Melbourne (Australia). 28th of January, 2006. The movistar shore crew go though some changes during these days, before the boat will be berthed again next week. The most important part of this operation will replace the hydraulic rams of the canting keel.
“This is a drastic decision but we haven’t doubt about this is the right one”, says movistar skipper Bouwe Beking, “We are not going to use the titanium rams and we will recover the stainless rams used during the trainings done before the Star in Vigo; these stainless rams didn’t give us problems during the 20.000 nautical miles sailed. We can go harder without getting worried about the reliability”.
But if these rams had worked ok, why had it been changed?. “The reason of that replace was only due to one reason: speed – explains Pedro Campos CEO of the team- we was looking for a better performance, but just now we know it wasn’t a obliged decision because all the teams was looking for the limits”.
The rams used by movistar during this leg was made in titanium, a really light material that offers 100 kilograms saved. The Olympic medallist Xabi Fernandez explains why this saved is so important. “When you saved some weight from the hull, you can add it to the bulb and you continue lower than the minimum weight authorised; as more weight you have in the bulb, more sail area you can hoist and the boat gets faster”.
Stainless against titanium
“The hydraulic rams haven’t failed due the material made of; titanium is a perfect material- says Greg Waters-. The problem was born due the light weight of the ram, even for titanium. My opinion is the rams should had been a 50 % heavier and even that, the team would saved a lot of weight against the ones are going to be on board. Titanium has some peculiarities you must take in care at the moment to work with and I think it’s better to have it heavier than with the theoretical ideal weight”.
Waters works at Central COSAT and he has been involved with the team since the beginning. Waters has developed the hydraulic system on board boats like “Morning Glory”, “Pyewacket”, “Wild Oats X” or “Wild Oats XI” –the winner of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2005-. “These boats are great examples about the magnificent of the canting keels”.
“In the beginning the idea on movistar was to have the rams in carbon but meanwhile the works with it was finished, we made it by stainless. The boat sailed without incidents from Newcastle (Australia) to Vigo. The carbon ones took only 20 minutes of life on board and due this we returned to the stainless idea. Almost one week before the star we opted for the titanium rams.
The hydraulic rams works all the time the boat is sailing, even the keel is blocked. The rams maiden by titanium didn’t supported the effort of the race from Cape Town. The security range wasn’t the right one. With the stainless rams we will treble the security margin. We only need to change the pressure of the system, because the new rams are bigger and works with less pressure than the others".