somewhat-more-than-full-time responsibilities as Lead Design Engineer with Oracle Racing. Here’s Paul:
Greg came to us after the last America’s Cup asking for a cruising/racing catamaran for sailing in the Caribbean.
Paul Bieker
We designed the boat with what I think are pretty innovative bow shapes partially inspired by the shapes I saw sailing in Polynesia as a teenager and partially inspired by what I have learned about hull shapes in the 14’s. The lower bow is pretty full and chined to produce more lift and to reduce wetted surface when going fast. We kept the chine angle in profile fairly steep to help insure that it has a positive angle relative to the waterline when trimmed bow down into a moderately big wave (I have found you can “trip” over chines if they are too flat in profile). We used one of our Americas Cup contacts, Len Imas to do the computational fluid mechanics to optimize the hull shape for a range of speeds and trimming moments. The upper bow and freeboard are cut away as much as possible to reduce windage and weight. We gave the rudders horizontal wings to help control pitching. The boat has been sailed with and without them and they seem really effective in settling out the trim of the yacht.
Most of these performance cruising cats are compromised by the weight and windage of full standing room cabin between the hulls. The arrangement of Fujin uses a mid wet deck “pod” to provide headroom for a central low profile community space where the galley, settee and navigation station are located. The private spaces are in the hulls with each hull having a large double berth and head.
We employed another friend from our Americas Cup work, Steven Roberts to do the platform and rig structural design. His structure for Fujin is a step above other boats of the type and hence Fujin is significantly lighter. She is entirely carbon/epoxy/foam structure. The builders, Gold Coast Yachts, did a great job building the boat to the structural specifications and she has proven to be structurally sound.
Now, America’s Cup stuff may have dominated Bieker’s energies for a long time, but I personally feel that his greatest efforts have been in creating innovative dual purpose yachts. Fujin is obviously one, but I’d say Jonathan McKee’s Darkstar is certainly another and my personal favorite is Longboard. Anybody looking for a truly innovative, reliable and structurally sound design would do well to talk to Bieker.
Update: Jack Christiansen of North Sails Seattle, one of the NW luminaries aboard Fujin, just shared some videos:
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
