Designer Comments

THE DESIGNER

Jim Antrim is the award-winning designer of the Ultimate 20, the Ultimate 24 and the Ultimate 27; two of which won Sailing World Magazine’s prestigious Sportboat of the Year award.  He has a wide range of successful monohull and multihull performance boats that have set a variety of records to his credit.  Jim also penned an all-carbon Open 50 that successfully competed in the 2002/2003 Around Alone race in second place, giving him important insight into the class that gave birth to the Class 40.  In addition to his work as a designer, Jim is an active sailor as well, with three class wins in the West Marine Pacific Cup to his credit.



DESIGNER'S COMMENTS

I am very excited about developing this new Class 40 design with Novis Marine. Novis is a solidly established company with a well-deserved reputation for quality construction and thoughtful design and detail in their C&C and Tartan lines. All C&C and Tartan hulls are built with epoxy resin – unbeatable for ruggedness and long life. All of their boats are equipped with carbon spars from Novis Composites – light and tough. First class construction from two of the longest established sailboat lines in America.

The Class 40 is a little sister to the powerhouse Open 60s and Open 50s, with strict class rules applied to limit costs and force somewhat more human friendly interiors. Eye popping speeds and double digit thrills at a reasonable price tag. Canting keels are not allowed. Water ballast is limited. Hulls and decks must be built entirely out of E-glass. Strict safety regulations require flotation foam, watertight bulkheads, and a stability test. These boats are meant to cross oceans.



What is the best way to make an E-glass hull stiff and durable? Epoxy resin – think Novis.

Where is light and tough carbon most effective? Mast, boom, bowsprit – think Novis.

Novis and Class 40 is a match made in heaven.



Bilge chines in the stern are in fashion these days for high speed sailboats, and they make sense particularly for Class 40s. I’ve been using them since 1980. New to this design are forefoot chines. This is an idea I developed on my recently launched custom 40, a fully chined boat. At upwind heel angles the forefoot chine acts as a Vee bottom to soften the ride. Offwind this boat will spend a great deal of time at planing speeds. The forefoot chines will shed water, effectively reducing wetted surface to increase speed like the spray strakes on a powerboat.

Open class boats with shorthanded crews are the testing grounds for sailing gear and the nursery for innovations in ease of handling. With this boat you can cross oceans single-handed or double-handed; but you can also race around the buoys with a group of your friends. With a ten person crew, displacement and righting moment are very similar to a two person crew with water ballast. Leave the tanks empty and stack your friends on the rail. Go cruising with your family, fill up the tanks, and shuffle off to Buffalo while the other boat is still buying tires in Akron. We’ve worked out a cockpit layout that can be sailed by one; but has room for a modest barn dance. A full Harken deck hardware package is chosen for reliability and handling ease.

Down below we can’t compete with the creature comforts of a Tartan or a C&C; but you will find a spacious, comfortable, and functional interior. The chart table commands center stage. This is where the singlehand sailor plans his strategy. There is a decent galley and a semi-private head. Class 40 rules require four fixed berths. We have two benches that extend berth capacity to six, with the option for an additional double either forward or aft under the cockpit.

Finally, we are lucky in this project to have involvement and input of respected single-handed sailor Tim Kent. Tim finished second in Class B of the 2002 Around Alone on “Everest Horizontal”, an Open 50 of my design.