A Closer Look

Sailing the New

Our friend Sportscar went for a spin on the new canting keel Robert Hick designed 30' we featured last week. He was good enough to share his impressions of the little rocket from Australia. Enjoy.

I went for a sail on the new Hick 30 canting keel boat on Saturday morning. It's a pretty looking boat with appealing lines. Designer Robert Hick has avoided the temptation to put a vertical sportsboat type bow on the boat and the nice forward rake is a pleasant change these days. She is quite skinny, at a guess not much more than about 8 ft beam and features a smallish cuddy cabin.

But this yacht is all about performance, not appearances. I had never sailed on any boat with a canting keel before and did not really know what to expect. In 12 knots with six crew on board, full main and # 3 jib we were doing a comfortable 6.9 to 7.2 with the keel fully canted going upwind.

Tacking the boat was easy and changing the keel over from side to side was a one man job using the self tail winches on the cabin top which are also used as spinnaker sheet winches.The owner of the prototype boat is intending to
change the keel adjustment mechanism from rope tackle to electric hydraulics so he can cut his crew number down to just four! The canard immediately forward of the keel works superbly and the feel of the boat as the ballast moves up is just amazing. It is unquestionably the fastest 30' I have ever sailed. Construction of the hull is a Q-cell core sandwiched between two layers of carbon built over a wooden plug. Light in weight at about 1400kgs, it is also amazingly responsive with a very smooth motion through the waves.

The boat has a very stiff carbon rig which I inadvertently tested by throwing the boat into a broach under asymmetrical kite! After the vang was eased and a bit of sheet dumped, she pulled back onto course with no fuss at all. Downwind she is a very slippery little sucker. We only used the fractional assy but we were pulling up to 10 knots ddw in 12. The easily operated articulating retractable carbon sprit means you can run quite deep with very good speed. I can't wait to see this boat going downhill in a big breeze. Downwind the keel is locked in the vertical position but when hard reaching it can be canted to provide enormous horsepower. Draft with the keel vertical is 7ft.

The mandrill used for the carbon rig was an alloy Mumm 36 rig, slightly cut down. The rig size on the boat is just a bit bigger than that of a Mumm 30 and has no runners but an adjustable backstay. Robert agrees that the mast size is probably a bit of a overkill but he wants to keep the rig in the boat with the higher loads generated by canting the lead bulb up to weather. The alloy boom is set quite high on the mast for crew safety and comfort. Moving about the cockpit, especially in a gybe, you don't have to worry about the boom as well as the myriad other things going on at the time.

The cockpit takes up about 50% of the length of the boat and is very roomy for such a skinny boat. The deck layout of this prototype is not quite right for my preferences however as the owner has narrowed down the cockpit side decks so much you can't properly operate the existing traveler or mainsheet fine tune systems.The very narrow side decks aft also makes for an uncomfortable helming position after a while. He wanted to make it as much like his old Thompson 7 as he could but it doesn't really work as well as it should for my liking. T 7's don't have lifelines!

The sails on the boat are a lovely set of Quantums.The jibs are simply clipped to the forestay as there is no luff foil. A pair of Harken sheet winches on the side decks service the jibs. The instruments are the wireless communication, no battery required Tack Tick system mounted on a pod beneath the gooseneck on the mast. This system provides excellent visibility as well as portability of the individual instrument readouts around the boat if required.
We didn't get to use the key start Tohatsu inboard/outboard saildrive motor as we found the propeller inside the boat when we arrived so we had to sail out of and into the SYC marina. This we did with ease, the boat being so close winded and so manouverable.

This is one fun purpose built machine, strictly a racer-daysailer with absolutely no pretense at any accommodation. It was due to race on Saturday afternoon with an allocated performance based handicap figure (.985) around the same as the best of the Beneteau 40.7s and Robert Hick was quite happy with that figure! Early in its racing career it has gone upwind at much the same speed as the 40.7 and Sydney 38's and kicks them to death downwind.

This boat is going to render conventional 30's obsolete in terms of performance. It should be relatively inexpensive, needs only 4-5 crew and is just so easy to sail fast. Indications are that IRC will treat the boat quite well for those who want or need to sail under some sort of rating. But in terms of sheer boat speed, the Robert Hick designed canting keel 30 fter is a breath of fresh air for smaller keelboat racing.

Chris/SPORTSCAR