The new Nacra Inter 18, a number of which are already racing in Europe, will make its major United States debut at the 1996 US Sailing Multihull Championship, the Alter Cup. Performance Catamarans (manufacturer of Nacras and Prindles) is supplying 11new Inter 18's for the event which will be held September 4 through 7 at King Harbor Yacht Club, Redondo Beach, California.
There are very few Inter 18's in the United States at this point. The boat made its first appearance at the Paris Boat Show last December and was on display at Sail Expo in February in Atlantic City, NJ. There were also one or two prototypes playing out on the West Coast.
Morelli & Melvin Design & Engineering of Newport Beach, CA created the Inter 18 -- their first project for the Nacra-Prindle factory -- specifically for the Formula 18 class, which has become extremely popular in Europe. A formula class is one which is open to boats from any manufacturer, as long as they conform to the formula guidelines for length, width, weight, sail area, etc. All the boats in the Formula class race one-design, boat-for-boat.
In the spring issue of "Performance Sailor," Pete Melvin was quoted as saying they wanted to create a totally new concept -- "We started from scratch on this project, designing each part specifically for the Inter 18."
When "Catamaran Sailor" talked to Jack Young about the boat a few months ago, they had not yet started promoting it for the United States market. "We are swamped with orders from Europe, and we have to get those boats out before we start trying to sell them here," Young said. He now says the boat will be ready to go on the market here after the Alter Cup.
The Formula 18 Class allows 18.1 feet in length, 8.6 feet beam, 396.8 pounds minimum weight for the boat. No specific mast height, but sail can't be more than 29.88 feet from the crossbeam to the top of the sail on the luff. Maximum sail area for the main is about 183 square feet, and there are two jib options depending upon crew weight, 37 square feet or 44.67 square feet. Spinnakers also come in two different sizes based upon crew weight: 204.5 square feet or 226 square feet.
The Inter 18's specifications are right on, except for the boat weight, which is 374 pounds. Apparently it passed muster, because, according it was accepted into the Formula 18 Class after a boat was sent to the Class for testing. They measure the sails and drill holes in the boat and try to sink it, according to Gino Morelli, to make sure that the hull construction is proper and that it has enough flotation. It comes standard with an aluminum mast because carbon masts are not legal in the Formula 18 class, although the class association is considering it.
In photographs on the water, the Inter 18 does not look much different from any other beach cat. But up close and personal, it obviously is a very different kind of cat. Its vinylester foam sandwich hulls have an unusual amount of volume, which gives it excellent buoyancy and makes it easily able to handle an ideal crew-weight range of 290 to 330. The main beam is a little farther forward than we are used to seeing. But the most unique feature is the canted hulls. Each is angled out 4 degrees. According to the factory, this helps provide more precise hull trim, reducing drag. The canted hulls also give the boat a wider center of buoyancy and better stability, and, combined with the high-aspect daggerboards, give the boat superior pointing ability, according to the factory.
Besides mylar and dacron jib, Inter 18 comes with a complete asymmetric spinnaker package. And the mesh trampoline has an integrated spinnaker and/or storage bag. Newly developed Harken and Garhauer gear is used throughout the boat.
Gino Morelli told Catamaran Sailor that "This is one of the first cats designed specifically for a spinnaker and a breeze. Although the main beam is farther forward than normal, there is also more buoyancy forward in the hulls and quite a bit of mast rake. This is a 'big boys' boat -- it allows them to trap further forward without being in front of the beam. The design centralizes the boat weight and the crew weight better.
"The forefoot of the hull features a deeper bow, and slightly finer. There is more boat under the water initially, which makes it better in waves. Most of the rocker is farther back."
The Inter 18 is not just another pretty boat with slim and graceful lines. Morelli admits that it is "chunky looking -- we had to crush a 20-foot boat into an 18-foot package."
Morelli said the boat tacks very fast for two reasons: "It has very deep, high-aspect daggers and rudders, and also the distance between the boards and the rudders is greater than usual -- the more the distance, the less rudder force is needed to turn the boat."
The sail area is actually less than what is on the Nacra 5.5 sloop, according to Morelli, because it was designed to meet the demands of Formula 18 sailing in Europe, where conditions are more extreme and they do lots of offshore racing. Despite the lesser sail area, the factory says the Inter 18 has proven to be faster than the 5.5 sloop.
Nacra was late putting an entry into the Formula 18 Class, which is now in its third year in Europe and has somewhere between 300 and 400 members. Jack Young said, "We were a little behind on this -- usually we are a step ahead of everyone else."
Inter 18 will join several other designs currently racing in the Formula 18 class, including the Dart Hawk and the Hobie Tiger and three or four privately built boats. (The Hobie Tiger is built in France and is not currently available in the U.S. The Dart Hawk is built in England and also is not currently available here.)
As reported in a story in "Catamaran Sailor" (February 1996) one reason for the proliferation of boats in the Formula 18 class in Europe is that there is an effort under way to get a Formula 18 boat accepted as an Olympic class, and all the manufacturers are hoping that their boat will be the specific boat chosen for the Olympics.
At the beginning of the first sailing season of their existence, 22 Inter 18's participated in the Around Texel Race in the Netherlands. Two of them finished in the top 10, and a total of five in the top 20, in a field of approximately 700 boats. As Gino Morelli said, "And they haven't even had a chance to really learn the boat yet." Larry Harteck, who has won National champions on at least two Nacra classes, raced the Inter 18 in the Around Texel and was quoted as saying he thinks it will hold its own with a Nacra 6.0. The Inter 18 has not yet been assigned a Portsmouth rating.
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How the Formula 18 Racing Works
Although all the boats in the Formula 18 Class race boat-for-boat and no handicap numbers are used, there actually is a sort of built-in handicapping system to account for different crew weights. All the boats start together and all are scored together just like a one-design class, but they register to race in one of three categories. Category 1 is for sailors with crew weight between about 255 and 285 pounds. Category 2 is for crew weight between about 286 and 330 pounds; Category 3 is for crew weight over 330 pounds.
"Handicapping" is done by allowing variable sail areas. The story on the Inter 18 lists two jib sizes and two spinnaker sizes available for the boat. If you are racing in Category 1, you have to use the small jib and small spinnaker. Categories 2 and 3 use the bigger jib and bigger spinnaker.
So if you are racing sometimes with a light crew and sometimes with a heavy crew, all you have to do is get two different jibs and two different spinnakers.
Although the Formula 18 Class seems to be very successful in Europe at this point, there are potential problems and pitfalls. Even though all the different Formula 18 Class designs race head to head on a one-design basis (similar to the International 14 class in monohulls), there is always the "danger" of one design totally dominating the class and killing off all the other designs.
Gino Morelli gave us some insight into this problem. He said four years ago a Formula 20 class started in Europe. "We designed a boat for a Switzerland company. The boat was called the Ventilo. It dominated the class so much that everyone else went out of business, and it killed the Formula 20 class."
We asked what will keep this from happening with the Formula 18 class, and he said, "They have written the rules much tighter, as far as the formula specifications, to keep people like us from exploiting it. The rules were very loose for the Formula 20." Morelli said that for the sake of the Formula class, "I would rather see the race results smeared all over the board, without any conclusions as to which boat is the best." Another problem with Formula racing is enforcement of the class rules -- measuring, weighing boats, weighing crews to make sure they are sailing in the correct category for the size sails they are carrying. Despite the apparent success of the Formula 18 class, the individual designs within that class are also reportedly forming their own associations and racing purely one-design.Birds of a feather still tend to flock together.