At the 2014 ISAF Annual Conference in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, the Equipment Committee recommended the new Nacra 15 for the Open Multihull event at the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship.
Nacra Sailing's Gunnar Larsson gave an update on the Nacra 15 to the recent ISAF conference in Sanya and outlined some recent changes the Nacra 15 has gone through. A slightly flatter mainsail and slightly flatter gennaker are now present on the multihull as well as minor changes to configurations and control blocks.
A prototype was recently put through its paces at the recent Eurocat in Carnac, France. Larsson reported that one of the big comments made was about the smiles on the faces of the young sailors that sailed the boat.
Brand New Design
Nacra Sailing international made a bold move by designing a new multihull from scratch to the supplied criteria by ISAF. These criteria were drawn up by a technical working party consisting of specialists from ISAF.
According to Peter Vink, Technical Director in charge of the design team at Nacra Sailing & Performance Sails, “After study, we realized that the perfect multihull for youth sailing did not exist yet. Yes, we took a risk by starting from scratch and to come up with a brand new design. But we are convinced that if we want to win the hearts of the youth, we had to start by taking youth seriously.
“Our solution is the NACRA 15 with curved (lifting) dagger boards in combination with stabilizers on the rudders. It proved to be the right solution once more, We hope future generations will love it as much as we do.”
“It was a tough nut to crack for Nacra Sailing. We entered this tender with a modern multihull design with three sails, mainsail, jib and asymmetric gennaker. As a multihull manufacturer we have to deliver two hulls, two rudders and two curved dagger boards compared to monohull manufacturers. It is a big challenge to keep the price as low as we will,” said Commercial Director Gunnar Larsen. “But we succeeded and hope to welcome many new young sailors in the Nacra 15 class which can use this as stepping stone towards the Nacra 17 class after the year they have become 19 years of age.”
It is expected that Nacra Sailing will be able to produce four to five Nacra 15s each week starting around November 2015, with a complete boat, ready to sell, expected to retail at 11,750 euros (excluding VAT).
Nacra's Youth Pathway
Nacra has designed a range of catamarans starting with the Nacra 350 which is intended to teach children the art of catamaran sailing from an early age. This teaches them the basic skills of catamarans and gets them ready to progress to the next level.
They then progress to either the NACRA 430 which has a spinnaker setup the same as the NACRA 15, to give them spinnaker experience, or straight to the NACRA 15 depending on their skill level or weight and then hopefully a full Olympic campaign on the Nacra 17.
For more information go to www.nacra.com.au.
