Voodoo Child

Since the all-seeing eye of SAILING ANARCHY has picked us up on their radar it seems time for us to take the wraps off this project and give you a brief preview.

The Voodoo began in Rob’s brainbox around six years ago, during his days sailing 14's. About five years ago we commenced serious design and what you see in the photos is the result. Rob wanted a straightforward skiff with high performance and reasonable cost, which meant minimizing the amount of exotic materials and keeping the control systems simple yet sophisticated. While what you are looking at here is not the definitive boat, the production model will be a refinement of what you see.

Starting at the sharp end you’ll find an exceptionally fine entry, about 30% finer than usual, for better penetration through waves and chop. Achieving this fineness was facilitated by two other features: greater waterline length and narrower beam, two areas where the rules hamper some development classes. No rules – no problems, we give it the proportions it should have.

Great pains have been taken to keep the deck as clean as possible, so there’s virtually nothing in the boat to snag a line or stub a toe on. In fact, you could actually unroll your sleeping bag on the deck, throw a tarp over the boom and camp out at the regatta. As to control layout, vang and cunningham will initially be lead to the racks, along with upper shrouds adjusters to depower the top of the main. Sheeting systems for the mainsail and kite are being developed to allow tacking and gybing without fear of dropping the sheets. This allows you to stay out on the wire and keeps your head out of the boat.

Now, a lot of people are going to look at the sail plan and turn pale, but bear up for a moment. The fathead main has come and gone over the past few years, but has reached a stage of development where it does what it was intended to do: provide area higher up in the wind gradient when it’s light, and twist off with the mast tip under pressure. Secondly, the adjustable uppers allow you to depower the upper part of the sail, lowering the centre of effort by a considerable amount. Thirdly, more area allows you to sail fully powered up with the main cracked slightly, leaving you with power in hand for the lulls which would otherwise have your ass in the water before you could move your weight in. All this expands the usable wind and crew weight ranges. Fourth and finally – it’s a SKIFF, okay? The masthead kite will be cut quite flat, more like a code 0, and the adjusting the upper shroud tension will have a similar effect to a cunningham on it. Sail areas are preliminary, with refinement from sailing practice to confirm our design.

The rig itself is all carbon with double spreaders. This seems a given nowadays but considerable thought was given to the merits of a hybrid alloy/composite stick. In the end the superior dynamic performance, lower weight, and longevity of all-carbon won out. You don’t have to look far to find examples of false economy in this area, and it’s user pays. With any skiff it’s key that the rig have the right dynamic response and carbon is superior in this respect as well. The boom is aluminum however, because you are bound to land on it from altitude at least once and it’s cheap to replace if need be.

With a one-design we are free to optimize the boat and incorporate the technological advances from the development classes while controlling cost and complexity. No one boat will suit all crews and all conditions. The Voodoo is no exception, but the aim was to produce something as versatile as possible and we will listen to the market with refinement in mind. Get on the SA forum and let us know what you want. Finally, we’ve had it with boring looking production boats. Look at the pictures and see what you think. The boat will be one-designed, but you can certainly expect a second version to become available. Watch this space.

Rob & Dan