By Leif Beiley

Last year while I was at the Sail Expo show in Oakland, I noticed a slim looking yacht out at the far end of the last gangway. The far-out graphics and needle-like spar implied that it was a racer, so I stepped aboard. The salesman who greeted me mentioned that it had a canting keel and twin rudders, and that his organization, DynaYacht, Inc., was searching for a builder who could produce it in quantity. The name of the boat was Red Hornet, and if you follow yacht racing, you know that it has had a good deal of success on the race course, including a win at Key West Race Week this year.

W. D. Schock Corp. agreed to build this high tech racer, billed as the Schock 40, and has recently launched the first production version of this boat. It is refreshing to see a builder of low-to-medium tech boats take on a project of this sophistication. It's a bold move on the part of Tom Schock, the company's president. I think products of this type are going to becomes more mainstream as the production builders embrace new technology.

Let's start with the patented CBTF (Canting Ballast Twin Foil) system. It is composed of two rudders and a canting ballast package. The rudders are placed about eight feet oft of the bow an a bit more forward of the stern while the ballast is suspended from a strut amidships. Steering and lift to windward are achieved with the rudders and stability comes from canting the ballast toward the weather side of the boat. Both rudders are linked to the tiller with a fairly complicated system of quadrants and cables. This should result in very positive steering, but sacrifice some of the feel of the helm. I would guess, however, that one would get accustomed to the feel of this helm quickly. The rudders are deep, thin fins, which must be extremely strong to withstand the loads of this boat moving at 20-plus knots.

The ballast fin is made of cast stainless steel with a lead bulb bolted to it. In the middle of the boat is a stainless steel lever arm connected to a hydraulic ram which moves the keel from side to side through an arc of 110 degrees. This moves the lead bulb roughly six feet to weather. it's the equivalent of having 10 people on the rail of a conventional boat. It must be quite a sensation to be sailing upwind to eight knots and be able to look over the side to see your keel gliding along next to the boat!

The rest of the Shock 40 is pretty conventional. The hull is on the slender side, with only 7,000 pounds total displacement. It is a very clean shape except for a slight bulge where the keel meets the hull. The stern is nearly as wide as the hull at the beam max point and the run aft is straight. It reminds me of a Hobie 33 hull, which we all know is an exceptionally fast downwind boat.

The sail plan incorporates a moderately proportional fractional rig with two pairs of swept spreaders and a centrally mounted retractable bow pole. Sail area is 884 square feet. notice the non-overlapping headsails. This will make the Schock 40 very quick to tack. One would hope the keel can be tacked as quickly as the rest of the boat. With no running backstays and small headsails the deck layout can be kept very simple with only four winches handling halyards, jibs and spinnakers.

The deck is pure sportboat with a long trench for a cockpit and a short but nicely proportioned cabin trunk to give headroom below. It is very simple with the mainsheet traveler mounted on the cockpit floor and all controls led to both sides of the cockpit. My guess is that once you get the hang of tacking the keel, this will be an especially easy boat to sail.

The accommodations are minimal, as you would expect in a skinny 7,000 pounder. There are a couple of settee berths amidships, a pair of quarterberths aft and reasonably sized galley situated up against the main bulkhead. The head is located just forward of the main bulkhead and the forward third of the boat is empty except for the forward steering quadrant and related cables and pulleys. I hop the builder puts a cover over all that gear so people and sails don't get tangled in the steering.

How well the CBTF technology works in production boats is still open to question, but the fact that a conservative company like Schock is building the boat inspires confidence that the system has been though through and that all the possible contingencies have been taken into account. The Schock 40 is going to be very provocative to those who are eager to embrace new technology, of course it's likely to be a headache for the PHRF handicappers until they figure out how to rate the boat. I am certainly looking forward to sailing this boat.

Reprinted with permission from the August 1999 issue of Santana

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