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C&C 30 One Design Update, from RCR Yachts:
We recently spent 10 days at the Toronto Boat Show where we had the new C&C 30 as part of our display. Next to many larger cruising boats and some smaller dinghies, the C&C 30 stuck out to pretty much every person that walked through the sailing section of the show. We had constant traffic on the boat and we were asked just about every question imaginable, normal for a boat show but more so with the C&C 30. For those familiar with the old C&C designs, this was a definite change from what they were used to seeing. The boat is all about performance and speed, which you can see right away with the hull design and deck layout (we did not have the rig up). The display was set up so that everyone entered from the stern, which is a very wide open platform, so you immediately got a feel for how big the cockpit is, with plenty of room to walk around. It is a well thought out modern design that makes sense to racers and we heard that over and over again.
The top 10 questions asked at the Toronto Boat Show (and their answers!):
Q: How much does it weigh?
A: 3,995 lbs
Q: Does the keel retract?
A: Yes, but only for transport purposes, the keel comes up into the cabin to reduce overall height. There is a clamshell to securely hold it in place while on the trailer or cradle. When sailing, the keel stays down and is bolted in place.
Q: Does the sprit retract?
A: No, it is a fixed sprit and is extended all the time while sailing. The reason for having the fixed sprit is structural. The load allowance is much higher and is capable of supporting the luff of a larger code zero spinnaker for long distance offshore racing. The fixed sprit is also water tight. It can be easily removed by a quick release of the bobstay line and can be pulled up on deck for docking.
Q: What is it made out of?
A: Hull/Deck: VinylEster, E-Glass, Foam Core Resin Infused with Carbon Reinforcing in a Structural Grid. Keel: Carbon Fiber Fin and a Lead Bulb. Rudder: Carbon Fiber Stock and E-Glass. Rigging: Mast and Sprit are carbon fiber, boom is aluminum.
Q: How many have they sold?
A: Now taking orders on #26
Q: How fast does it go?
A: Of course this depends on wind strength, but Will Harris of C&C Yachts told us that he has seen up to 23 knots of boat speed in 30 knots of breeze during a fall practice session in Annapolis! The race was called off due to too much wind but the two C&C 30s went out to play.
Q: How many people are needed to sail it?
A: Still needs more testing to determine the optimal number, but it can be sailed with any combination of 5-7 crew total.
Q: Is it trailerable?
A: Yes. The boat is designed to be trailered to and from One Design events all over the country. The keel retracts to make the boat lower off the ground while towing.
Q: How much does it draw?
A: 7'6" with the keel locked down in sailing position. The keel weighs 1,600 lbs with all the lead in the bulb. A kelp cutter is optional.
Q: Does it have an engine?
A: Yes, it has a 12HP Volvo Diesel Engine with Saildrive and geared folding prop
Our boat in at the Toronto Boat show showing the keel in the up position for storage and transport
Demo Sailing in Florida: The C&C 30 One-Design "Salt" will be at Riviera Beach Marina, near Palm Beach Florida from February 25 to March 2. If you are interested in a test sail, reach out to us to discuss this exciting opportunity and schedule a sea trial. One-design racing gets underway this spring and limited production slots are available for 2015 delivery. Email timfinkle@rcryachts.com or call 860-917-5416.
RCR Youngstown Open House, March 7th:
We will have our stock boat on display and easily accessible inside our Youngstown heated showroom. For those who missed it at the Toronto Boat Show or want to revisit for a closer look, please stop by. We will be there from 10AM to 5PM and we will have out some snacks and refreshments. Also on display is the J/88, J/70, Sabre Spirit 36, Back Cove 30, and Trophy 19 center console. It will be like our own mini boat show! If you can't make the show you are welcome to visit us another time, the boat will be inside.
Builder Notes: We caught up with Randy Borges, President of USWatercraft to ask him how its going with the C&C 30 build. He is a very experienced raceboat builder so we were curious to find out what's new from that end. This is the most high tech boat currently being built at the USW factory and they have put a lot of time and effort into the process which started about one year ago. From the beginning, the focus has been on maintaining consistency from one boat to the next. Hull #3 should be the same as hull #23 and he feels that they have accomplished that goal, a critical one for a One-Design fleet. The boats are well tooled with jigs and templates so that pieces go together seamlessly. The boats have been coming out within their target weight tolerances and that is possible because each part has its own weight sheet that comes from the in-house engineer. The one piece carbon fiber structural grid is the bones of the hull, which Dunes says has made it easier to build the boats.
We asked him what has changed from the first demo boat they made to the boats going out the door now and he said "very little". This is a testament to the effort they put into the concept and design phase of the project up front. Dunes has made a living off of one-design boat building and he knows that great racers are going to look for ways to optimize the setup, so they brought those experts in to advise them on that part.
Overall, they have sold 25 C&C 30's to date. The boats are going far and wide which tells us that there is global appeal and the boat can sail in all different venues, not just in their backyard of Narragansett Bay. So far boats have gone to Long Island, Annapolis, Newport, California, Chicago, UK, Germany, Norway, and Japan!
C&C 30 One Design Class Rules Published:
C&C Yachts official version of the C&C 30 OD class rules were published two weeks ago. The C&C 30 OD Class Association will get off the ground as our new owners take delivery of their boats and officially join the class over the course of the coming months. As governance of the class is turned over to the owners and the class association begins to take shape, we expect there will discussion of/modification to these rules as allowed under the class bylaws. Let us know if you would like a copy of the rules.
Ullman Sail Testing in California
Field Notes: Will Harris from C&C Yachts has sailed the boat more than anyone on the planet, so we called him to get some insight. Here are some notes that we scratched down on paper after talking to him on the phone recently.
A Big Boat, Not a Dinghy: Many people have the misconception that this boat is going to feel like a dinghy because of the way it looks. The first impression is somewhat misleading and the boat is actually more like a smaller TP52 grand prix boat versus a Melges 24 type sport boat. It is not "twitchy" on the helm and it tracks really well upwind. The boat likes to be powered up, the more the merrier and it will just continue to find its groove as if it were on a train track. The boat is surprisingly dry upwind as it cuts through waves quite easily.
You will notice from the pictures within this newsletter that the boat is heeled more going upwind than you might normally be used to. The design puts volume at the chines, so when it gets heeled over it actually digs in and gets stiffer. Normally when heeled over would pick up a lot of weather helm, but that is not the case here. Will Harris told us that in very light air, the boat likes to be flat, with weight forward. In the heavier breeze, the boat heels over to a point and then just builds speed from there as the keel bulb goes to work.
Downwind may also be a bit different than what many are used to. For most boats, you want to bear off and flatten the boat, where as the C&C 30 likes to stay heeled and rip along at about 14 or 15 degrees of heel. Rather than trying to catch waves to ride, it is more about avoiding the waves ahead of you so that you don't run into them and slow you down!
Crew Position:
Fore-and-aft positioning of the crew weight is critically important. When the breeze is really on downwind, you need to stick everyone in the back of the bus. But don’t keep them there too long - fortunately, the boat literally tells you to move forward! Just look at the aft quarter. If the wake looks angry and is making noise - weight forward! When the wake is coming off clean and sharp – stay where you are.
Upwind, on other boats we’re used to seeing the bow knuckle out of the water. A natural instinct is to move crew weight aft until you see it lift up. When we have a new team on the C&C 30 OD, I make a point of having them look at the bow while the boat is in the slip, with no one aboard. The knuckle is in the water! The DWL is a few inches above the turn. If you try to get the knuckle out of the water while sailing upwind, it just means that you’re doing a wheelie. Keep the bow in the water for maximum speed.
A Fixed Bow Sprit: Many have asked why the sprit is fixed versus retractable. The reason for a fixed sprit is the added structural strength. There is a huge amount of compression on a sprit. On a boat as powerful as the C&C 30, having the pole bend that much is unacceptable. Many C&C 30 owners want to be able to race offshore and use code zeros. The zero needs massive halyard tension to work. Having a fixed sprit allows us to carry the compression load on a bulkhead and also allows us to have a bobstay. This eliminates the need to design in pole flex. So our sprit can be very stiff and carry the load of the big kite or Code Zero with a minimal amount of flex.
The sprit does not retract, but is easily removable. The pole slides into the socket at the stem and slides in until it hits the bulkhead (about 14 inches or so). The bobstay is dead-ended on the stem and goes through the sprit and leads to the main bulkhead below. You tension the bobstay and tie it off. Removing the sprit is really easy and takes just a few seconds. 1- loosen the bobstay 2- slide the pole forward and out of the socket. 3- lay it on the deck. Some of the boats who live on moorings or small slips are having canvas covers made so the sprit just lives on the foredeck.
No Furler: A furling jib is nice for ease of use, but it is not going to give you the same performance as a normal hanking jib. The reason is that you can have horizontal jib battens in a non-furling jib vs the vertical battens needed to have a nicely rolled up jib. The horizontal jib battens give the jib much better shape. With the jib that you see on the C&C 30, you can get the jib car inboard and trim on to about four degrees for short periods, which allows you to point really high!
Regatta News:
One-Design Start at Charleston Race Week - April 16-19, 2015. The C&C 30 is planning for a one-design start at Charleston Race Week. So far, we have three boats signed up! Please encourage local owners to sign up, or any prospects to consider a charter for the event. Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina have allowed us to have the boats tie up together on B dock, which is near the regatta tent.
Yachtscoring Link: http://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=1220
Other One-Design Events: C&C is working with the organizers of the events below to have an official class presence. More news to follow in the coming weeks.
Annapolis NOOD Regatta, May 1-3
NYYC Annual Regatta, June 12-14
Block Island Race Week, June 21-26
Salt Hull #2 At Key West Race Week
First impressions, by Tim Finkle: This past summer I had the opportunity to sail on the red C&C 30, hull #1 in Newport RI. The first trip was really to pick up a stock boat from another factory in town, but I managed to mix in a little "research" while I was there, after all it was a summer race night on the bay. The second trip was specifically to take a customer and his crew out for a demo sail, which was just for the day and we ended up getting perfect weather and sailed out in the ocean for several hours.
I'm not going to get into the technical side of sail trim and fine tuning the C&C 30. Frankly, I haven't sailed it enough to be the expert on that. What I can attest to is the way it sailed and the things I liked about the boat and some of the features that make it "the future of performance racing". First, is the cockpit. It's like no other boat of that size that I've ever stepped foot on. The floor of the cockpit is wide and flat with very little to trip on and with that much room, you aren't tripping over the other crew members either. As many of you know, I'm a huge J/70 fan and that boat has that in common with the C&C 30, the cockpit dominates the majority of the boat. The C&C 30 only needs 5 or 6 crew total, which on a 30 footer gives everyone plenty of space to do their job. The non-overlapping jib is how most performance boats are designed these days and the 30 is no different. A lot of older designs with the overlapping genoas require the jib trimmers to be back in the cockpit behind the cabin and often times fighting for space with the main trimmer and driver. This boat is quite the opposite, everyone has a nice comfortable spot to sit and everyone crosses through the cockpit, not over the cabin top (there isn't one) or forward of the mast getting slapped by the jib and jumping over the sheets! The boom is high enough that you don't need to duck too much and you can cross the cockpit without hesitation. The jib controls are all led underdeck and right out to one spot where you can get to everything, like your own little pit station. The jib can be tacked by one person and trimmed from the high side by cross sheeting to a winch, like you might do on a smaller boat. I also liked how you don't really need a traditional foredeck position. With the spinnaker take-down system and the offset foredeck hatch, you can set and douse without needing a lot of hands, which is saying something with how big that spinnaker is!
I also flat out like how the boat looks. Yes, performance is important, but you are lying to yourself if you didn't consider looks. We factor that into the houses we buy, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, etc. Looks matter and this boat looks the part of a fresh new high tech race boat. You have to admit it is a sporty looking boat with the plum bow, hull chine, the new high tech sails, the black powder coated stanchions that match the carbon mast and carbon bow sprit. The two-tone deck looks great with the soft deck that most boats are ordered with.
My initial reaction to sailing it was that it is definitely high powered. It is going to take some owners a bit to get used to, it is not like many of the boats we have on our lake. That said, I don't think that it is too difficult to sail if you understand the way the boat should be sailed. The boat has A LOT of sail area, the mainsail is large and has a square top. There are running backstays that need a full time trimmer in the breeze but the rig is stout enough to stay up without the runners, they are primarily for rig/sail control. The asymmetrical spinnaker is enormous and will require good communication between trimmer and driver to keep it on its feet. There are no compromises in design, it is made to go fast and create a really fun new exciting one-design class for avid racers. Unlike some other new designs the C&C 30 is intended to be offshore capable, it is not just an around-the-cans boat. This is the way of the future for racing boats and I like it!
C&C 30 OD sailing out of Corinthian YC in San Francisco, CA
Press & Videos:
More Videos here too: http://www.rcryachts.com/new/cc-yachts/cc-30-one-design
Sail Magazine Best Boats for 2015 Winner: http://www.sailmagazine.com/best-boats/best-boats-2015-cc-30
C&C Yachts Website: www.c-cyachts.com
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