Comanche is a 100ft (30.5 meters) sailing yacht, which has been built with the scope to break every yachting record possible, winning prestigious yacht races, and meaning that it will probably become the fastest. The beautiful yacht, a Super Maxi class, has been commissioned by the Netscape creator, James H. Clark and his wife, the former Victoria’s Secret’s Australian model, Kristy Hinze.
The sleek black and red yacht has been built under a contract with a lot of confidentiality clauses by Hodgdon Yachts from Maine. Comanche has one of the largest single-infusion hulls constructed in America, and even globally. The oven used to cure the hull and superstructure is the largest one in the United States, and has been built by Hodgdon Yachts itself. They have been using advanced composites for several years, both for yachts and for military projects.
Super Maxi Class Yacht, Comanche
[source: Photos by Daniel Forster]
The naval architects are Van Peteghem Lauriot Prévost (VPLP) and Guillaume Verdier, acknowledged names in the racing world. The 150 foot mast has been constructed by Southern Spars and the sails are from industry leader, North Sails, including a spinnaker of more than 11,000 square feet. Launched in September 2014, Comanche is the result of studies of the IMOCA Macif and Banque Populaire, first and second in the 2012 Vendee Globe. Different from her other 100′ rivals, like Wild Oats XI or Perpetual Loyal, with her large beam, her mast far aft and a boom directly over the transom, Comanche has a much larger sail plan. The cockpit has been designed for manual maneuvers rather than hydraulic and therefore saves weight. Comanche has a powerful hull shape and a maximum draft of 6.5m in order to enter most ports. With a low freeboard and lateral ballast the center of gravity has been lowered to gain power.
| Launched | september 2014 | Sail area upwind | 760 m2 |
| Architectes | VPLP – Verdier | Sail area downwind | 1100 m2 |
| Construction | Hodgdon Yachts, Maine, USA | Displacement | < 30 tonnes |
| Lenght | 30,45 m | Draft | 6 m |
| Beam | 8 m | Headroom | 45 m |
Comanche and its crew, downward view
Comanche is commanded by renowned US skipper Ken Read, and raced by a world-class crew of twenty-one international sailors.
Her performances, like what Ken Read has explained that happened during the Transatlantic Race 2015, an average speed of 25 knots per total, a top speed of 38.8 knots, and large distances passed in the mid 30’s knots, are things which will make me to dedicate more space to this kind of posts. I am thrilled by what man can achieve with a good boat, and pure racing, like this, using just the power of the wind and the ability to float over the furious waves, even to brake them if necessary.
Comanche Sails!! FAST!! from Onne van der Wal on Vimeo.
Above is a very short (too short) video made by Onne van der Wal, which shows Comanche sailing.
Before publishing this, I have been looking for more videos, maybe more relevant, like I wish for this website to be, a better compilation of related sources on different matters.
So, I found this on YouTube, posted by sailingshack, where Ken Read presents the magnificent boat.
It really is a great boat, a very expensive one as well, it took $15 million to be built, and many millions more for the rest (called “campaigns”), and it made second place in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, losing to Wild Oats XI, and also second in the Transatlantic race 2015 (TR 15), loosing to Rambler 88 with a difference of only seven hours, which is really incredible, because in such a competition, they arrive at days distance. More on racing, in future posts, maybe I’ll make a new category.
I hope you like it and I’ll tell you more about yacht racing in general. What do you think, are you speed racers?
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Buna ziua,
Mi-as dori un articol scris de dvs. despre velierele cu chila leagan, swing keel sailboat cum sunt cunoscute.
Multumesc.
Am să caut mai multe informații despre ele, mie tipul ăsta de chilă mi se pare o complicație inutilă deși îi văd utilitatea.
Mi-ar face plăcere dacă v-ați abona la newsletter, șamd…