SuperFoiler, Adelaide • Photographer Andrea Francolini
yachtingworldmagazine #ywbackfi re
At the first ever SuperFoiler Grand
Prix regatta in Adelaide in February,
Luke Parkinson’s Tech2 went
airborne before wiping out.
“We had the boat fully lit up
coming to the finish doing 31, 32
knots,” said Parkinson.
The leap began with an apparent
structural failure of the aft section
of the port hull, causing the bows to
spear into the air before the yacht
capsized. (The video is on YouTube,
bluntly entitled ‘SuperFoiler
Adelaide Race 1 Tech2 Destruction’.)
The 7.9m SuperFoilers by Morelli
& Melvin Design were designedas ‘the fastest course racing boat
ever’, with a huge power to weight
ratio, capable of hitting downwind
speeds of more than 40 knots.
The Grand Prix series features
six teams of three people racing
around stadium-style courses at
different venues around Australia,and has attracted some big skiff
and America’s Cup names such as
Nathan Outteridge, Glenn Ashby,
and Paul Campbell-James.
Tech2 was repaired in time for the
second series event in Geelong.
We take an in-depth look at these
incredible machines next issue.BACKFIRE