Newsletter June 2002

Well here we are, June already and winter is upon us in New Zealand, with early snow on the skifields. There has been plenty of breeze for the start of the Winter Series which has seen plenty of wild antics and rigs going over the side – none of ours though!

Our designer Steve Thompson has returned from a two week tour in the U.S. with new agencies to report and interest aplenty in the Tboat range, more from Steve later.

The last few months have seen a change of personnel at Tboats. Mark Wallis has taken over the Sales/ Project Co-ordinator role. Mark has been sailing since he could walk, has been a sailmaker for 25 years and is only interested in sailing fast boats. With stints in multihulls as well as being involved with one of the first asymmetric/prod equipped sportboats in New Zealand in 1988, 3 Sydney – Hobart Races, Fastnet, Clipper Cup etc. he has plenty of experience in how fast yachts work.

Mark will be handling our enquiries with the aid of our new database under development at the moment. The process of this development has been a bit slow and we have had a few slip-ups with enquiry data. So to anyone that has not been replied to feel free to enquiries again.

Along with our Australian builders we have been working very hard to get our production facilities up and running and securing prices for the whole Tboat range. We can now happily announce the following boats for immediate order; T590, T750, T870. Contact Mark for pricing along with order form which confirms all details of base boat price, additional options, shipping, duties and delivery schedule.

The first T980 is nearing completion in Brisbane, Australia and is looking hot! This boat will be competing at the Hamilton Island Race Week in Queensland which, along with a T590, the T870 from Melbourne and possible a few T750s, should see a host of Tboats competing.

The first T1130 is imminent with some design details to be finalised and is expected to begin building very shortly. With interest in this design from six different counties so far we are expecting something special from this yacht.

Tboat Europe

While we have been hard at work our European partners have been steadily expanding their own dealership network and have plenty to report. The first T10m which has been designed specifically for European conditions is now close to production. The T10 has a full interior with accommodation for 6 crew, diesel saildrive and sparkling performance for lake – style conditions.


T10 SAIL PLAN & DECK PLAN

T10 ACCOMMODATION PLAN

The T830 has been campaigning very successfully and is being presented as a limited production ultimate sportboat – one of Steve Thompson’s own favourites. There is one T830 available for a buyer right now.

European built T750s will be available shortly as the female moulds are completed and will be marketed world wide complete with all latest technology including locally built carbon fibre rigs and prods/sprits.
The great little T590 will be introduced as soon as moulds are available along with the T870 and new T980. All information can be gained from visiting Tboat Europe’s own stylish website. http://www.tboateurope.com

America’s Cup

The America’s Cup scene has gone a little quiet with the onset of wild winter weather. Most teams have gone home to return for the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup on October 1. Team Oracle recently launched their latest yacht.
Ex Team New Zealand designer Laurie Davidson, who is now with One World, was photographed watching through binoculars which promptly sent Oracle into a hissy fit. (I mean – Laurie’s 70-odd, is he really interested in something wearing skirts?) Let’s face it, Laurie has more design information in his head than most have in their computers. But this is the America’s Cup after all, you can have more fun watching the bun fight on shore than afloat.
Anyone interested in coming to visit would do well to book early, last time was pretty busy but this event promises a little more competition with some well funded teams – not that we think the richest team will necessarily win. We don’t have a pick yet, we’ll see how the first few rounds pan out.
Team New Zealand are still a tight knit unit – and they still have Tom Schnackenburg, he is a very smart guy.
Don’t forget to give us a call, let’s go for a blat on a Tboat in the City of Sails!

From our designer - Steve Thompson

California was a blast! I get to do a lot of tripping around the world to some of the best places but managed to spend a couple of weeks in California on my trip abroad and really had a great time.
Trice Bouzaid trice@tboat.com has been a great help in developing the market for Tboats in the States was on hand to navigate the busy freeways in California. Apart from the occasional "whoops" (which I learned to interpret that we had just missed our turning) we had a very constructive time developing dealerships and visiting prospective clients. Managed to get out for a sail with Philippe khan in his new T590 in blustery conditions in Santa Cruz, and made a beer cans race in a Farr40 with John Kilroy out of the California Yacht Club.

One of the more exciting developments is the appointment of Nelson’s Marine Inc as our importers and distributors of the range of Tboats in the USA. Their facility in Oakland CA is second to none and they have big plans for the development there. We are happy to be able to work alongside them on this project.
Nelson’s will also become our dealer in the San Fransisco area. We have a number of other dealers that are due to be appointed shortly.

Sailing Anarchy - www.sailinganarchy.com

Lunch with Scot Tempesta at the San Diego yacht club was very entertaining. Scot is often controversial and always to the point.
We have been following his web site and are amazed at the traffic it has generated. There is obviously a need for open debate in the yachting scene, even if it is fairly controversial at times.
You can read Scot’s comments from our lunch at http://www.sailinganarchy.com/general/2002/lunch.htm

Talking about controversy…….. Read a bunch of stories recently in the Sailing Anarchy forum about how the T870 didn’t perform too well at Key West. Well that may have been correct for a bunch of reasons but in my opinion the criticism of the crew was unjustified.
I have been proven correct as Bill and the boys won first in class and first overall in their first race and corrected out by more than 6 minutes, well done Bill.

Testing times….

I have been involved in the testing of spinnakers in our Auckland wind tunnel this winter. The tunnel is very sophisticated and is used by many of the Americas cup teams to optimise their sail shapes and data. The basis of this exercise is to compare under test conditions asymmetric and symmetric spinnakers. This will help us in negotiating rule performance characteristics for our boats. Also we are testing a number of iterations to help further develop our data in our VPP programs. One of the main benefits is to be able to optimise hull shapes for certain types of sails and conditions.
We have another couple of months to run on this project and will report back our findings.

King of the kids………

Tony Cuschieri has been having a great time in his new T870 Gypsy. Tony has been producing the T870 in Australia through his company Sportboatz PTY limited.

The first boat has been racing out of the Melbourne yacht clubs and has had some impressive results, one notable being the second place on line to the new Lyons 55ft racing yacht after heading it around some of the track. The second boat out of the moulds is under way with more to follow………………..

Design Developments………

T650 Due to high demand we have decided to go ahead and develop the T650 into a serious production boat. This boat is a development of the existing T650 but will sport a new deck with virtually no cabin. It will be very simple to build and sail and will come in two versions, sport boat and club trainer.
While these two boats will come from the same set of moulds they will be entirely different in construction and purpose of use.
The sport boats version will be vacuum bagged and have a carbon rig and large asymmetric spinnakers while the trainer will be very low cost, robustly built with an aluminium rig and reduced sail area.
For more information on these new designs contact our design office at info@tboat.com

T13, T1250 We have been doing some development work on the new T1250, now 13 meter, 43ft in length and are due to start the construction of the first of these boats in the next couple of months. This boat features a very fast hull form with good racing potential and yet has the ability to have three secluded double cabins, a full head/shower and galley facilities. The boat will come in two versions with the changes in the cockpit allowing for a full race and cruising versions.

T1550 This is our latest design concept, a full carbon fibre race boat with a beautiful and functional interior. This is a low budget boat and will surprise with the speed and accommodation achieved with a small budget. The base boat includes a self tacking jib, permanent roller furler jib and a stowing mainsail.
The boat features water ballast for cruising and a lifting keel.
A lot of thought has gone into this design, sure to thrill.

For more information on these new designs contact our design office at info@tboat.com

Vision for the future…….
A lot of the work being done in the background is to achieve a greater market share of our boats world wide. We believe that our boats are the very best available and we at Tboats are working very hard to make sure that our boats are constructed to a very high standard and are available through our world network to all markets. This does take a bit of time and energy and is not always as straight forward as we would like.
Our Construction bases in NZ, Europe and Australia are really just coming on stream and we apologise for any delays in our customers receiving information and boats.
But please be assured that we are doing the best we can.
We believe that our product is unique in the world of performance yachts and is worth waiting for.

Happy sailing to all.

Steve Thompson and the Tboat team

BOATS FOR SALE T920 Road Runner AUS T750 Hyper Active Kids NZ T750 Hull and Deck NZ T650 Armageddon NZ T650 Prozac NZ T750 Mustard Cutter AUS
T830 We have a T30 currently under construction in Europe and can be delivered ready to go. It is a Grand Prix Sportboat and only the brave need apply. Contact us now on enquiry@tboat.com for more information and pricing. Specifications for the T830 Principal Dimensions LOA 8.3 meter Beam 3.00 meter Draft 2.4 meter DSPL 2200kg Construction Hull and deck: Vacuum bagged epoxy composite, post cured. Carbon fibre composite over foam core. Structural grid to take keel and rig loads Keel: Lifting keel. With composite carbon fibre laminate. Rudder: Transom hung with SS gudgeons and carbon tiller Hatches: Access to the interior is under deck. Deck Hardware: Blocks and deck fittings - Frederiksen and Ronstan Winches - Andersen non self-tailors Rope clutches - Spinlock 8mm XT Tiller extension - Ronstan extending Chainplates Bow - SS through bolted Sidestay and backstay - SS through bolted Spars and Rigging Mast is carbon fiber with three aluminium spreaders Stays are all SS Dyform with spectra backstay Boom is aluminium with 1 internal reef and outhaul cleating on boom Prod is carbon fiber non tapered pole internally articulating and retractable Engineering (preliminary) 5hp motor is fitted over the transom Electrical I x 75 ah battery fitted with 4 circuit switch panel and volt meter with battery switch Nav lights on pushpit and pulpit Two internal lights Plumbing and Safety A basic galley is fitted with sink and stove recess. One Whale bilge pump is fitted through the cockpit and drained through the transom Miscellaneous Exterior finish is light colour two-pot polyurethane Bottom finish is epoxy ready for final sand and antifoul application Foils are epoxy coated and faired to templates ready for final sand and antifoul Interior finish is white Gelcoat to the molded interior with a speckle finished topsides and deck head back to the traveler bulkhead. The cabin top inside is painted with semi gloss 2-pot paint to a fair finish. Not included Sails, Forestay headfoil, Instruments, Toilet, Road trailer or mast support, Antifoul, Stove, Shipping cradle, Motor		T920 Design Page For PDF download http://www.tboat.com/T920_Story.pdf Note also the T920 ‘Road Runner’ is also for sale and is immediately available to enter this fabulous series ( see boats for sale ).We have pricing on the T980 to date and can certainly pass on what information we have. enquiry@tboat.com. Specifications for the T920 1. Hull Hull is constructed of epoxy carbon fibre. It is vacuumed bagged and post-cured using SP systems ampreg 22. Exterior is painted in two pack linier polyurethane. Interior feature a clear finish over cabonfibre. Parts of the interior are laminated in Kevlar, which is gold in colour and highlights features such as bunk tops etc. It also has a small galley sink, single burner metho stove and portable toilet. The boat has a sliding companionway hatch & forward round hatch. Stainless steel push pit pulpit & stanchions with lifelines are removable 2. Mast The mast is a mandrel wound carbon fibre featuring 3 sets of carbon spreaders with boom and bow pole. These items are also clear finish. Standing rigging is discontinuous dyform wire with twin spectra to mast backstays. Running rigging is all spectra. The main halyard and jib are both 2/1 in 6mm. Both spin halyards are 8 mm 3. Deck Hardware Deck hardware is Harken. Primary winches are quarto fast trim 40’s. Secondary are self-tailing 16sta Blocks are all carbon air blocks where possible. Vang is spinlock powervang spvx1305 Clutches spinlock spxt/1r 4. Sail Inventory Sail inventory consist of 1 mainsail, 3 headsails all dimension Kevlar smoke cloth and 3 spinnakers. 5. Engine The engine is 9.8 hp tohatsu inboard with folding prop, electric start & remote control. Supplied with stainless steel fuel tank (40litre) and external filler cap. 6. Keel The keel is a carbon composite with stainless steel structural fame. To lift the keel a lifting gantry is supplied with an electric winch. 7. Rudder Rudder is carbon composite construction with a removable carbon fibre tiller handle. Rudder is removable for trailering. 8. Electrics Electrics are 12v charging from engine. Switch panel with circuit breakers. Lighting consists of 3 interior lights, exterior port starboard stern & masthead. 9. Instruments Instruments supplied by Navman. Windspeed direction model w100. Depth model d100. Speed model s100 & tactical compass mounted at mast 10. Trailer Road trailer is registered and supplied by Marlin Trailers. It is galvanized bogey wheel with extenable draw bar. Durotouque independent suspension & manual disc brakes. Three padded cradles support the boat & keel is supported on the trailer This boat is completed, tested and ready for delivery anywhere in the world, be quick and it can be at Key West. If you so desire; the Thompson International team can help you set-up, tune and race the boat. It would absolutely hammer the competition on the CORT circuit.

Up Coming Events to look out for:
August - Hamilton Island Race Week
Refer towww.regattas.com for worldwide information on future yacht regattas.

We Need Your Comments:
For us to make our site as exciting as possible, we would appreciate
any feedback with racing, new boats, or anything you think others
would like to hear about, please feel free to e-mail us now on
enquiry@tboat.com

[Top]