Sam Talbot, skippering Spike, a new Rapido 40, expects that he and his crew will be back to Nanny Cay in time for lunch after what should be a wild ride on Tuesday in big breeze for the Round Tortola Race for the Nanny Cay Cup, a 36 nautical mile taking in some of the most spectacular island scenery in the BVI, although Talbot may not have much time for scenery; he’s more focused on things going smoothly for the new boat.
“We JUST got it – the boat was supposed to arrive in November and we just got it early this month and have been working frantically every single day since in time for this week,” Sam Talbot, Spike co-skipper and boat captain said, laughing. “We’ve sailed it four times now and we’re rolling right into our first regatta and it’s supposed to be howling, we’ll see how it goes. I hope we don’t break anything; that’s our main goal.”
Switching from the J111 programme which Talbot had run for many years, Spike’s owner wanted to move into something bigger and more comfortable.
“The old Spike is a very physical boat and quite uncomfortable as well so for Spike’s owner, as he is getting a little older, he wanted a boat that was a bit more stable that he can have a more comfortable seat in,” Talbot explained. “It has two big bench seats in the cockpit where he and I will both be sitting so it’s easy to cross to get from one side to the other.”
Talbot is used to wet boats; he sails a Nacra Inter 20 regularly. But he was surprised to discover how wet the Rapido 40 is in a lot of wind, so with the big breeze forecast for Tuesday’s Round Tortola race, as well as into the remainder of the week, he said wet weather gear will be a requirement.
“We sailed the boat here to Nanny Cay on Sunday and it was a firehose,” Talbot laughed. “We’re bringing all the raingear.”
Talbot is just figuring out variables on the boat like how many crew he’ll need – they raced with ten on the J111, and eight on the Rapido 40 seems to be the sweet spot; most are local and also crewed on the J111.
“There’s a lot more space for everybody but it’s a bit more physical on lifting the various headsails – we have a lot more headsail action going on than we did on the monohull, but the crew doesn’t have to hike as much which they’re thrilled about,” Talbot said. “A few less crew has its ups and downs – its much easier when you’re putting the crew together but it’s a little less fun when it’s the crew party…”
Another reason for the new trimaran is that initially Team Spike raced a Corsair 31 (the Corsair is a competitive fleet in the BVI) but as Talbot noted, going from hull to hull on that boat makes for a long way to go during manoeuvres so not ideal. But the owner liked the idea of going back to a trimaran and was hoping to race with his buddies in the Corsair fleet this week but for now Spike will race with the big guys in the Performance Multihull class, going up against boats like the HH66 Lee Overlay Partners 3 (formerly Nemo), Triple Jack (Kelsall 47), and Timbalero 3, a Gunboat Foiling 40.
“There’s no point in having a fast monohull like the J111 that’s racing by itself essentially when you have fleets with other trimarans and fast multihulls so for now Spike will race in Performance Multihull,” Talbot said. “The smaller trimarans will race smaller courses and they’ll have a lot more manoeuvres and while we’re quicker than them, we’re not quite ready for windward leewards and fast manoeuvre racing. I am happy with the longer distances we’ll race even though boats like Overlay and Timbalero 3 are going to smash it in much less time and we’re going to be one of the slower boats in class. We’ll be at the back of that fleet which is not ideal but we’ll do our best.”
Talbot says he loves the speed of the boat; in the four sails they have done, at 23.1 knots they’ve already touched the old Spike’s top speed which was 23.8; it’s a quick boat and they’ll break 23 for sure this week, he smiled.
New to Talbot are the curved seaboards on the Rapido 40 as well as a T-foil rudder and rotating wing mast. The boat is not designed to foil but it produces lift and when the bows are kept out of the water, the T-foil curbs the pitching to maintain a steadier platform.
“I’ve already noticed a real big difference with the C-foil operation but I still have a lot more to figure out with the seaboards like how much lift you want, you can play with that, you don’t always want maximum lift, and counter-intuitively it’s not all the way down when you’re going upwind, you don’t want it all the way down in heavier winds, so we’re learning the nuances. We’re struggling a lot with weather helm, there is an imbalance in the boat and we’re really having a challenging time sorting that out but I’ve been talking to Morelli Melvin, the designers of the boat and they’ve been really helpful. We still have a lot to do to get the boat to be a fully efficient race boat but it’s race-able, we’re here but we don’t expect to win our first regatta!”
Talbot says he’s hoping they’ll find more time to play on the new Spike before moving north for the summer months.
“Any time we can sail it helps and it is a fun boat to sail,” he commented. “It’s comfortable and the interior layout is really comfortable and if you’re just going out to sail around for fun it’s actually quite easy to sail, much easier than old Spike was.”
Spike will race all the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival races this week starting with Round Tortola for the Nanny Cay Cup on Tuesday. Talbot, 38, grew up in Tortola and has raced around the island more times than he can remember but not always on a brand-new boat.
“It’ll be fun, we’re looking forward to the downwind on the backside tomorrow!” Talbot gave a huge smile.
