A Super Yacht for the 21st Century - One of the world's most advanced ocean racing yachts. The Nicorette yacht was launched as the world’s first IRM/IRC 2000 Maxi. She boasts a carbon fibre sandwich construction; a huge sail to weight ratio; water ballast and numerous high-tech design features, including an America’s Cup style keel with trim tab. She was designed by Dutch company, Simonis/Voogd and built by Concept Yachts CC in Cape Town and launched in December 1999. Since then, she was fitted with a canting keel in 2003, which replaced the water ballast system, and now in 2004, a new hull, keel and mast are being updated in and endeavor to win the 60th Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. Today’s racing yachts are miracles of modern technology. But ultimately, they still use wind as their only source of power. Here are some of her special features: All carbon construction: Nicorette is built using a carbon fibre sandwich construction, where a carbon fibre skin has been laminated on each side of a 30mm NOMEX core with epoxy resin. The structures have been packed in a plastic film to allow a vacuum to be applied to the sandwich while the entire boat has been ‘baked’ in an oven to allow complete curing. Carbon fibre provides the right combination of low weight and strength which she needs for ocean racing. This is why she weighs only 20 tons – and 8.5 tons of that is in the lead bulb at the bottom of the keel. A technologically advanced yacht of similar size to Nicorette, but built 10 years ago would have weighed 35 tons. The bow is a little stronger than the aft section because it has to take greater loads in big waves. It also contains a sacrificial bow for impact resistance in case Nicorette hits an object in the water. Sails: Nicorette’s sail ‘wardrobe’ will depend on the expected race conditions and is constrained by her IRC handicap. A typical wardrobe for the Sydney to Hobart could be one racing mainsail; up to seven jibs or foresails; two staysails, which go between the mainsail and the foresail or spinnaker and seven spinnakers, which are the large colourful sails used when the wind is blowing from the aft, or rear, of the yacht. In certain conditions, Nicorette could have enough sail area hoisted to cover more than four tennis courts put together - up to 1000 square metres of sail at one time. Nicorette’s mainsail and foresails are D4 sails, which refers to the way they are constructed. Rather than weaving the sail material, individual strands of Kevlar or carbon , an extremely strong and flexible material, are laid according to computer calculations to counter precisely the forces which the sail will encounter. The strands are glued between sheets of mylar film. The sails are made by Doyle Sailmakers manufactured in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. The racing mainsail and all racing jibs are made in the new Fraser/Doyle D4 technique. Fully rigged, she has one of the largest sail-to-weight ratios of any racing monohull yacht on the water today, making her astonishingly fast downwind. Nicorette ‘s Triple Moving Foil System. The TMF system, comprising a traditional rudder, canting keel and canard , Nicorette’s unique new keel system represents the very latest in Maxi yacht design. The combination of advanced features will put her amongst the fastest yachts in this year’s Sydney Hobart fleet and makes her ready for the astonishing diversity of conditions this race can throw up. In addition to the TMF system, she returns to the Sydney Hobart with a bow sprit to carry larger, more powerful spinnakers and special compound, multi-layered, pearl-effect coating to create a dramatic impact on the water. Canting keel: Ever since the Australian America’s Cup Challenger Team won the Cup in 1982 on Australia II, keel design has been widely known to be crucial to a yacht’s speed and efficiency. In October 2003, Nicorette was redeveloped with a canting (or swing) keel. Canting keels are not new technology, however, the rules for offshore racing yachts have only recently started to allow canting keels. This will be only the second year that canting keels will be used in the Rolex Sydney Hobart race. A canting keel can be deliberately ‘swung’ to windward to give a yacht more stability in stronger winds. Stability is crucial for efficient racing. Racing yachts are designed to be at their most efficient when slightly ‘heeled’ over. Nicorette’s most efficient range of heel is 10 – 16 degrees. At one extreme, when standing entirely upright, she would be slowed down by a higher ‘wet surface’ (resistance) but at the other extreme, when heeling over 16 degrees, the hull will lose symmetry, projected sail area and ‘grip’ of the keel. Two powerful hydraulic rods inside the yacht control the angle of the keel to counter the heeling force by the wind in the sails. Each is capable of applying 80 tons of push or pull to swing the keel into its optimal angle. To put it another way, each is capable of lifting 160 tons, a weight 8 times that of the yacht. As the wind becomes stronger, Nicorette’s canting keel will be adjusted within the limits set by the rules to keep her within that efficient range before having to reduce sail area. The keel is 4.6 metres long, but only 40cm wide and 80 mm thick at its thickest point. The bulb of lead at the bottom weighs 7.5 tons – almost half the total weight of the yacht. The bulb design is a torpedo style design for minimal resistance for the mass of lead it contains. The Canard When the keel, which is very small for this size of boat, is not providing enough ‘lift’ the Nicorette can lower a canard, or a centreboard which is located forward of the mast and the keel. The canard also has a trim tab to allow it to generate further lift as the trim tab makes the canard an asymmetric foil. The canard is only used to the extent required for upwind sailing. While sailing with the wind, the Nicorette crew will lift it up to decrease resistance in the water and increase speed Bow Sprit The Bow Sprit is a short sword-like pole projecting from the front of the bow. On Nicorette the crew can attach spinnakers to the end of the bowsprit in order to get larger separation (gap) between the mainsail and the spinnaker. The bowsprit also helps to keep the spinnaker pole down through a tackle attached between the end of the Bowsprit and the end of the spinnaker pole. With a strong wind filling the largest, 600 square metre spinnaker, a force of many tons is transmitted through the halyard to the top of the mast, and through the spinnaker sheet and spinnaker pole to the hull, giving it massive forward thrust allowing the Nicorette to surf with speeds over 30 knots.