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First sail for SpeedDream prototype

by Tim Queeney
The 27-foot prototype under sail in Rockland Harbor, Maine.

The 27-foot prototype under sail in Rockland Harbor, Maine.

SpeedDream

The team behind SpeedDream, which is attempting to build the world's fastest monohull sailboat, got some valuable feedback last week in Rockland Harbor in Maine. The team, headed by Russian yacht designer Vlad Murnikov and circumnavigator Brian Hancock, who is the creative and media director, was rewarded with impressive performance of the 27-foot prototype, which was built by Lyman-Morse in Maine. The final design will be much larger, and according to Murnikov, much faster. The vessel is designed to plane across the waves, with a canting keel that will keep its end bulb out of the water and a wave-piercing bow that will go through the waves rather that push them aside. Murnikov was the designer of the Russian ocean race boat Fazisi which particpated in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race. Fazisi, which also used the wave-piercing approach, seemed to be part ocean racing sailboat, part submarine.

Brian Hancock was upbeat about the prototype tests. "SpeedDream is an experimental boat that combines a few different innovative ideas into a single design," Brian Hancock said. "The aft raked wave piercing bow and sculpted hull above water, and the lateral step in the hull and extreme flying keel below make it completely unique. The series of test sails in Maine were to put the design through its paces in a measured manner trying to determine which aspects give the boat its performance edge."

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