The ED and I agreed that I would write a little bit about the Cone of Silence coming to the US, as we first heard about the Cone through the former owners dispatches on Sailing Anarchy from Hawaii during the TransPac and the Pittwater Coffs races down under. I’ve linked one of them here.   My partners in the boat and I are big Melges 24 fans, mostly because the Melges is a perfect combination of ease of ownership.  Fast, high performance, great one design class, easy to trailer to new places for racing, and generally a very high fun versus cost factor.  However, the one gripe my buddies and I had was that in a good blow, all the fun was over in a mile and a half. We found ourselves searching out longer distance races as well that would let a Melges compete, like Figawi and the Delta Ditch run when I owned a M24 out there.  About a year ago, when we were floating around before a start, I was bullshitting with a yacht designer buddy about the perfect boat.  He had a lot of experience designing sport 30 footers.  Why not take a Melges 24 and make it a little bit bigger into an affordable offshore capable platform, or at the very least one that would fit the two to four day race schedule of the Northeast including the Annapolis Newport, Stamford Vineyard, Marblehead Halifax, and maybe travel to the Mackinaw race?   It also begged the question as to why there are not more competitive sport boats in the 35 foot and under range doing offshore races.  As some of SA readers know, there was a big class of famous Super 30s down in Australia like Krakatoa (Young design), Tow Truck (a very dialed in Mumm 30) and others that would leave the harbor and duke it out in some pretty tough conditions and log some serious miles in the process.  I couldn’t help wonder why the best we could offer on the east coast of the US was the Quest 30, B32, MG30 or J105.  None of these met our criteria in terms of the lifting keel (for traveling ease), raw speed, offshore capabilities or fun.

We are still pretty young, aggressive guys so we didn’t really consider the livability of the boat during the race to be a big factor. That’s for another boat for another time.  We just wanted miles of reaching at planning speed with water cascading over the deck and driving off in puffs like our lives depended on it.  Having owned and raced a M24 in SF Bay I feel pretty comfortable when the kite loads up in pressure and have spent enough time on our sides after poor jibes to learn when to drive off and the consequence of not doing so fast enough.  Initially, we were considering a local famous Thompson boat, because the boat was so impressive and the owner really raced it well, and the recent new one design 32 foot sport boat hitting the scene, which clearly I had a pre-determined love for based on the M24 experience.  However, we started to get our doubts about both boats as serious offshore speed platforms as we thought about the design and modifications necessary to achieve a Cat. 1 or 2 platform, store a life raft on deck, etc. 

Meanwhile, we kept reading about this crazy little speed machine on Sailing Anarchy designed by Reichel / Pugh on Sailing Anarchy, that would enter these 200 to 2,000 mile races in Australia and the TransPac and haul ass.  It looked so awesome in the pictures, especially the ones of it driving off in 35 knots over 10 foot waves with its second largest kite up!  To think that they had designed a sport boat that had a specific kite that was for 40+ knots.  It seemed to be everything we were looking for. Offshore capable, lightweight, easily trailer-able with the keel lifted, modern design and composites and built to take a beating in tough conditions.

Something about it really hit a chord, and though we worried all the worries of leaving an established design for a pricey one-off, we sought out the former owner through the Editor of Sailing Anarchy and made contact.  In the process of dealing with the former owner, we learned what type of guy builds a boat like this.  Let’s just say there are some very admirable qualities, some major sailing expertise, a little bit of understatement and humility and sheer lunacy thrown into boot.  Lucky for us, we got the chance to catch up with him in Colorado when he was here in the US to spend two days skiing with him and his lovely wife and talking about the boat.  Upon the conclusion of this trip, we were ready to pull the trigger and made an offer on the Cone, literally sight unseen, which is a really scary experience unless you had met and spent time with the former owner and saw what type of guy he is.

I think what appeals to the Anarchy crowd is that the Cone represents a state of mind many of your readers share.  It is a Faustian tradeoff of shear speed versus competitive rating against other boats its size.  It’s the thrill of the unbridled power of the sail plan torqued out for maximum performance.  We’ve asked ourselves multiple times in the process what is important…the ride or the time on the podium because the latter might not be a frequent event for the Cone given the typical boat that does well under IRC.  Personally, looking back on races I thought were great, it was always much more about how the boat moved through the water, how well we sailed and executed and the time with my friends, than it was about winning some silver which inevitably my wife hides away someplace because it doesn’t fit the décor (we occasionally get lucky). The Cone is the ultimate embodiment of this idea.  It is a Open 60 trapped in a 31.5 foot carbon frame, just yearning for the right angle to break out and show its stuff.  When we want to prove how good (or not) we are versus other sailors, we can always mix it up in the Melges 24 fleet which we are not leaving anytime soon.  Not to say that winning wouldn’t be nice, but going mach 2 offshore is the real goal.

Fortunately for us as part of the purchase, the former owner agreed to bring some of the regular Australian crew along with the boat for the initial couple of US distance races.  We thought this would be the best transfer of experience from a great bunch of sailors who clearly have put the boat through its paces in thousands of miles of offshore experience.  We figured this was the most inexpensive way of learning from our mistakes.

With any boat like this, I am sure we will take our arrows in the SA Forum when we do something stupid with the boat which I am sure is inevitable.  I am sure we will piss off people who are inclined to not like sport boats, which you get used to at any PHRF race in a M24.  You don’t have a chance to shine if you don’t step into the arena even though the vox populi can be pretty tough and ask for your head from time to time.  I think however that this is a great marvel of design and the guys at R/P and SP Systems did amazing things, and I hope we can bring out the best in her and keep her pedigree intact.  I welcome any Anarchist to come by the boat when we are around if they want to see it up close.  I’m sure SAers know that the boat has some established traditions in the bow area that might hurt sensibilities of the more prudish, which we would think is in bad form and luck if we didn’t continue.  We look forward to giving more updates as we go along.

At the risk of making this too long, I want to thank the ED who runs a great site and for any SAer who helps their fellow sailor out, no matter how many times a question has been asked or how basic some questions may seem.  We have used SA as an incredible rolodex to the sailing world, even finding well recommended surveyors in Australia in literally two minutes.  This is at its heart an SA boat in our minds, which means we are never too busy to spare a minute round the yard or dock to share a tour with an SAer. 

Your fellow Anarchist - BMP

06/08/06