Innovate & Improve with P&B

by Ben McGrane, P&B 22 Jun 2014 19:48 BST 22 June 2014

INNOVATE & IMPROVE

With many classes which aren’t a strict one design there is always a demand to continue to develop the product in order to stay at the front of the fleet.

It’s an immensely interesting part of our sport and if you consider the improvements that have been made in the past 20 years it is quite staggering what has been achieved. Technology has found its way into our sport, new materials, improved production processes and all has resulted in boats that are simply faster.

Sailing in the I14 class I have seen complete changes in sail profiles with the introduction of square head mainsails and also seen the all up weight of rigs literally halved, going back to the late 90’s when I was kid in a Topper it would have been impossible to have built a boat to todays I14 70kg minimum.

With this in mind in recent months I have taken to looking at ways in which certain dinghy classes could be further improved, other than being a 14 sailor and knowing the necessity to keep developing to stay competitive in this class, things like the foil sections and profile of my Merlin rudder really bugged me in that it was very traditional and big with masses of drag. Surely this could be improved?

The outcome of all this has been to not only leaning harder on our supplier for greater innovation but to also use our on in house expertise coupled with technical specialists to manufacture new products in house that look to bring an even greater final product to our customers, the first of these products is our new rudder and t-foil.

For this product we have worked with designer Richard Pemberton, Richard specialises in computational fluid dynamics and overall performance analysis. He has previously been a member of the design teams for GBR Challenge and Team Germany in the America’s Cup along with Vestas Sailrocket for the overall speed record. Richard has produced a rudder design which is smaller than many of those currently available offering a large reduction in drag, the section design will further reduce drag whilst also being less prone to stall than more traditional designs.

In order to make sure the designs are in no way compromised we have invested in CNC cut moulds to give the ultimate level of finish and fairness of shape, this will also guarantee consistency of production and performance.

Over the coming months we will trial the rudder in various different classes to see how it performs, keep an eye out for bright yellow rudders on P&B race team boats! If you would like more information on this new product then please contact Ben McGrane via email

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