DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018 53“bulkheads.” A large, square stud pro-
truding out from one face inserts into
a matching socket in the other. at’s
it. e very notion that such a joint,
held together by compression only,
survived the 2017 Everglades Chal-
lenge inspires con dence that much
larger wings can indeed be made to
stand ocean-racing stresses.
As we watch Smyth place each seg-
ment of Sizzor’s wing in its padded,
form- tting bunks atop the trailered
hulls, Gonzalez tells me about his new
rm, Fast Forward Composites, in Bris-
tol, Rhode Island, where additional
development of the hybrid wing and
other design ideas were under way. It’s
where Gonzalez has quietly developed
a serious composites shop, assembled
what he calls his “Mosaic Design Team,”
and brought a committed investor/
client to the table. Smyth is a stalwart
member of that design team. He and
Gonzalez tell of once relaxing at a lo y
overlook on the island of St. John (U.S.
Virgin Islands), where Gonzalez then
had a home (recently destroyed by
Hurri cane Irma). Gonzalez brought out
a sketch he’d been considering for some
time, and together they enjoyed brain-
storming the details of what they then
called “the wing thing.” It took a while
for them to realize what they’d done.
“I’m not a boatbuilder. I’m a sailor,”
Gonzalez says, “but I’ve put this wing
idea together with other things. And to
get protection we’ve had to keep it under
wraps. I guess we’ve become quite secre-
tive about it, but now that we nally
have a patent on it and several others
pending, maybe you should come up to
Bristol, see the whole project, and help
us let the cat out of the bag.”Fast Forward
Jumping at Gonzalez’s invitation, just
a few months later I was in Bristol with
Scott Brown, my Canadian cinematog-
rapher friend, and PBB’s editor, Aaron
Porter. In a marine industrial park, we
located the unmarked shop behind a
chain-link fence and sliding gate. Gon-
zalez and Smyth were there along with
Wolfgang Chamberlain, the chief
builder, and his team of compositeperformance, but it also makes a dif-
ference when there are limitations on
dra . “With my old rig, the dagger-
board was barely big enough because I
needed shallow dra for this crazy
race,” Smyth says. “It was okay when
the boat was really moving, but some-
times in waves the board would stall
out.” Now with the wing exerting far
less lateral loading, the board is plenty
big enough.
“ e whole boat is just more e -
cient, and it really matters when you
can tack up a channel in zephyrs at 85°
between tacks instead of 100°,” Smyth
says. “In the other Everglades Chal-
lenges, I’ve pretty much had to run the
course alone. You know, a er the start
it’s just me and the clock. But this time,
because I started so far behind, I saw
many of the other boats. Like I saw
Meade [Gougeon] out there in his sail-
ing canoe, doing ne at age 78! Wow!
en I saw a little trimaran up ahead.
It was doing well, storming along,
spray ying, but I was going so much
faster, and I know he couldn’t hear me
coming. I put my windward outrigger
about this far [he shows pinched n-
gers] from his head, and I went ripping
past at maybe 20 knots. Just totally
showed him how it’s done.”
A er belly laughs all around, we
talk history and explore the prospect
of tting a hybrid wing to Scrimshaw.
We agree that ease of handling and
safety, rather than speed, would be the
motive for that application. e dis-
cussion leaves us wondering if, in
time, many existing boats might ben-
e t from such a retro t.
Back at the beach that a ernoon, we
watch Smyth load Sizzor and its spec-
tacular wing on the single trailer that
transports both. He just loosens the
rig, li s the wing o its pin, drops its
base into the sand beside the boat, and
easily manhandles its 27' (8.2m) down
to horizontal. en he yanks it apart
into two halves, each easily handled by
one person. I marveled that, despite
the wing’s extraordinary span unsup-
ported by rigging from top to bottom,
the joint at the middle is simply a
butt joint mating two all-carbonits power on or o. Far less work for
far more control.”
For instance, the wing exerts about
40% less load at the mainsheet. Smyth
says the old rig needed a seven-part
purchase, but the wing requires only a
four-part tackle, which allows for much
faster trimming. Plus, the wing has a far
better li -to-drag ratio—more forward
drive for less lateral force.
“ ey say a wing gives nominally
20% more drive than ordinary sails,”
says Smyth. at means better overallSmyth knew he could sail the boat to
maintain this con guration for long
periods with only the main hull in
the water, and yet when the wind
blew, the downwind ama would be
burdened and the upwind ama
would be ying, so neither of them
would spank excessively.
e Everglades Challenge race
course no longer includes that
bridge, but its one-time constraint
resulted in Sizzor weighing only
about 200 lbs (91 kg). In light air
she engages with the water as an
extremely light and narrow mono-
hull, and yet when the wind blows,
she can be a hard-driving trimaran
with minimal wetted surface.
Now add a hybrid wing to the
structure. First thing you’ll note is
that the shrouds, which lead up to
the wing’s masthead from the akas,
must make the same excursion as
the amas when pantographing. ere-
fore, it is necessary to rake the wing
enough to locate its top (where the
shrouds converge) directly above
the centroid around which the akas
pivot. Otherwise, the shrouds will
bind and/or the wing will list. Yup,
it’s complex geometry!
en put Randy Smyth on the
helm, and if he pulls that prank of
starting way behind the eet, and
you are in that eet, well, better
watch your proverbial stern.
—J.B.HybridWing170-ADFinal.indd 53 11/2/17 11:49 AM