FLYING NIKKA V AC75

KEEL An obvious difference between Flying Nikka and the AC75S is the fixed keel, but this appendage also changes a lot of things about the boat, says Mills. “It makes the general behaviour more mild; it adds an inertia which reduces the accelerations; it’s providing side force so the arms don’t have to as they do in AC boats to resist leeway. So it simplifies the boat in some ways and makes it more suitable for the comfortable offshore brief it was designed for.”

FOILS Although Flying Nikka uses similar articulating foil technology to the Cup boats to lift one arm clear of the water, “the entire wing angle of attack changing when you want to add or decrease lift is a completely different solution to the fixed wing solution of the AC75S, which have trailing edge flaps,” Mills explains. The ability to adjust the entire solid wing, combined with an adjustable rudder elevator, allows for controlled take off, foiling and stable ride height.

HULL SHAPE “We need to be able to sail in displacement mode, potentially for hours at a time. So the hull shape is a hybrid of those factors we require to get foiling early but also displacement-friendly characteristics that allow us to go sailing like a more conventional boat,” says Mills. The high midsection reverse sheer shape is designed to help the boat rate for Category 3 stability tests. The bulb weight needed to be kept minimal so it could foil… “so by having higher shoulders, we can provide the buoyancy we need at 90º, so that it doesn’t have to be lead in the bulb.”