Luiz

The team Philips was my favorite boat for the Race. Unfortunatly, it wasn't ready and it wasn't sailed safely on it's sea trial so the boat was lost.

I think that they relied too much on numeric optimizaton of the structure and finite element design and that the boat was too light in many area.

I do not think that Multiplast would have been able to get it right because most problems were caused by some design flaws by the architect or by the design team. I do not know if Multiplast would have refused some plans and taken the responsability of changing the desigh. However, the reputation of Multiplast in term on high performance raicing multihull should have been enough to get the designers to change their caiculations

It happens when you design a boat out of high modulus carbon fiber. It lack the dampening effect of a softer construction and you can get into problems and faillure on certain structures. My opinion is that it is what happened on this design. The unstayed mast had alot of movement in the headaccording to the small video clips and every occillation was amplified at the base. A softer mast with a lower modulus would have been better and would have put less stress on the mast base.

I am starting to work on the plans of my first cruising catamaran and I will try to have an unstayed mast on it. I am confident that it will do better than the Team Philips (well, maybe not in speed )