Review Red-Hot and Pink — The Shaw 750 "Animal Biscuits"
Animal Biscuits
made its racing debut at the 2006 Bay of Islands Race
Week, in January. Despite having had very little time
on the water in the new boat, and no race experience, Partridge’s crew won
six of nine races on line and took home the handicap prize as well — against
the not-inconsiderable competition of the smaller but more extreme
Shaw Custard Truck and Helter Skelter, a slightly larger Paul Bieker
design crewed by a team of America’s Cup pros having a summer
at home.
In fact, the launching of Animal Biscuits ushered in a
new era in On the day
of our test sail, a Kerikeri Cruising Club winter series no-extras
race, it was fine but gusty, blowing around 10 knots
with puffs of up to 18. In keeping with both Shaw’s philosphy of having
fun without needing to be a rock star, our crew for the day comprised
the designer, two of Partridge’s teenage children (15-year-old
Zoe and 14-year-old Kyle), and a 74-year-old — although the 74-year-old
was US sailing legend Warwick Tompkins Jnr, dropping by
in Kerikeri while cruising around the world.
We milled around comfortably enough before the start without
a suggestion of tippiness. The 500lb keel bulb is more
than sufficient to balance the 430 sq ft of upwind sail Partridge estimates that Animal Biscuits does a more than respectable 7.5 to 8 knots upwind, and says they have reached a top speed of around 28 knots downwind — yes, that’s right, 28 knots. “We were absolutely flying, fully wicked with the big kite up, going as deep as possible with everyone on the wire. We were pretty powered up,” he says with great understatement. The most breeze they have had it out in was 35 knots: “It was a little bit scary but it was a testimony to Rob’s design that the boat handled it no trouble,” Partridge laughs. With performance like this they are wiping the floor with their regular Kerikeri competition — “you almost need a calendar to wait for the next boat to cross the line” — and are eagerly awaiting next summer’s Bay Week to mix it up with the other big sportsboats again. “I love it. Every time we go sailing we come in with big grins on our faces thinking, that was great. “I just love the ease of sailing. She’s got performance without being too twitchy. You get the speed easily without having to work too hard for it. It’s like someone commented to me, ‘it’s that fast boat sailed really slowly by old guys.’” 08/28/06 |
Coming from
the same drawing board as some of the more exciting and extreme
sportsboats tearing up the water in New Zealand, it is
a little surprising to find the latest Rob Shaw design is almost
conservative. I say almost, because it’s still pretty out there. To start with,
it’s bright pink. Oh, and it’s got racks, and trapezes
off those racks. So ‘conservative’ is a relative term.
What makes this 25ft carbon performance machine seem conservative
is its ease of handling and seemingly effortless performance — no
spills, just thrills.
The eye-catching Animal Biscuits, launched late last year,
is the latest speed machine built and owned by Kiwi boatbuilder
Craig Partridge. Based at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands, Partridge
is no stranger to the extreme end of the sailing spectrum; he was on
the leading edge nearly 20 years ago with his Greg Elliott-design Gorilla
Biscuits, a 28ft keelboat with solid wings that turned
heads and ruffled quite a few feathers.
Gorilla Biscuits may be just a memory now — and a photograph
on Partridge’s office wall — but Partridge is still pushing
the envelope. Although now in his 40s, with three children,
he has no intention of taking up cruising just yet. “I just like the
adrenalin rush of going fast — it’s fun. And a little
boat doesn’t cost so much every time you want new gear or a new
sail.”
Partridge went to Rob Shaw for the design because he sees
him as an up-
and-comer. Shaw is leading the way in the New Zealand
sportsboat fleet, both through his new designs and a growing fleet
of entertaining, easy to handle Shaw 650s.
“In 1987 when we did Gorilla Biscuits I went to Greg Elliott because
I could see him as the hot new designer. I can see the same qualities in Rob:
he’s naturally talented and has some great ideas,” says Partridge.
“I didn’t know too much about the sportsboat rule so I pretty much
left it up to Rob. I wanted racks but not necessarily trapezes, but now I’ve
got them I think they’re great.
“I wanted something fast and easy to handle — all the crew are
in their mid 40s — and this just fitted the bill perfectly.”
The tongue-in-cheek wheelchair-accessible symbol on the
transom tells the story: Partridge’s crew are all around his
age, family men who want to get have their fun in relative
comfort.
sportsboats in New Zealand, cementing the development
of a ‘maxi-boat’ fleet near at the top end of the size range
of the Kiwi rule. Some of the closest racing in the fleet was experienced
at the front end, with the two Shaws and the Bieker frequently exchanging
the lead and showing the keelboat fleet how it’s really done
by blasting through their course at high speeds.
Animal Biscuits has a carbon/Nomex hull built over a plug,
E-glass and carbon decks, and a carbon rig and foils: “I’m
a boatbuilder. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it
properly,” Partridge asserts.
The hull has a typical Shaw profile, its forward lines
reminiscent of its little sister, the Shaw 650. The large,
open cockpit is actually narrower than that of the 650 with its little
wings, but once the detachable racks are slipped into their sockets
the boat measures a generous 13ft wide.
For comfort and ease of use, the racks are open, not netted,
with a step a comfortable distance away from the hull and
a flat surface on the outer edge which can either be sat on by the
wary, or provides a wide, comfortable surface off which to trapeze.
Although the boat has four trapeze wires, Partridge prefers to helm
from sitting on the racks.
“We’ve got enough horsepower with three people on the wire so I’m
not needed out there. It was just too much to hang on — I’d rather
have better control.”
Another labour-saving device is a dinghy-style spinnaker
tube moulded into the foredeck, pushed for by bowman ‘Dr Dave’ Austen.
The 750 sq ft gennaker is launched and retrieved by cord into this
tube, doing away with messy drops and hurried packing.
“I was skeptical but now I love it,” Partridge says. “It’s
very easy to use. It was just a matter of developing our systems and using
lots of silicone spray.”
area and make
the yacht easy to handle without loss of performance.
Upwind Animal Biscuits felt well balanced and stable; despite
the up-and-down conditions there was no rolling about or
risk of those on the wire being ‘tea-bagged’. The main
sheets directly off the boom, requiring concentration but not excessive
strength to keep the boat upright.
The bearaway at the top mark produced smooth but exhilarating
acceleration onto a two-sail, and we quickly pulled away
from the rest of the mixed fleet for an enjoyable — and surprisingly dry — scoot
around the buoys.