C&C 30 High Performance One Design

The C&C30 is an exciting opportunity for us to take a fresh look at what a modern high performance One Design can offer, and do so with some of the best performance experts in the business, including KND Sailing Performance, a company based in Spain who we partner with on our Grand Prix racing projects like our recent Mini-Maxi Alegre.  Their unique features include a specialty in CFD and VPP performance prediction, as well as performance analysis of logged data for classes such as the TP52 fleet, Volvo 65’s, and the Mini-Maxis.

Starting with the certainty that the new design would need to be light with lots of sail area for exhilarating performance, what would be necessary to reinvent the type in 2014?  Listening to owners and dealers it became clear that previous generations of Sportsboats now require too many crew, and too many professional crew, to sail to their potential.  Professional numbers were easy to take care of with a well-written One Design rule put together by C&C 30 builder and One Design supremo Barry Carroll who stewarded the Mumm 30 and Farr 40 classes to worldwide success.

Addressing crew numbers was another issue, which required some thought to reduce without leaving the boat overpowered in a breeze under its sizable sail plan.  Our solution is to combine the lowest VCG possible with features such as the carbon fin with  a hull shape that has a slim waterline beam at rest, like a conventional sportsboat, for low wetted surface area and drag.  In light airs the C&C 30 should be sailed fairly upright, and with the crew weight forwards as usual to maintain that low drag configuration.  As the wind increases her wider hull shape above the waterline begins to immerse with increasing heel angle, adding significant amounts of form stability and using more of the sail plans power, allowing the crew to shift aft to further increase stability.  This stability from the hull form allows the C&C30 class to limit crew numbers and allows teams to focus on sailing and having fun instead of finding and managing  large crews, it even encourages shorthanded sailing in the right events.

To ensure the C&C30 incorporated the latest thinking in deck and sail handling systems such as the spinnaker retrieval system Volvo Ocean Race skipper Charlie Enright was asked for his input: “Jesse Fielding and I helped design the deck layout for the C&C30 by using our experience on a variety of different boats; everything from Mini-Maxis to Skiffs to other boats in the 30 foot range. It will be ergonomically easy and extremely efficient to use.”

For more details please contact Barry Carroll at C&C bcarroll@uswatercraft.com or visit C&C Yachts.