Ocean Planet

[dasein668]

Not sure if this is the place to post this, but...

So, I just had the oportunity to check out Ocean Planet?up close and personal. Ocean Planet has spent the summer at Portland Yacht Services undergoing a refit after the Around Alone race. I happened to be down there this morning oogling the boat and Bruce Schwab showed up. We chatted briefly and he said, "Well, I've got to get to work, but feel free to come aboard and take a look around." How could I refuse?

If you ever get a chance to tour one of these super-tech offshore racers you're mind will be blown.

This Wylie designed Open 60 is a super-light cold-molded beast. She has a carbon-fiber unstayed rotating mast with a wild dual fixed-boom vang arrangement where the vangs run upward from the boom to the mast (hence the rotating mast). All rigging hardware is attached with spectra soft-eyes rather than shackles. All metal on board is titanium. She has a couple of titanium roller-furling units which are continuous-line affairs with no drums. One of them is adjustable and can be slid out the bowsprit about 4 feet or so.

After the around alone race they have been working on reducing weight everywhere. They shaved hundreds of pounds of material out of the interior (which is basically just an empty hull) and added foam and carbon-fiber stringers to make up for lost stiffness. Amazingly, she is tiller steered by a huge tiller section built up as a box of meranti reinforced with glass.

Down below there are 2 carbon fiber companionway steps (replacing the old wooden ones for weight concerns) which leads to a small nav station on centerline with an amazing swiveling seat that looks like it came from a race car?tight with lots of side support with a small desk that holds a laptop and then a bulkead packed with electronics. On either side of the nav station are narrow passages forward (which space is essentially empty). In each of these passages there are is a carbon-fiber pipe berth that folds up against the hull to allow passage. What little "furniture" is below (basically just the nav station and a tiny?and I mean TINY?"galley," all on centerline) and all cabin sole is built from foam reinforced with carbon-fiber.

Many thanks to Bruce Schwab for the friendly conversation and wonderful offer to come aboard even though he and several crew were quite busy working on getting the boat ready to go. She leaves for France in a couple weeks and will be starting the Vend?e Globe on November 7th.