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Hodgdon Yachts launches ‘Comanche’ racing yacht

It has been about a year since Jim Clark commissioned Hodgdon Yachts to build him a new racing yacht. This past weekend, that new racer, the Comanche , finally touched down in Boothbay waters.

Hundreds of people gathered in Shipbuilder's Park in East Boothbay this past Saturday, directly adjacent to Hodgdon Yachts, to watch the launch of the vessel. With black and red paint and at 100 feet long by 30 feet wide, the hull of the boat creeped out of its construction warehouse on stilts and slowly made its way to the platform that would lower it into the sea.

Neal Williamson, the director of human resources for Hodgdon Yachts, who was on site during the launch, said a crew of about 60 people helped complete the build in approximately one year on a project that he said could have take up to two years.

"This is typically a two-year build that we did in one year," Williamson said. "It was a lot of hours. We don't typically do multiple shifts, but for a long period of time, we did two shifts."

He said about 30 to 40 workers from Hodgdon Yachts, 10 from Maine-based construction company Cianbro, and 20 from NewCube worked on the build. NewCube is the company that directly represented Clark. That crew completed the build of the boat's hull at the Hodgdon Yacht facility in Boothbay, but construction of the mast and keel were outsourced to companies in New Zealand and Italy, respectively.

Now the racing yacht is scheduled to be towed to Rhode Island where it will receive its mast and keel. From there it will make the journey, by sail, to Charleston, South Carolina, and then it will be placed on a ship and transported to Australia before its inaugural race, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, which takes competitors on an approximately 630 nautical mile journey from Sydney, Australia to Hobart, Tasmania.

Kimo Worthington, a manager of the Comanche project who works for Clark, said the race is not easy and that, as a sailor himself, it is a race in which he has never participated.

"The Sydney Hobart is not a picnic of a race. It's one of the things I haven't done," Worthington said.

He explained that one feature that will make the boat look unique is where the sail is located. It is near the back of the hull, so it "will look different compared to the other boats," he explained.

Worthington also noted that the winches on the yacht are all manual, so it will be eligible for breaking records.

"It's a trade-off," he said when explaining that the manual winches will be slower than powered versions. "It is lighter to be manual."

As the Boothbay Register has reported before, the Comanche was built with aerospace technology that includes the usage of pre-impregnated composite fibers, "pre-preg," that includes a mix of epoxies and fibers that must be baked in order to become solid.

This forced Hodgdon Yachts to transform its facility in to an oven — one that was bigger than the boat itself and could bake the fibers as hull construction moved forward.

It is perhaps the advanced technology that will help the yacht break records in its upcoming races.

The flashy technology may also be what drew so many people from the Boothbay area to the dock to watch the launch. The Register spoke to a few people at the launch to get their opinions on the boat and why the turnout was so great.

"Knowing what the boat will be used for, it would certainly put Boothbay on the map, and I think that will be a good thing," said Matt Hunt, a resident of Oakland, Maine.

Sally Lloyd, who was also at the launch, said the technology used in the building process could help advance the entirety of shipbuilding through the area.

"I'm the coach of the high school sailing club," Lloyd said. "I think it's important to help bring forward our waterfront."

If nothing else, the launch appeared to go smoothly, and Williamson confirmed that everything moved along as planned.

"I would say the launch went as smooth as silk," he said.

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Built to win: On board sailing yacht Comanche with Jim Clark

Software mogul Jim Clark wants yacht racing line honours. But does his new radical supermaxi sailing yacht Comanche have what it takes to go up against the best? Marilyn Mower finds out...

Comanche is a superyacht that belongs at the front . The image below shows her tearing along – ahead of Sydney Hobart legend Wild Oats XI , a feat that surprised everyone watching. It was an advantage the brand new 30.5 metre Hodgdon speed machine was able to maintain all the way to the Bass Strait during the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart. But when 30-knot winds failed to materialise, the more slender Wild Oats slipped past Comanche and into the lead, a position she held all the way to Hobart for victory and her eighth line honours . Second place is never going to be good enough for Comanche ’s owner, software mogul Jim Clark, but it was a minor miracle his yacht was there at all. She was only launched in September , so the famously brutal race represented a kind of masochistic shakedown for a yacht designed for one thing – to win.

Think Laser dinghy or 49er morphed with rocket ship and you’ll get some idea of the qualities of Comanche . At the yard, the racer was partially hidden behind two larger yachts with immaculate pedigrees, Meteor and Artemis , but Comanche ’s square bow and carbon sprit jutted out beyond them, drawing the eye away from the varnished teak of her neighbours to a lean sailing machine intended to go as fast as possible powered only by the wind.

Sailing legend Ken Read, who also happens to be the president of North Sails, managed the project from day one for Clark. Built at Hodgdon Yachts in Maine, Comanche had a hand-picked design and engineering team of international experts. It also had a construction schedule that raised eyebrows from the first day Clark talked to_ Boat International_ about the radical project during the America’s Cup Superyacht Regatta in San Francisco, September 2013.

Comanche launched one year later and after stepping the mast in Newport, Rhode Island, and just two weeks of sailing trials, including a 600-mile qualifying sail to Charleston, South Carolina, the boat was packed aboard a cargo ship and sent to Australia to compete in the Sydney Hobart, which starts each year on Boxing Day.

Clark and his Australian wife, Kristy Hinze-Clark, met the boat in Sydney for its short re-commissioning, Hinze-Clark racing aboard the boat in a harbour tune-up event on 9 December 2014, where the yacht placed second despite poor conditions. The tabloids had a field-day, captioning photos with, “The supermodel and the supermaxi” and “She’s got legs” in reference to Hinze-Clark’s modelling career. These days she is a businesswoman, director for the Australian Nature Conservancy and the mother of two girls.

In our exclusive interview with Clark, shortly before the race begins, we ask simply: “Why?”

“It’s a hobby,” he says, “I like the supermaxis, they are like Volvo 60s on steroids.” Clark appears to be done with the J Class – his 42m Hanuman is up for sale – and is not a huge fan of what he calls the “multihull phase” of the America’s Cup with its reduced crew numbers. “The old sailing community is in monohulls and it’s nice to keep the guys engaged – there are lots of good sailors in the supermaxis and the guys are a lot of fun.”

When Clark decided on a supermaxi sailing yacht, his plan was to go for line honours rather than wins on corrected time, and speed/distance records that could be set for yachts with human powered winches. “I don’t want any of that record stuff with an asterisk that says push-button winches,” Clark scoffs. With this target, Clark and Read embarked on a “design experiment” for a yacht that could sail 30 knots or more on a broad reach. The experiment pushed them to some extreme stats, which Clark says were run through CFD tests and simulations time and again.

“The 25-foot (7.6 metre) beam saves weight,” Read says. “By going wider, we can have less weight in the keel to keep the same righting moment, thus we will go faster.” This thinking is carried over into the keel itself, which is solid stainless steel and not welded. With a 6.7 metre draught, the keel can be two tonnes lighter than a comparable keel on a boat with half the draught. The governing factor was the depth of Rhode Island’s Newport harbour where the boat will be based when not chasing records. “With the keel canted to one side we can just get to our berth,” Read says.

The downside to beam is increased surface drag when sailing flat in light air. “Being considerably wider than other boats, we need to be heeling at 11 to 13 degrees to present the same beam,” says Clark. “In light air, we are at a disadvantage. When the wind cooperates, there is no question the boat is explosive.”

Hodgdon, the oldest boatbuilding business in the US, might seem like an odd choice if you don’t know that part of the yard’s annual output is high-tech military vessels and another part is carbon fibre limo tenders. In fact, Hodgdon is quite skilled at innovative construction techniques and when Tim Hodgdon agreed to build an oven to cook Comanche ’s carbon fibre hull, the deal was struck. The yard’s location also made it a good gathering stop for its far-flung team.

Some critics have said the superyacht is too extreme and too powerful to handle, but Clark just laughs at this and suggests we “ask Kenny”. “Yeah, it’s still an unknown but I’m not overly concerned,” he adds. “The hull is well baked and it’s been ultrasounded and X-rayed. There is a fuse in some of the loads so that nothing super bad can happen. But you can’t have a fuse in the rigging… Some of those termination points on the rig are kind of scary,” Clark says.

That rig, which rises 47 metres above the waterline, is more than 50 per cent of the length aft from the bow, a surprising configuration but based on model testing for best all-around performance with the foil and appendages.

Also innovative are the daggerboards outboard of the mast and slightly forward of it. By canting the keel and putting the lee side daggerboard fully down, the boat generates enough lift to keep the angle of leeway to a minimum or crab up to a mark.

The wide cockpit, full of grinder pedestals, hydraulic sail controls and sophisticated LED panels, gives the impression of a workhouse with modern instruments of torture. In a way, that is what they are. Grinders will work these six pedestals to turn the Harken winches. The only push-button winch on board is used to raise the mainsail. Once that sail is up the halyard is locked off and the winch isn’t used.

The winch pedestals are set slightly inboard and Read explains that when sailing on other 30 metre yachts he found that waves coming inboard at 30 knots or so would sweep the helmsman or winch grinders off their feet. “I have fetched up in the corner of the cockpit with pieces of steering wheel in my hands,” he says. Thus, by having 10 feet more beam than other 30 metre boats, there is space to put people and gear in a safer location with the added benefit of space for sails to be temporarily stored outboard of the pedestals on the high side.

Another interesting option is set right into the deck. Small black plugs cover screw holes that allow a dodger to cover both hatches. “On long distance races, we wanted the option to erect a dodger to keep the crew safe when on deck,” Read says. A slot in the cockpit sole just aft of the dodger allows the steering wheel to be moved forward, allowing the helmsman to stand behind the dodger for more protection.

Step below the superyacht's deck and you can see how much weight has been saved. The single-skin carbon fibre hull and foam cored framing is fully exposed. It is mostly black with white non-skid patches. The forward end of the vessel is totally open, to store sails. Directly under the cockpit on either side are the crew berths, which keep the crew centre of gravity aft, close to the position they would be in when on deck; thus the trim of the yacht is not affected by off-watch crew moving around.

Directly under the cockpit sole is the navigator’s area with barely space to sit up. “The only requirement that navigator Stan Honey had was that we made the navigator’s seat 1.8 metres long so that he didn’t have to fight the crew for a berth,” Read says.

Talking to Read one gets a sense he is completely at ease with a project of this magnitude and the commitment it will take to sail it to its potential. He has sailed around the world with several of his present crew and all had input into the new boat’s design. That counts for a lot of experience, in addition to the French design team of Guillaume Verdier and VPLP (Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost). “Without the designers we would probably have built a far more conservative boat,” Read says, “but with their help we have taken a leap forward.”

On deck, Comanche is also radically different. All halyards go to the masthead, where they are locked off in the same style that was pioneered in the 12 Metre Class. But on Comanche, tension is applied on the sail luff by hydraulic rams mounted on the foredeck and by pulling on the sail at the tack. “It reduces weight aloft,” Read explains, “and allows complete sail adjustment from the [safety of the] cockpit.”

Another advanced feature not often seen on smaller sailing craft is that the jib tracks run transversely instead of fore and aft. “The clews for each headsail are in the same place and we might use the same sail for going hard to windward and when easing off onto a reach. With this arrangement all we need do is ease the track car to leeward when coming onto a reach. This enables us to keep power on without altering the shape of the sail when changing course relative to the wind,” Read notes.

The deck-stepped carbon fibre mast has swept spreaders to eliminate the need for adjustable running backstays. In some ways this is a disadvantage in that the masthead cannot be moved fore and aft when sailing up and downwind, but it eliminates the need for checkstays and runners. The masthead position is controlled with backstays to each corner of the transom and lines that are led into the mast from the backstays to control the rig bend.

“I started this boat thinking I could race it,” says Clark wistfully. A degenerative condition in his ankles that makes standing uncomfortable has recently cropped up in his wrists as well. “They made a seat for me where I can drive it,” he says, but he opted out of the Sydney Hobart to make room for America’s Cup-winning skipper Jimmy Spithill to assist Read on the helm.

“I feel confident we’ll start getting line honours and next summer we’ll do the transatlantic race and see how that goes,” promises Clark. “I’m optimistic.”

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Hodgdon announces launch of 100ft carbon race yacht COMANCHE

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Written by Zuzana Bednarova

Hodgdon Yachts is thrilled to announce the launch of the all-new 100-foot pre-preg carbon race yacht Comanche . The mighty sailing yacht Comanche hit the water at the company’s yard in East Boothbay, Maine on Saturday, September 27, 2014.

Launch of the 100ft superyacht Comanche by Hodgdon Yachts

Next, superyacht Comanche will be towed to Newport Shipyard , Rhode Island, where the rig and the keel will be fitted, and then sea trials will begin, before making the voyage aboard ship to Sydney , in Australia to compete in the famed Sydney to Hobart Race .

“She was designed and built to break monohull sailing records”, said Timothy Hodgdon, President of Hodgdon Yachts.

100ft sailing yacht Comanche at launch

Racing yacht Comanche was commissioned by Jim Clark about a year ago. With black and red paint, the vessel boasts an impressive beam of 30ft. The build of Comanche was completed by about 60 workers in only one year. The hull was constructed at the Hodgdon Yacht facility in Boothbay, while the mast and keel were built by the companies from New Zealand and Italy, respectively.

100ft Hodgdon super yacht Comanche on the water

Luxury yacht Comanche was constructed with aerospace technology that comprises the usage of pre-impregnated composite fibres, “pre-preg,”. The vessel is expected to break records in the upcoming races, also thanks to this advanced technology.

Below is a video from the launch of sailing yacht Comanche, released by Onne van der Wal and shared by Hodgdon Yachts:

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "Hodgdon announces launch of 100ft carbon race yacht COMANCHE ".

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Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2024

Andoo Comanche

Arguably the fastest monohull on the planet, Andoo Comanche returns to defend her Line Honours title in the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.  Skipper John “Herman” Winning Jr and his exceptional team including tactician Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton, Iain Murray and Richard Allanson have captured every major Australian offshore line honours title since they chartered the yacht in 2022.  With a new inventory of sails by North Sails, Andoo Comanche will be hard to beat in 2023, with John Winning Jr looking to cap off his impressive run with the maxi yacht.

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Shop the official clothing range of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited!

Jim Cooney buys Comanche – the super maxi will now call Australia home

One of the favourites to take line honours in the 2017 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, LDV Comanche, was purchased today (14 December 2017) by Sydney’s Jim Cooney from its American owner Jim Clark, making the super maxi yacht an Australian owned and skippered entry when it starts the Boxing Day classic.

“LDV Comanche is a truly awe-inspiring yacht, and the chance to race to Hobart, alongside my children Julia and James with a world class crew, is a once in a lifetime opportunity too good to pass up. I started ocean racing 30 years ago and we have raced as a family in many parts of the world for 12 years, but this is an incredible opportunity for us to challenge for the world’s toughest blue water classic,” says Jim Cooney, who finished sixth on line in last year’s race at the helm of his Volvo 70 ‘Maserati’ and campaigned his iconic maxi Brindabella for seven years before that.

“This year competition is fierce, with the strongest line up of super maxis ever seen in one race. Depending on conditions, any of the 100 footers could take line honours, it threatens be one of the best races in the history of the event,” Cooney stated today.

Jim Cooney is the Chairman and majority shareholder of TCI Renewables, a professional wind energy development company headquartered in Oxford, UK. Jim is a Chartered Engineer who co-founded TCI in Australia in 1996 and successfully developed the business to span the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and the United States. He is an accomplished industry leader in renewable energy, specialising in wind energy, and under his direction TCI Renewables has developed some of the largest wind farms in the UK.  In 2005 Jim was honoured with the prestigious Ernst & Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year.  He holds degrees from the University of Sydney, University of London and Imperial College, London.

LDV Comanche will continue to carry the colours of the Chinese vehicle manufacturer LDV, which is using the yacht and the race as part of the launch of  its new LDV T60 Ute.

The crew on LDV Comanche reads like a who’s who of the sailing world and following the change in ownership, will gain some new names. As well as Jim Cooney, the crew will now include Jim’s son and daughter Julia and James Cooney alongside Waratah Jeremy Tilse.

The stellar crew includes three time America’s cup winner and 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Winner Jimmy Spithill (Australia); eleven time winner of the Transpac race and round the world race winner Stan Honey (USA); round the world race winner Brad Jackson (New Zealand); Olympic and round the world sailor Dirk de Ridder (Netherlands); multiple America’s Cup sailor and Rolex Sydney Hobart winner Warwick Fleury (New Zealand); America’s Cup sailor, Nick Burridge (New Zealand); Olympic, America’s Cup and round the world sailor Shannon Falcone (UK); Rolex Sydney Hobart race winner on Comanche, John Von Schwarz (USA); six time round the world racer and seven time America’s Cup competitor, Tony ‘Trae’ Rae (New Zealand); Sydney Hobart winner on board Comanche and the sport’s world renowned ‘Mr Fixit’, Casey Smith (Australia); Extreme sailing expert Stuart Pollard (Australia); round the world sailor Justin Slattery (Ireland); Rolex Sydney Hobart winner on Comanche Keats Keeley (USA); round the world sailor David Rolfe (Australia); and project manager Tim Hackett who has managed some of the leading teams around the world.

Launched as ‘Comanche’, and now called ‘LDV Comanche’ for the 2017 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, the 100 foot maxi racing yacht holds a remarkable list of records, all of which show her to be the ideal yacht for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. The yacht holds the 24 hour sailing distance record for monohulls and the trans-Atlantic crossing record of 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes and 25 seconds. In addition to the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, she won the no less tough Fastnet Race. This year she smashed the monohull record in the Transpac race with an average speed of 20.2 knots.

‘LDV Comanche’s nickname, “the aircraft carrier”, gives away what sets her apart from two of her rivals, Black Jack and Wild Oats XI. Indeed, her beam at the stern is so great it could accommodate both Black Jack and Wild Oats XI. Her optimum heel angle is anything over 20 degrees and she has the same wetted surface as Wild Oats XI at 25 degrees. The 46 metre/150 feet high mast sits directly above the canting keel and she designed deliberately to be able to – just – slip under Sydney Harbour Bridge. The mast has a static load of 75 tonnes and 150 tonnes under sail, or, to put it another way, the same weight as 80 LDV T60 Utes hanging from the mast.

Suspended from the mast is a 410 square metre mainsail, which will carry a massive picture of an LDV T60 Ute for the race. In downwind configuration, this expands to a massive 1022 square metres and the largest spinnaker is 1100 square metres. Under the yacht is a canting keel that may be swung out 35 degrees in either direction in as little as 25 seconds, while there is space on either side of the hull for 6.5 tonnes of water in the ballast tanks.

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Authorities Launch Manslaughter Investigation After Identifying the Victims of Sicily Yacht Tragedy

The sinking resulted in the deaths of seven people

Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty

Italian authorities said a manslaughter investigation has been launched into the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian , which killed six passengers and one crew member.

On Saturday, Aug. 24, Ambrogio Cartosio, the Chief Prosecutor of Termini Imerese, spoke at a press conference in Sicily, where he announced, "The Prosecutor's Office of Termini Imerese has opened a case file, currently against unknown persons, hypothesizing the crimes of negligent shipwreck and manslaughter, but we are only in an initial phase. We do not exclude that there may be developments of any kind."

Cartosio added that it would be extremely “painful if the development of the inquiry were to demonstrate that this tragedy, this terrible tragedy, was caused by behaviors that were not perfectly adequate to the behavior that everyone had to have in managing this ship.”

He also later confirmed that, per Italian law, the captain and crew of the ship would not be obliged to stay in Italy at this stage.

“In Italy, there isn’t any legislation to hold people unless they have been arrested, and thank goodness for this in a sense, as otherwise we would be living in a state that is not very free. Of course, we are hoping there is a lot of collaboration," he said.

Though authorities were unable to answer many questions due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, Cartosio said that there may be involvement in the investigation by foreign judicial authorities.

"There will be developments, but this is not the moment to talk about them," he said.

Elsewhere in the press conference, Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, commander of the Palermo Fire Department, spoke more about the sinking of the yacht, detailing that it "sank stern first and then settled on its side."

The announcement of the investigation comes as authorities formally identified the seven victims of the tragedy in the same press conference.

Cartosio confirmed the deaths of chef Recaldo Thomas; British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, Hannah Lynch;  Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda ; and Morgan Stanley International chairman  Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy .

HANDOUT/Vigili del Fuoco/AFP via Getty

He later said that autopsies on the victims have not yet been carried out.

The Bayesian , a 183-foot British-flagged vessel carrying 22 people aboard, sank around 5 a.m. local time on Monday, Aug. 19, due to a "violent storm" off the coast of Porticello, according to an Italian Coast Guard statement previously obtained by PEOPLE.

The yacht’s seaworthiness is being called into question after it began taking on water and then suddenly flipped onto its side during a severe storm, Giovanni Costantino, the head of The Italian Sea Group, told RAI state television, according to the Associated Press .

“The ship sank because it took on water,” Costantino said. “From where, the investigators will say.”

The ship maker’s owner previously told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera , that he believes those on board should not have been in their cabins, which he claims they were, when the Bayesian sank.

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"Everything that has been done reveals a very long sum of errors,” Costantino said in the interview, translated from Italian. “The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor. And then why didn't the crew know about the incoming disturbance?" 

Lynch and his family — including wife Angela Bacares, who was rescued along with 14 others — had been celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges in the U.S. after a years-long legal battle.

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Fastest yacht: The giant record breakers

• Toby Heppell
• October 29, 2021

Skorpios is the latest in a long list of giant monohulls designed with a view to becoming the fastest yacht on the planet. We take a look at some of her predecessors

Every so often the yacht racing world sees an ambitious owner with pockets deep enough to want to step things up a gear and produce a new record-smashing fastest yacht.

The latest of these to hit the water is the jaw-dropping ClubSwan 125 Skorpios built for its Russian owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev. Almost everything about this new monster yacht is bigger, stronger, faster and higher tech than any boat which came before it.

Pretty much any metric you care to look at on Skorpios is mind-boggling. The five-spreader Southern Spars mast stands at 175 feet tall, and she can carry 11,324 square feet of sail upwind, and 21,108 square feet downwind.

Enough sail? Skorpios off the Dorset coast. The ClubSwan 125 is named after owner Rybolovlev’s famous Greek island, where Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis. Photo: Mark Lloyd / Lloyd Images

Skorpios has been built with the express brief to break offshore records as the world’s fastest yacht. Her recent win in the 2021 Fastnet Race – only weeks after hitting the water for the first time – shows she certainly has what it takes to take line honours in big races.

And the numbers Skorpios has shown while racing initially seem to indicate that it is really only a matter of time until she starts claiming some of the biggest records on offer in the sailing world.

But Skorpios is only the latest in a long line of new yachts built with the express purpose of winning line honours and taking records, each bigger, faster and more technologically advanced than that which came before.

The current transatlantic record holder, Comanche , is probably the yacht that most readily springs to mind when we’re looking at the development path for Skorpios .

Before Skorpios , Comanche was the most recent, highly ambitious racing yacht on the planet. She was built with one thing in mind and one thing only, to break ocean records and win line honours in some of the world’s most famous races.

Comanche showing off her considerable beam. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

“The design office were told specifically by me that if this boat wasn’t the worst rated boat in history they have failed,” stated the owner Jim Clark on Maxi, Comanche ’s launch, reaffirming the aim of the boat to break records and win line honours without any consideration for handicap wins.

Comanche was something of a revelation when she was first launched. Over the years boats had been carrying more beam (width) towards the transom to create more power – at the expense of outright light weather, upwind and VMG running performance.

Comanche took this line of thought to the extreme with what seemed an impossibly wide stern, which led to the boat being nicknamed the aircraft carrier.

Although Skorpios is technically beamier than Comanche (8.75m vs 7.85m) the ClubSwan’s hull shape has a more modest beam-to-length ratio, and far greater internal volume and higher freeboard, all products of the project starting out with some focus on cruising in addition to outright performance.

But despite a slightly less powerful hull shape compared to Comanche , when you look at the rig, you see that this will likely be overcome by sheer grunt in terms of sail area. Skorpios ’ mainsail alone is 7,093 square feet, compared to Comanche ’s 4,413 square feet.

Comanche was, indeed is, a yacht that pushed technology to the absolute limit and when she was launched her extreme design caused quite a stir.

She is still considered one of the fastest yachts on the face of the earth and, in addition to her transatlantic record, Comanche also holds the monohull 24 hour sailing record at an impressive 618.01nm (averaging 25.75 knots) in a 24 hour period.

These two records will almost certainly be two of the key prize scalps Skorpios will be hoping to take.

Mari Cha IV

Although for many Comanche is the most obvious boat to which Skorpios can be compared, arguably a closer comparison could be that of Mari Cha IV , particularly when you consider length and ambition to break oceanic records.

The 140ft Mari Cha IV was launched in 2003, at this size both Mari Cha IV and (140ft) Skorpios face a similar problem, there are several top races that have an upper LOA limit of 100ft – neither could take part in the Sydney Hobart race for example.

Mari-Cha IV held the Atlantic record for 12 years. Photo: Thierry Martinez

In 2003, Mari-Cha IV set a new west-east transatlantic record with a total time of 6 days, 17 hours. During the run, she also set a new 24 hour monohull distance record of 525.5 nautical miles . This record stood until Comanche snatched the crown in 2016.

Due to her size and the sail area needed to power the giant, Mari Cha IV was built as a two-masted schooner. This meant that each mast could be smaller – within the bounds of the technology available at the time.

The twin rig on Mari Cha IV also meant each of the sails could be smaller than would be needed on a single masted yacht, reducing loads and enabling the boat to be sailed without resorting to powered winches.

That Skorpios is a single masted 140 footer demonstrates two things. The ClubSwan 125 shows the advances in technology with a single 175ft mast now being much more easily managed and understood – thanks, in no small part to advancements in load sensing technology which have filtered down from the America’s Cup and high tech offshore yachts such as the Ultime trimaran and IMOCA 60 fleets.

However, sail handling for sails of the size needed on Skorpios is still an issue and the ClubSwan 125 still needs powered winches, which will put her out of contention for a number of records that require exclusively human power.

In 2008, Speedboat was launched . The Juan Kouyoumdjian -designed 100ft Maxi was a yacht designed to produce blistering speeds and was built with the express purpose of ocean record breaking.

Speedboat , Newport Bermuda Race 2010

The yacht was built by Mick Cookson at Cookson Boats in New Zealand and her radical underwater features, including an incredibly flat run aft were all features that would later be included in the design of Comanche – features that demonstrate a yacht built for record breaking as they offer serious compromises in lighter winds.

In many respects Speedboat was the first to take the wide flat hull concept and transplant it wholesale into a 100ft Maxi.

Speedboat was also the first Maxi to have a deck-stepped rig, which was produced by Southern Spars, and she has plenty of other radical features.

To an extent Speedboat was built as a scaled up version of the Volvo 70 ’s which had been impressing in the Volvo Ocean Race . As such it is hardly a surprise the boat was the product of Kouyoumdjian’s design house, as he had created several of the fastest Volvo 70s then racing.

Unfortunately Speedboat arrived at the very start of the financial crisis and she only sailed in a number of events before she was mothballed and eventually sold.

She went through a couple of incarnations before being purchased by George David and was sailed as Rambler 100 during which time she dramatically lost her keel and capsized while competing in the Fastnet Race .

For his part David would go on to commission Kouyoumdjian to draw Rambler 88 , an impressive bit of kit in its own right and aimed at winning line honours and races outright in an 88ft package.

Wild Oats XI

No list of record breakers and record holders would be complete without a mention of Wild Oats XI , the 100 ft Maxi belonging to the Oatley family, which has won the Sydney Hobart no less than seven times.

Wild Oats XI ( WOXI for short) was actually launched back in 2005 and is a prime example of what can be done to a yacht to keep her on pace with current trends and developments.

In 2009 she was lengthened at bow and stern from 98ft to 100ft. In 2011 her forward balanced spade canard was removed and twin daggerboards were added amidships. In 2012 she received a bow centreboard as well as caudal fin winglets on her torpedo bulb.

Wild Oats XI . Photo: Kurt Arigo / Rolex

In 2013 she was equipped with a Dynamic Stability System (DSS) foil, which is a retractable horizontal foil deployed on the leeward side of the boat.

In 2015 her stern was shortened by 2m and her 12m forward sections were replaced by a 14m longer, sleeker bow, keeping her midship sections unmodified and in effect moving her entire existing sailplan aft by 2m, a trend which had been seen in many of the newer maxis to be produced since.

The various appendages which have been added and removed over the years have lent the yacht the affectionate nickname the ‘Swiss army knife’.

By today’s standards WOXI remains a very skinny boat in the Maxi world – she and almost-sistership at the time of launch, Alfa Romeo II both had a max beam of a little over 5m.

Wild Oats XI remains a potent race boat and particularly for races like the Sydney Hobart, her relatively narrow beam gives her an edge in light winds, VMG running and beating, all of which mean she is still very hard to beat over a race with mixed conditions – if ultimately working against her should she ever look to set oceanic records.

Leopard 3 ( ICAP Leopard as she was launched) hit the water in 2007 for serial Maxi owner, Mike Slade. The Farr design had a number of unique features at the time of launch, which made her one of the most impressive superyachts on the circuit.

ICAP Round Britain and Ireland Race 2010

Leopard ’s mast was a towering 154ft and she could set a total downwind sail area of 17,265 sq ft. At the time this was a vast amount of sail – though Skorpios ’ 21,108 sq ft is something of a stark comparison.

Leopard is capable of speeds of over 35 knots. But her similarities to Skorpios actually centre around the plans the British boat had from the start to enable cruising and racing in a little more comfort.

Leopard featured a luxurious removable interior, which could be removed for racing and refitted for cruising or for charter – for which she had also been specifically designed and built.

Although Skorpios does not go quite as far as a fully removable interior, there is, at least, a nod to comfort in her design when compared to the out and out racer that is Comanche .

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Bayesian yacht sinking: Police launch ‘manslaughter’ probe over disaster that killed five people

Police have reportedly launched a manslaughter probe over the Bayesian yacht sinking after five people onboard died following the tragedy.

British billionaire Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter were amongst the victims onboard when the superyacht capsized just off the coast of Sicily in stormy weather .

It's now been claimed Italian authorities are “investigating shipwreck and multiple counts of culpable manslaughter” following the tragedy on Monday. The Prosecutor's Office of Termini Imerese, led by Ambrogio Cartosio, is working to find out why the luxury vessel capsized off the coast of Porticello near Palermo.

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Palermo Today said investigators will examine videos and photos from homes close to the area, as well as surveillance cameras.

Prosecutors earlier interviewed yacht captain James Cutfield, 53. It was reported he was questioned at great length about what happened the day of the incident. He told them it happened in a "few minutes", reports the Mirror .

It comes a day after Italian coastguard identified the bodies of those found on board the sunken £30million yacht, including British billionaire Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judith Bloomer, lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were also been named by rescue teams. Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, survived.

An autopsy of those found dead is expected to be ordered by prosecutors in the coming hours. The trip appeared to be a celebration after Mr Lynch's acquittal of fraud and conspiracy charges in a US federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion (£8.4 billion) takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp. Some guests included some of the people who had stood by Mr Lynch throughout the ordeal.

Last night the national head of the fire brigade Carlo Dall’Oppio said operations are proceeding slowly because they have to protect the safety of the divers. He said: "The sixth body has not yet been located, we have not yet inspected the entire boat.

"We think it is possible the body is still inside. These operations are proceeding slowly, because we must first of all preserve the health of our operators."

Captain Karsten Borner said his crew aboard the nearby Sir Robert BP yacht spotted a distress flare set off from a life raft as they sat around 150 to 200 metres from the Bayesian. Mr Borner's boat was at the time using its engine to stay in position, before a passenger on his yacht spotted the flare.

Acting quickly, his crew dispatched their tender which found the life raft and brought the occupants back to his yacht. He told Sky News: "We couldn't see them any more and they disappeared from the radar, we were busy keeping our own ship sailing. We couldn't see the ship again so we were aware something was very wrong."

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