Alinghi's Jumper-less Rig

Other websites are always bragging about world exclusives -- it's time the CC Blog had one....

And speaking of April Fools' Day, on Saturday Alinghi sailed with a new rig in one of their boats -- to the best of our knowledge the first rig in the history of the AC Class not to have jumper-struts.

With apologies for the lame quality of the photo below (no doubt Valencia Sailing will improve on it shortly), one can plainly see the difference between the two Alinghi masts. The one with the man at the masthead is the new rig. The red arrow points to the area where you would normally expect to see jumper struts. You can see them on the other mast (blue arrow).

The advantage, presumably, is less windage aloft. Note, however, that the mast section at the top appears rather larger than the mast with jumper-struts.

This mod is not something that can happen overnight. It is not a simple matter of taking off the jumper struts. The design/build cycle for a new mast, or modified old mast, that could support and control the mainsail loads at the masthead without jumpers would be many months, or so we are told.

In the days ahead, it will be interesting to see if Alinghi's new jumper-less rig is indeed stiff enough, and if they are able to control the top of the mainsail.

If it does work, why would you expose it this early in the Cup design/build cycle? Or could it be an(other) April Fools' joke?



Are jumper-less rigs the coming thing? Alinghi's new, or modified, mast
(red arrow) looks almost naked without jumper-struts.