The 80ft Volvo 70 racer cruiser

We look at Karl Kwok's innovative Farr 80, Beau Geste

While it is tempting to label Karl Kwok’s new Gavin Brady-skippered Farr 80 Beau Geste as a Mini Maxi, in fact she is an entirely different proposition to the other IRC 60-75 footers currently racing in the Med. There is of course the fundamental issue that at 80ft LOA she is too long, but conceptually Beau Geste is unique, much more offshore orientated than the Mini Maxis, even the STP65s. She is in fact probably a closer relation to a Volvo Open 70, while also having the genuine potential to be cruised, although the ‘mod cons’ have been fitted in such a way to make the most minimal impact on her performance. In terms of displacement she is 24 tonnes, compared to the 8ft shorter Ran 2 that is just under 18.

“We are trying to go for a lot more of a cruiser racer-type scenario and make it more attractive to the owner, so we can do more things than just race, but still have a competitive and fast boat,” explains Beau Geste's boat captain Cameron Ward. “So we can finish a race and put it into cruising mode and go for a tour around the islands, drop anchor, etc. In New Zealand we did heaps of cruising.” And between their finishing the Rolex Middle Sea Race and the prize giving they plan to head off again.



As to why Karl Kwok chose an 80 footer rather than a 60, 70 or 100 footer, the aimiable Hong Kong-based businessman jokes: “I believe you should get a boat closer to your age! So I don’t have to worry about changing boat for a little while!" More seriously, he continues: "We started looking at a Volvo Open 70, an STP65 and all those bunch of boats and then you subject yourself to your designer and then you need a bigger platform to put all the stuff in. So we like to believe that this platform will generate the same power as a Volvo 70 - but 10ft longer and without the canting keel.”

Kwok’s approach to yacht races is as unique as his boat. He targets one major event every few years and will occasionally go to the extent of having a boat built specifically for that one purpose - as he did for the Transpac in 2003, when his new Farr designed TP52 finished a close second. Previously in 1997 he won the Sydney Hobart race overall on handicap in another Farr design. With his latest 80ft Beau Geste he plans to tick off several other ‘classic 600 milers’ and also a few of the non-classic ones. While this year Beau Geste has already competed in the Rolex Fastnet Race, next up is the Middle Sea, then it will be off across the Atlantic to compete in the RORC’s fledgling Caribbean 600, then up the eastern seaboard for the Newport-Bermuda next summer and then, probably, on across to the UK again for the RORC’s Round Britain Race.

Hull shape-wise she is very Volvo 70 with a generous beam, along with chines and substantial volume forward to prevent her bow burying when power reaching. As an indication of her VO70 heritage she has twin rudders and like Open 60s her towering five spreader Southern Spars rig is deck stepped. Unlike VO70s or Open 60s she has no canting keel or water ballast, but achieves a similar righting moment to a VO70 through having a lifting keel, that drops down to 5.8m. That is one deep keel - a VO70 for example only draws 4.5m. Equally with the keel raised she draws just 3.8m, so in Porto Cervo for the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, she was able to berth on one of the inner quays while the shorter Mini Maxis were dotted amongst the superyachts on the outer quay.

The whole set-up on deck is very offshore orientated. The cockpit is deep compared to the Mini Maxis. There is a separate companionway aft, just forward of her twin wheels down to the nav station and the owner’s central cabin beneath the cockpit, and typically when sailing offshore the main hatch is left closed, making her a relatively dry boat. There are no headsail foils - there are soft hanks on the jibs and all the other sails furl. There are no tracks for jib cars, instead they rely on the ABN AMRO/Ericsson ‘flying ring’ as has now become commonplace. The mainsail is fitted with lazyjacks.

As is the modern way too, so her sail controls are fully push button, with the exception of her two runner winches, which at present at least, are top handled. The hydraulic set up is managed by a fully adjustable ‘PLC’, a Greg Waters special from Central Coast Hydraulics in Australia, as we have seen previously on Leopard and many of the Volvo 70s/Open 60s, etc.

Ward gives the example of how the PLC manages the hydraulics for the lift keel system: “You press the button and it comes down, as soon as the pressure hits the setting it automatically cuts down. The keel is on a single ram with counter balance valves, so you have to get a certain amount of pressure in the counter balance valve to open the ball before the ram will activate. So once it gets down to a certain load or the ram gets to a certain pressure, it will just shut the system off.”

There is no generator on board, so the hydraulic motor is run off the main engine, which is therefore on all the time when racing.

According to Ward, on deliveries they tend to sail the boat with the motor off, only firing it up for the final trim. Then it tends to be a sheet on and steer scenario.

“We looked at how many crew you need to sail these boats,” says Ward. “We wanted to keep crew numbers down, that means more room down below, more enjoyable sailing, and just focus on having some good crew instead of having another six or seven guys. We are limited on this boat pretty much by moving sails, the rest of the time it is just press the button and away we go. The boat could be quite easily gybed with four or five people. We were always trying to keep the sailing crew down to 12-14 guys plus the owner and a couple of his guys.”

Beau Geste’s sail wardrobe was born from Ericsson 4 to the extent that they have the same designer - North’s Steve Calder. “A boat this size, it is a big Volvo boat,” says Ward, “so you need to learn what they [Ericsson] have learned and spent the money in researching, as far as sail design is concerned, and then try and change that to suit your designs, rather than building stuff out of the blue and then finding out it is a lemon.” Among their regular crew is Ericsson 4 bowman Phil Jameson, while Dave Endean was on board for the Rolex Fastnet Race, and according to Ward, others may be joining them in the future.

The two big jibs, a medium and heavy are attached to the forestay on soft hanks. The no3, Beau Geste's navigator Nat Ives describes as being “more of an Open 60 style Solent”, on the inner forestay with its own hydraulic tensioner on deck for the tack. Smaller than this is the staysail/no.4 and storm jib.

There are locks on all the halyards but a nice feature is that there is a red light, located just beneath the 30-30 display heads, showing that the halyard has gone past the lock.

An innovation the crew has been working on, is a furling system for loose-luffed A-sails, known as a ‘top down furling system’. This has furling drums at the tack and head of the sail as normal, with a PBO cable running between the two that is not attached to the sail.

Navigator Nat Ives describes what happens when furling commences: “When you wind the drum it starts to twist that stay and the torsion goes up and the head, which is the easiest part of the spinnaker to turn (because the foot is tight and the sheet is on) starts to furl. So we do what we call a pre-furl. We put all the torsion and tension into the stay and get the head turned a few times and then we are ready to go and then it is ‘zip’ – 30 seconds and it’s in.”



The team has spent a lot of time developing this and also tried attaching thin lines between the luff and stay, down the length of the luff, to encourage the sails to furl, although they have since abandoned this as being unnecessary. “If you do come around the mark, previously it might start flapping and unfurling, but now it is tight up there,” says Ward. “There have been a lot of enquiries about it since we started using it!” It also allows crew numbers to be kept down, it removes the need for a drop line system and having crew off the rail, down below packing kites.

Like the Mini Maxis, Beau Geste is got deflectors for her checkstays, but two sets. So, for example, when using the no3/Solent, where the head of the sail is lower than the bigger jibs, the deflector pulls the checkstay down so that it is adjacent to the top of the sail. The top mast backstay can also be separated out from the runners.

Down below she has a cruising interior, albeit in the most Spartan sense. There are cabins: a centre line, aft pointing double berth forward where the sails might normally reside on a conventional race boat. There is another cabin aft of this on the port side, opposite a large head compartmen,t where there is a power flush toilet and a fresh water supply. Karl Kwok’s bunk/cabin, as mentioned, is aft beneath the cockpit, where there is a centreline bunk that articulates to suit the tack the boat is on. In addition to this there are conventional pipecots running down either side of the boat aft for the crew.

The galley on the starboard side aft of the main bulkhead is equipped with a fridge freezer and the boat has a 24v circuit that powers a microwave and a 240v inverter allowing a toaster, kettle and other domestic appliances to be used. The fit-out is not glitzy like Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeos but basic, simple, lightweight and white, without the Hot Rod paintjob.

The nav station is located aft of the companionway and forward of Kwok’s ‘cabin’ with the housing from the drop down prop shaft acting as the navigator’s seat. In the navigatorium Nat Ives runs a laptop, B&G instruments with WTP, there is Fleet Broadband 250, Iridium and AIS. Perhaps coolest is the tiny cricket stump style camera that fits onto a fairing on the leading edge of the keel, which they use to watch for weed.
Beau Geste is designed to have a similar performance to a Volvo 70 without the need for a canting keel. In this respect she has been standing up well, although on rare occasions her additional displacement is noticeable. Structurally while she is speced to go offshore, we understand she is deliberately slightly ‘soft’ in order to help her withstand wave impacts offshore that would otherwise make her deck gear pop off.

“We are still on the learning curve,” says proud owner Karl Kwok of his latest vessel. “Every new boat has got to have a period of time to test it out and find the right angles and all that, but I think we are alight. It is a comfortable boat.”