Making a Killing

We look at the latest International 14 offering from Canada

Despite its name, the Killing 3 is not the much anticipated next instalment of the Danish crime series featuring woolly jumper clad Inspector Sarah Lund, but the latest state-of-the-art International 14 from Canadian designer Steve Killing. Readers will be familiar with Killing as he has previously designed the Little America’s Cup-winning C-Class catamarans for Fred Eaton, himself a past 14 sailor. Killing is now absorbed, working for Emirates Team New Zealand on the design of their AC72s.

As its name implies, the latest boat is Steve Killing’s third stab at a 14, having penned the Killing 1 in the 1980s and then the Killing 2 for Fred Eaton, which was never built. The latest version is being marketed by Toronto-based Jason Lemieux and Chris Leigh of Wire 2 Wire.

“The Killing 2 was more to prove a point that there are some loopholes in the rule,” explains Lemieux.”It was ultra narrow at a time when the fleet was putting big bumps on the side of boats to try and get around the width rule.”

Previously over 2005-2010, Lemieux and Leigh marketed Bieker 5s built by Object 2 Skiffworks (the Toronto-based carbon fibre gurus, who also built Fred Eaton’s C-Class cats and Bora Gulari’s Moth wings). However despite putting 25 B5s on the water, Lemieux explains they were effectively one-off boats. While they could be moulded up in a fortnight, each boat then required more than three months to complete...

“They were all high-end, custom one-off boats and the tooling that we had required a lot of manual finishing. So one of our big objectives with the Killing 3 was to produce more of a turnkey production boat, now that we know where we want everything, following our Bieker 5 experience.”

With the International 14 Worlds coming to Canada in 2013, another objective of the Killing 3 is to get more boats into the local fleet.

So tooling of the new boat, built by Rossi Milev, is more complex with most of the features - including the maststep, daggerboard box, bowsprit, forestay attachment, etc - now built-in. But this will dramatically reduce production time from three and a half months down to around two weeks,and as a result will reduce the boat's price tag.

The new Killing 3 is being built in pre-preg carbon with a Nomex core by Paterson Composites and compared to the B5, construction has been simplified. While the Beiker 5s were moulded in an autoclave, the Killing 3s are vacuum bagged and cured in an oven. “We find we are getting stiffer panels with the Nomex in the oven than the autoclave,” says Lemieux. “We think there is too much pressure in the autoclave. And it reduces the cost as well.”

In developing the boat they worked closely with CST Composites in Australia and again the tooling now features receptacles for CST’s tubes for the gantry, racks and bowsprit (which it didn’t on the B5).

While working on the design, Lemieux says they did a survey of all the I14 designs since the Beiker 5, comparing what they were like to sail with their hull shape. The aim he says was to produce an ‘evolutionary’ rather than a ‘revolutionary’ new hull design for the Killing 3. “If you are going to adapt to production tooling, there is no point in designing a hull shape that is so far out there that it could be a dud. So it is a pretty low risk enhancement on the hull.”

In common with the new Beiker 6, the Killing 3 has more flare at the bow, although not to quite to the same extreme degree. “We are putting so much lift on the T-foil to drive the bow down that you can’t get far enough back,” explains Lemieux. “So in the front 3ft or so, we added more volume and then we got rid of all the reserve volume so it comes straight up from there. One of our observations sailing the Bieker 5s is that they are quite narrow entry, so the bow pressed down in puffs downwind and into the backs of waves. With this we wanted something that could slice through the backs of waves upwind and you could really put it down in the puffs downwind.”

Another modification compared to the Beiker 5 is that the new boat no longer has a tapered bowsprit, as when this was retracted going upwind, Lemieux says it just sucked water into the boat. In addition they have added more camber into the foredeck to improve its water-shedding.

In terms of sail plan, the Killing 3 is an all-Australian affair, with a two spreader CST carbon mast and sails from David Alexander. This rig package is the same as Archie Massey has on his boat, which last year won the I14 World Championship.

“We don’t have anyone at home who can do masts [in Canada],” says Lemieux. “Since our goal is not to have something different to everybody, but to put more boats on the water, it is a bit of a standard package. What we’d like to supply is bare hulls and if they want to, owners can fit them out with their own foils and rigs.”

A third area of focus has been the deck layout and the team behind the new boat have spent much time developing that. “Between my first Beiker 5 and my second Beiker 5 I took 60% of the weight of fasteners and fittings out, just by really cleaning up how things are running and how the systems work,” says Lemieux. “This is now an evolution of that as well.”

On the model shown the sheets for the cunningham, vang, gyber, jib halyard, jib Cunningham and jib car pass through cleats on the deck edge either side. Each is continuous, running through the centre of the boat.

The chainplates for the shrouds and diagonals are at the end of the racks, rather than on the gunwhale. Lemieux says they also did this on their last run of Beiker 5s. The advantage of course is a wider shroud base, increasing the amount of forestay tension for the amount of shroud tension there is. However this hasn’t resulted in a reduction in shroud diameter. “We are pulling on so much forestay tension – it is all about forestay tension in the breeze - our standing tension on these is just at the top end of the working load for the rigging. Scaling down would be a bad idea...”

The Killing 3’s deck layout is flexible enough so that crews can modify them to their own styles. For example there are several ways the rig can be set up if a crew wants it to have fully adjustable rake. “We wanted it to be versatile and simple,” says Lemieux. “If someone wanted controls halfway back in the cockpit, we have a design for a little thing we can glue on where you can put three cleats.”

The Killing 3 has its own foil designs, including a T-foil rudder. On 14s, the horizontal lifting foil is typically halfway down the length of the rudder (Moths have this foil at the bottom because they lift out of the water...). According to Lemieux, Paul Beiker did some research into this and found the halfway point up the rudder puts the lifting foil into the right part of the stern wave. “We have had a few 14s that had them at the bottom, but it doesn’t seem to work. To be honest, from my perspective, it is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’.”

Also to the layman a feature that looks unusual is the lifting part of the foil not being flush with the vertical rudder blade. Lemieux explains: “The fleet has been moving our wings further forward in order to put less load into whatever the control system is. The further back the wings are, the move leverage you have against the pivot point.”

The Killing 3’s lifting foil is slightly boomerang shaped, as Lemieux says they believe this helps reduce tip vortex. They have played with two different sizes of rudder, but have opted for the bigger as the small one proved too unmanageable when manoeuvring at low speed in pre-starts. Lemieux says the rudder is similar in size to the one they used on their B5 for the last two seasons. “So we have done a few rounds, busted a few and found out where the line was.”

The T-foil’s pitch can be adjusted by 20° according to the conditions – in light airs you crank the foil to put the bow down and in strong winds running the aim is to coax the bow up for a safer ride. Unlike the twist grip-worm drive mechanism used to alter the T-foil pitch on the Beiker 6, on the Killing 3 twisting the tiller simply winds two lines, working in contrary directions, that attach to the T-foil articulation mechanism on the gantry.

Like the Beiker 5, the Killing 3 features a gybing daggerboard, although its design has been improved. Effectively the daggerboard box is rectangular and within this fits a diamond-shaped cassette through which the board passes. There is a tab on the forward end of the top of the cassette that fits into a slot, thereby restricting the gybe angle of the board.

In December the Killing 3 was being offered as a complete bare hull for Can$ 21,000. However complete boats are also available.

More info here