Lightweight speedster

From Next magazine issue 3/2004. Text by Markku Rimpiläinen

The Melges 24 is so light and fast that you can hardly believe it's a keelboat. It accelerates over water like a race car on asphalt. In the expert hands of skipper Kenneth Thelen, Team Suunto's Melges 24 achieves the kind of speeds that has enabled it to win several international regattas.

Every now and then a sailor falls in love with a boat. Kenneth Thelen has skippered dozens of boat types, but when he first set eyes on the Melges 24 in 1995 it was love at first sight. That boat I just have to try, he thought to himself.

And he didn't waste any time making that thought a reality. In 1996 he bought Finland's first Melges 24, assembled a crew and started competitive racing. It turned out that Thelen and the Melges 24 were a perfect match. He and his crew have found success, and there's undoubtedly more to come. In 2003 Team Suunto finished the season top of the International Melges 24 European Ranking.

The Melges 24 has also given Thelen and his crew some unbelievable sailing experiences. In a fair wind the extremely lightweight boat planes beautifully, even though it is a keelboat and carries a crew of four. The hull of the boat barley touches the water surface when it hitches a ride on a large wave. Then the boat flies along at over 20 knots and the crew can enjoy racing at its best.

Design inspired by America's Cup yachts

The story of the Melges 24 begins in 1992. Buddy Melges Sr., then the president of the Melges boatyard, and his sons Harry and Hans returned home from a sailing experience that few ever get to savour. All three of them were members of the victorious USA America's Cup Team in 1992. The Melgeses were also involved in the boat's design because they had a lot of experience as builders of lightweight and extremely fast boats.

The design rules of the America's Cup are notoriously loose. The race is boat against boat on short courses, and because speed is almost the only factor guiding the boat's design and money is not generally an issue, the America's Cup has spawned some extremely fast and lightweight boats, but at the same time unmanageably large and incredibly expensive.

When the Melgeses got back to Michigan they began to think about how they could exploit their experiences of the America's Cup in the design of considerably smaller and less expensive boats.

The Melgeses took their ideas for an entirely new type of boat to Reichel/Puch, a design firm that had a lot of experience in large and fast keelboats. The Melges boatyard, for its part, knew a great deal about new lightweight materials, which it had used in the construction of many other types of boats. Right from the start the aim was to create a modern, extremely fast, but inexpensive racing boat from which a single-type class could be developed.

Heavy keel

The partnership between Melges and Reichel/Puch gave birth to the Melges 24, a 24-foot (7.32 metre) lightweight speedster.

The actual keel fin of the boat is made of carbon fibre and very light, weighing in at only 16 kilos. However, it supports a lead bulb weighing 286 kilos, which ensures a comfortable sail even in rough conditions. The total weight of the boat is only 780 kilos, so more than a third of that is in the keel. The mast and spar are also lightweight structures. The carbon fibre spar weighs just 29 kilos.

As far as the sail area is concerned, the dimensions vary from small to large. The real powerhouse of the boat is an asymmetrical spinnaker with a total area of 62 square metres. It gives the lightweight boat amazing speed. The fastest speed recorded for a Melges 24 is over 30 knots. Many Melges 24 crews have even towed water-skiers behind the boat just for fun.

The combination of lightness and large sail area not only makes the Melges 24 fast but also gives it incredible acceleration, enabling an experienced racing crew to make good use of even light gusts of wind.

In addition to creating a fast boat, the designers wanted to keep it as simple as possible. The rigging is uncomplicated and there are no winches at all. The Melges 24 is also easy to transport from place to place. During transportation the keel is raised. At the destination it can be pulled from its trailer into the water.

Popular class

The Melges 24 went on sale in the USA in 1993. It soon became clear that the boat-builder and designer had succeeded in their work. The boat became extremely popular in a short period of time. Now the sporty Melges 24 is the most popular high-tech keelboat in the world.

Many experienced sailors were attracted to the class because the boat's sensitivity and speed made it interesting and tactically challenging to sail. And as the Melges 24 was developed into a tightly defined single-type class, all of the crews sail in structurally identical boats.

There are, however, differences in the resources of the crews. Kenneth Thelen and Suunto's other crewmen, Henrik Thelen, John Blässar and Jari Bremer, are no more than semi-professional sailors, whereas many American crews are made up of full-time professionals. Moreover, the wealthiest crews are supported by meteorologists and support boats which survey the wave conditions and currents at race venues in advance of regattas. Even so, as Suunto's success demonstrates, semi-professionals can compete and succeed.

Team Suunto uses the latest Suunto m9 wristop computer in training and races. The device features satellite positioning, which amongst other things enables the course sailed during a race to be recorded accurately in the computer's memory. The data can then be downloaded to a PC after the race for detailed analysis.

Tiny details make all the difference

The circle of Melges 24 sailors is so small that the crews all know one another very well. The precise strengths and weaknesses of each competitor are thus known to all. Indeed, tactics are carefully worked out before each regatta. But because the wind does not respect any man's plans, races seldom unfold exactly as scripted. The skipper has to be able to make decisions very quickly during the race. In principle, the lightweight Melges 24 can make use of every gust or wind shift.

Because the Melges 24 is a fast boat capable of very rapid acceleration, observing wind shifts and reacting to them is extremely important. The skipper is continuously trying to find the right angle to the wind. The Melges 24 accelerates so quickly after changing direction that it pays to jibe whenever a wind shift occurs. Indeed, different crews will follow very different courses during a race. In races for more conventional and slower classes the competing boats often stick much more closely together.

As jibes and course changes are made often, Melges 24 crews are kept constantly busy. At decisive moments there are often two boats battling it out head to head, and it is then that tiny things make the difference between winning and losing.

Victory in a regatta is very often not decided until the boats cross the finish line in the final race. In the Swedish Open Championships held in June at Marstrand, the duel between the crews of Team Suunto and the Norwegian boat Fruen Maren was reminiscent of an aerial dogfight in which both combatants try relentlessly to put their adversary at a disadvantage. Fruen Maren won the last two races, but in both cases Team Suunto managed to finish in third place, which was sufficient to secure overall victory.

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