Quest for speed takes on a whole new urgency
WHETHER its America’s Cup cats or ocean-racing monohulls, the quest for speed has never been greater. Carbon, Kevlar, Mylar, Aramid fibre sails — the technology being employed to shave weight and gain speed has taken a real hold on yacht racing. The days of GRP and Dacron are over. It seems everyone is in a hurry and in the past few weeks some have been positively turbo-charged, writes Chris McLaughlin.