Interview with Ruairidh Scott, head of design at North Sails One Design
by Mark Jardine 5 Jul 2016 15:13 BST
5 July 2016
North Sails at the Dragon Scottish Championship © Fiona Brown /
www.fionabrown.com
We spoke to Ruairidh Scott, head designer at North Sails One Design about his 2016 season in Dragons and J/70s, the evolution of sail design, and the unique challenges of developing sails for the International Moth
Mark: Ruairidh, first of all, the next event you've got coming up is the Dragon Edinburgh Cup in Abersoch. Could you tell me what you'll be doing there?
Ruairidh: I'll be sailing with Grant Gordon on his Dragon. I'll do the middle on that boat so tactics, mainsheet, a bit of owner/driver coaching - it's pretty busy on a three-man boat like that and the Dragon is pretty technical - lots of strings to pull and play with. The Northern Championships and the Edinburgh Cup are both qualifying events for the Worlds next year in Cascais.
Mark: The Dragon is a very established class - what development is happening with sails in the fleet?
Ruairidh: There's always development going on. The boat manufacturers are pretty busy; Petticrows, being the lead boat builder for a long time, but PCT have been working in the background and have brought out a new boat as well. Both of them are pushing each other pretty hard. As the boats improve, systems improve, spars and rigging improve, therefore sail shapes need to change at the same time.
Ourselves and Fritz Sails in Germany, the two main sailmakers in the class, are always trying to improve our market share so we're both constantly developing sails. That may be all-purpose sails, or some of them may be regatta-specific. Since the Worlds next year is in Cascais, where we know in the middle of summer it's likely to be reasonably breezy with some pretty big waves, there will be sails developed with that event in mind.
Mark: Moving on to the J/70, this of course is a very new class. What work are North doing with the owners in that fleet where of course there is such energy?
Ruairidh: The J/70 been a real success story over the last few years and is already our number one class in terms of units sold. We recently brought out second inventory sails so we now offer two different cuts of mainsail and jib. That was predominantly because the North Americans last year were in San Diego which is quite a specific venue with big ocean swell and not much wind, so the second set of sails was predominantly designed for that. However, the conditions at most of the European venues have suited the original designs a bit better.
It gives customers options - their sailing style may suit one design over the other so they've got options within North Sails rather than going to another sailmaker to find something different. That has proven really successful for us. We had a massive market share at the recent Europeans with I think eight or nine of the top ten boats in the overall results.
Mark: You've been coaching in the J/70 class. What do you find usually that the customers benefit most from during that coaching?
Ruairidh: The first thing is getting the rig set up properly and the correct rig settings for the given conditions. The other thing that I've worked with is on boat handling, so that all the maneuvers are now in the inventory of the sailors. Once they can sail the boat round the course correctly, then they're properly racing after that point. Then they can start to make the decisions, make the small adjustments that is racing. Unless they are sailing the boats properly then you've got to learn to walk before you can run essentially.
Mark: Any other classes you've been involved with recently?
Ruairidh: Given my job as head designer within North Sails I'm involved with many classes around Europe, but I just don't have the time for sailing a lot of them because you've got to put the time in to these classes and do a lot of it. It's been a very busy year, especially with the Olympics coming up. There has been a lot of movement within classes like the 470 and the Finn and making development sails for them took up a lot of my time over the winter.
Mark: North Sails has this extraordinarily new loft here in Gosport, very close to established marine companies such as Selden. Do you find it an advantage when you're developing sails, for example for the 470, having the mast manufacturer on the doorstep?
Ruairidh: It's not been hugely different to be honest from my point of view because most of the correspondence happens via email and telephone anyway. I think it's been more for the customer who can come, go down to Selden and having a meeting there, bench test a bunch of rigs and they walk next door and talk to the sail manufacturer. It's certainly been an advantage for the customer in some classes but I probably haven't seen a huge difference in my own work.
Mark: Ruairidh, you've been doing a lot of work with the International Moth class recently, particularly with Rob Greenhalgh. Could you explain a bit about the processes here?
Ruairidh: Yes. That's been a really interesting project, the Moth being a fascinating dinghy as you really know. The sail has to go through a huge range of shapes for different conditions and different points of sail. Then the complexity of it being a sleeved sail with camber-inducers, rather than a conventional sail with luff tape and a mast groove; that's been very interesting. It's been great working with Rob and Derek Clark, his coach. We have been out on the water with these guys a lot and developing a product.
The 3DL sail that we've managed to develop is, for its weight, extremely strong. We've been really happy with the development we've had on that especially on the Exocet hulls and, off the back of that, we've designed a slightly different sail to suit the Mach2. We've only just released that quite recently, and had huge interest from Australia and America. In the UK most of the serious guys sailing Moths are already using Exocets. I see it growing well by continuing to tweak it here and there to try and keep that going forward.
Mark: One of the key things in the Moth class is maintaining leech tension and I know that Rob is now using 54:1 on his kicker. How can you aid that with the sail design?
Ruairidh: Yes, well, that's really where we started. The internal structure within the sail is 3DL, being a single-piece sail but with the custom yarn layer we've got carbon fibre and aramid flying around all over within the sail. The development of that and the actual shape and luff curve of the sail have given us a sail that when using a lot of vang perfectly fits its upwind shape. Then, when we ease it off, especially the cunningham and a little bit of vang, produces the downwind shape that we want. The internal structure within the sail and the development we've been involved with as well - all these things contribute to creating a shape that we want for both points of sail.
Mark: The Moth sail seems to be unique in the range of shapes that it has to have for the different conditions. Does that present unique challenges for you?
Ruairidh: It does. I think the big thing with the Moth sail actually is that in most classes you're either upright or you're heeled to leeward, so there's a major change there. Also, with the aspect ratio of the Moth sail, we're trying to keep the centre of effort as low as we can, because it very quickly is an overpowered boat which, combined with the windward heel, means it is quite a different project. That's what I think one of the main improvements that both ourselves and the Lennon product have made over the traditional sails recently and I think aerodynamically this has made a big, big improvement.
Mark: All the best for the rest of your 2016 sailing and fantastic to talk to you, Ruairidh.
Ruairidh: Cheers!
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