Inspired by the way the brand-new Peterson-Howlett design dominated the waves in 2004, we continued to build on our ongoing R&D by adopting incremental optimisation, predominantly focused on three areas:
> a new keel with optimised wing section, overseen by our new partner in hydrodynamical engineering, Sandrine Lescaudron.
> mast aerodynamics detailing, including active control of the lateral bending.
> cockpit ergonomics.
First pictures show the initial hull coming out of its mould on 22 November 2004 at Christof Wilke's shipyard.
Two units have subsequently been built and were launched in 2004-2005 with the "classical" laminar keel:
> SUI-217 Marie-Françoise XVI to Jürg Menzi, TYC.
> NED-35 Maitresse to Hans Nadorp, our current class president.
In the winter of 2005-2006 two other units were delivered, integrating Sandrine’s new keel and a new rudder, with less area again (we relearn how to drive with sails…) and hence more aspect ratio:
> SUI-219 Ali Baba to Bruno Marazzi
> SUI-220 Artemis to Roni Pieper
Introducing the new keel was very difficult and sapping due to the negative attitude of people who, shame to say, argued that a woman was not capable of calculating high-tech devices. When you know how serious and professional Sandrine is, you just begin to wonder whether throwing money at brand-new materials doesn’t mask lack of time spent training on the water! Intensive tests on Lake Thun showed exactly what we had expected, and the two boats, SUI-219 and SUI-220, went on to finish first and second respectively at the 2006 world championship in Medemblick, so...

More informations:

www.wilke.ch

www.5point5.org

www.jmenzi.ch