This programme was initiated in 1998 with Josi Steinmayer, then completed later by a larger team with expert input from David Howlett, Jean-Claude Vuithier and Christof Wilke. It drew its inspiration from the brilliant fourth place (the chocolate medal!) achieved by the crew, Flavio Marazzi and Enrico de Maria, in the 2004 Olympics.

The colour picture shows the CFD analysis conducted in autumn 2005 by aero-hydro engineer Sandrine Lescaudron who helped us optimise the keel and rudder airfoil sections.

One of the most distinctive features is the location of the running backstays attachment aft of the helmsman, which allows the whole crew complete freedom of fore and aft position for an optimum trim. The hardware configuration required to achieve this is necessarily more complex, but we believe the layout allows us to correct one of the major issues of the original Star design.

Despite there being little room for improvement within these class rules, our lengthy, painstaking optimisation work together with Christof Wilke’s high-quality construction delivered the goods: the 2007 European's title at Lake Garda, fifth place at the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao – winning one of the 11 races – and first place in the 2009 ISAF Trofeo Princesa Sofía.

And the family is growing: after Marazzi & de Maria, Robert Stanjek and Markus Koy, then Aimilios Papathanasiou joined the team.

Watch this space…

Articles:

98109_results_Star_Qingdao_2007.pdf (125 Kb)

98109_results_Star_Europeans_Garda_2007.pdf (55 Kb)

98109_results_Star_Princesa_Sofia_2009.pdf (456 Kb)

98109_results_Star_Olympics_Qingdao_2008.pdf (15 Kb)

More informations:

www.wilke.ch

www.marazzi-sailing.ch

www.swiss-sailing.ch/star

www.starclass.org