STEVE GOES WANDERING AND PONDERING
This may not be the best time to travel from a tourist point of view but with all the boatshows on around the world it’s a great time for a designer to be on the loose. My latest trip took me to England into the Southampton boatshow, Germany for the Interboot show and the USA for the Annapolis show, where our boats were on display in both Germany and the USA.

I managed a visit to SP Systems on the Isle of Wright and was very impressed with their operation, both from the point of view of the manufacture of materials and structural design. We are working closely with them to develop improved construction design and techniques for our customers. We are working with SP Systems to develop an international pricing structure for materials to further benefit our customers and builders.

On display at the German Interboot show at Lake Constance was the first of our production T870’s. This boat is a development of the successful T850 and includes a fully moulded interior. This was a very successful show for us as we managed to take two orders for the new T10 and also have since received two orders for the T870. Both boats to be built in Europe. View more photos of the T870 at the show at http://www.tboateurope.com/gallery.php?lang=en

I managed to spend some time with Jan and Karel our European partners responsible for the construction of our boats there, even got to go for a sail on the new T830 on Lake Constance. http://www.tboateurope.com/product.php?ID=t830&lang=en

Onto the USA, to be picked up at the Boston airport by Trice to be told that we have to drive down to Annapolis and tow one of the T590’s http://www.tboat.com/T590/T590.html to the show overnight. It's as well that the little boats are so easy to tow. The show was a great success for us; the boat was displayed on the water with our special mesh sail. At times we had to tie the boat down as it was always rearing to go. Trice had a whole day of demonstrating the boat to prospective customers after which the sailing World boat of the year demonstrations were held.

Part of my travels is spent conducting market research and talking to potential customers. One of the more common comments I heard was that our boats are a refreshing change from the standard production boats we see at most shows. Our boats are not just a reinvention of other boats but a whole new design and construction concept. Our current developments include the new T870, T980 and the T1130. All based on successful racing yachts and now being developed for the mass market. With design refinements we find that we can add accommodation to our boats without the loss of our brilliant sailing ability or speed.
Our latest design development is the new 13-meter Sport Cruiser. This boat features sparkling performance with great accommodation in the form of a pilothouse yacht. It will feature a hydraulically lifting keel and water ballast for fast extended passages. We are due to start production in NZ over the next few months on the first of these boats. This boat will herald a new and exciting range of larger boats for Thompson International to market around the world. More on this next month.

One of the more important aspects of our product design is the development of rigs and sails for racing and cruising boats alike. We have concentrated on the interaction between these two components of the yacht and see this as a most important part of the design development procedure. We work closely with mast builders and sailmakers to ensure that our boats benefit from the very latest technology available. This sort of development will see us kept ahead of the opposition for the foreseeable future.

Happy sailing,
Steve Thompson and the design team

THOMPSON BOATS CONTINUE TO DEMOLISH THE COMPETITION
There is no denying it, these boats are quick, if you are doubting that at all then have a look at these results:

Thompson 650, Armageddon
This fantastic design has something to be proud of. Sailing in Picton's Winter Series, Armageddon was 1st home overall, in all divisions on line and handicap. With the margin to 2nd boat 5min20sec. Armageddon has won 5 out of the last 6 races sailed.
More details below from the owner, included under our comments from our owners and crew.

T750
Our first production T750, built in Europe, won its class, "Mono-Proto Moderni A" at the 51st annual Centomiglia regatta on Lago di Garda, the largest fresh-water regatta in Italy.

Thompson 850, Men at Work 3
This boat is based in Auckland, where it has entered 139 races since it was launched in March 2000. Of these it has finished first over the line 89 times and has had 35 seconds.

Thompson 850, Go Dog Go
This T850 which was shipped to the US and made its debut at Key West 2001 where it was the smallest boat in its class, PHRF 3, competing against boats like the Henderson 30s and Melges 30s. It ended up finishing third overall. It has had a great season in Seattle, where it is based, and recently achieved some very impressive results at the Whidbey Island Race Week where it finished first in its class and was named Runner-Up; Best Overall Performance.

T920
Our brand new all-carbon 30’ sport boat, the T920 took the Gold Medal at the Australian Masters regatta on Lake MacQuarie where she showed devastating pace and absolutely demolished the fleet, leaving one of the better-sailed Mmm 30s in Australia behind by more than 40 seconds a mile on a regular basis.

Thompson 30, Waiwere
Following on from some great results at Block Island, where she placed third in the PHRF sport class, and the New York Yacht Club Cruise where Waiwere put in a stunning performance to take first in class and first overall; Waiwere is currently winning the Jamestown Yacht Club Fall Series. She finished third in the Spring Series and second in the Summer Series.

Thompson 35, Rumours
Rumours has had an absolutely awesome season, the boat took out the Jamestown Yacht Club Spring Series, then she had a busy and fruitful summer winning her class, PHRF Sport, at Block Island Race Week and her class, PHRF 2, in the Chicago-Mackinac where she finished first over the line and fourth on handicap. Rumours then took out the final regatta and the entire Narragansett Bay Yachting Association Championship Series. She is currently running second behind Wairere in the Jamestown Yacht Club Fall Series.

Enjoy some serious motion on the ocean.... you now have more options available to you than ever before with the formation of Thompson International.
Thompson International Now Offers the Largest Range of Small to Medium Size Performance Yachts Available.

Due to the growing demand for Thompson-designed boats and products, a new entity has been formed to deal with the production, distribution and marketing of Thompson products. This entity is Thompson International.

The rationale behind this development is to let Thompson Design concentrate on its core focus of yacht design and development while Thompson International focuses on producing and distributing quality performance yachting products.

THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES TO GROW...MEET THE NEWEST TEAM MEMBERS
The Thompson International team thus far comprises of Jason Hayman, Chris Phipps and Karyn Ferneyhough. Between them; Jason, Chris and Karyn bring a wealth of production, management and marketing knowledge from the Marine, Finance and IT industries. Already Thompson International offers the largest range of small to medium size performance production yachts available on the market today.

The aim of Thompson International is to produce yachts that offer unparalleled and uncompromised performance. These yachts utilise the latest composite construction technology and methods are built to strict specifications and quality standards that will ensure that all yachts produced by Thompson International are of a consistent standard ensuring that international one-design classes are just that, true international one designs.

We are currently in the process of having all of our models CE certified and ISO certification of our building processes and plants will follow shortly.

Currently Thompson International has the following Tboat models in production or under development:
T590- New Zealand
Club Trainer- Under development for production 2002
T7- Australia and South Africa
T750- Europe
T830- Europe
T870- New Zealand, Australia and Europe
T920- Australia
T980- Australia
T1000Euro- Europe (Beginning of 2002)
T1130- Australia (Beginning of 2002)
T1320- SportCruiser, if you think our racers are slick, wait till you see this… under development for production 2002
T1430- Giant Killer, wait to be scared…under development for production 2002

Thompson International is also selling off-the-shelf designs and kit to various stages of completion for amateur builders. Currently available are the following:
Thompson 650- Plans for foam or cedar core construction, rig, foils, fittings, deck hardware packages, sails
Thompson 750- Plans for foam or cedar core construction, kits to various stages of completion, rig, foils, fittings, deck hardware packages, sails
Thompson 850- Plans for foam or cedar core construction, rig, foils, fittings, deck hardware packages, sails

Thompson International has now taken over the role of answering customer inquiries from the Tboat.com website. There is a bit of a backlog that we are trying to work through, if you haven’t received a reply from your inquiry then please resubmit it and we will get back to you immediately.

Over the course of next year you will start to see a lot more of us in the US and Europe. We were at the Newport and Annapolis Boat Shows in the US and the Interboot Show in Germany over the last couple of months. These shows produced a huge amount of interest and gave us some very valuable insight into these markets with which we are forming our strategy for establishing our presence in these markets over the course of 2002.

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T920 Boat of the Month
Our brand new all-carbon 30, Roadrunner gets our boat of the month. Her first regatta was Hamilton Island Race Week, a great chance for the crew to experiment with the boat and get her up to speed, then it was onto the Australia Masters regatta on Lake MacQuarie where she took the Gold Medal and showed devastating pace, and demolished the fleet.

The T920 is a pure racing machine, designed for coastal and harbour conditions. There is limited accommodation below for sleeping to weather on coastal distance races. Designed to be fast in all conditions of wind and sea. The boat is simply rigged with no backstays. Her LOA is 9.2 meter (29.9 feet) and Beam 3.5 meter (11.4 feet).

The boat is built using the latest technology in composite construction from carbon fibre with carbon fibre foils and a large lead bulb.
It has removable wings that blend nicely into the hull and a carbon mast that is in two pieces so that the boat can be towed behind a medium-sized car on a standard road trailer. Alternatively the entire boat can be fitted into a shipping container for transportation overseas.

As you can see from the photos below the deck is very clean, providing a very efficient platform for the crew to work.

For more information and pricing on this design, please contact us at enquiry@tboat.com

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We have outgrown our previous abode so we have move to a new office
We also wanted better views of the harbour and America's Cup Course. Our new office is located at 11A Birkenhead Avenue, Birkenhead, Auckland. We also have some new numbers.
Phone: (649) 419 6032 Fax: (649) 419 6042
Please update your records accordingly.

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Have you ever wondered how to set-up your sportboat? get the edge with our
sportboat articles
This months is our 4th Sport Boat Article, titled Downwind Sailing, featuring the art of sailing and sail handling of sport boats downwind.
I recommend you check out our sport boat articles page, by clicking on our menu at the top of this page or
click here sportboat Articles


Click on the icon to download and print a copy of our fourth sport boat article.
You will require a PDF reader to print the article.

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Tboat Agencies
We now have agencies in the Czech Republic and Japan, their contacts details are below. Please contact Czech Republic, Proyachting at myslik@proyachting.cz or check out their site www.proyachting.cz

Japan our agency is Winds Corporation and they are contactable on info@winds-co.com

Our newsletter once again is available as a PDF file that allows the user to download the file onto their computer and print the whole document. If you refer to the top left of our newsletter you will see an icon for a PDF file, if you click on this you will be able to download our newsletter. For those unfamiliar with PDF you can go to our links page and download the Adobe PDF reader and this will enable you to read all PDF files links or click on the right hand Get Acrobat Reader icon above.

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Some Propaganda we didn't write; comments from
Boat Owners and Crew
Hey Tomo,
I have just been into your web site and did not see much about the awesome T650.
Sooooo I thought I'd drop you a line and inform you of "Armageddon's" exploits of late in Picton.

Results 23rd Sept 2001.
Armageddon was 1st home overall, in all divisions on line and handicap. With the margin to 2nd boat 5min20sec. Armageddon has won 5 out of the last 6 races sailed.
The opposition is pretty much a mixed bag down under with designs lining up including Beale 9, Elliot 9, Elliot 6.5, Farr 1020, Y88, Lotus 10.6, Davidson 37, a couple of Lidgards and an assortment of others.

The main competition for line honours in the Winter Series came from The Beale 9m and the Elliot 9m. The various boats have their day with the diversity of weather conditions encountered in the Marlborough Sounds.

Armageddon's (T650) pointing ability to windward would have to be the biggest plus to keep us up with the larger yachts also her maneuverability in the prestarts.
The new masthead gennaker, built by Doyle Sailmakers, has given us an extra edge down hill as we are now able to sail a lot deeper with good speed enabling us to keep a safe cover on the yachts coming straight down with their spinnakers flying.

There was a beautiful steady breeze in Race 8 and final of the Winter Series.
Armageddon won the start on starboard at the boat end of the start line locking the fleet out to leeward. Eventually, the Beale came below us on port and lifted off the shore beating us around the first mark by 4 boat lengths. At the second mark we had opened up a 10 length lead on the fleet and closed the gap to two boat lengths from the Beale attacking her on the inside and climbing higher out of the mark forcing her to tack away, underneath us and to port. From this moment on the race was ours and we took time out of the fleet in each of the following five legs to win by 5min 20sec.

A great day at the office. A fast little boat, excellent crew work and tactics = 1st.

Winter Series 2001
Race 1 - Third over the line (only 10secs behind the first boat) but out the back door on handicap.
Race 2 - DNC. Too cold and miserable for me (snow on the hill tops around the Sounds).
Race 3 - Cancelled (gale force conditions)
Race 4 - Armageddon. 1st handicap and fastest time all divisions by 4min 55sec
(2nd was an Elliot 9)
Race 5 - Armageddon. 1st handicap and fastest time all divisions by 20min 41sec
(2nd Elliot 9). That is not a typing error 20min 41sec.
Race 6 - DNC (escaped to the warmer climate of the Whitsunday's and sailed on an Adams 52 in the Hogs Breath Race Week).
Race 7 - Armageddon. 1st handicap and fastest time all divisions by 25sec
( 2nd Beale 9m)

Now Tomo, not being one to brag (ha ha) but that's a pretty consistent effort for a little T650 a hat trick in fact and nearly 4 in a row, on line. The previous race to the Winter Series was the SMB's Closing Day Race which we won on handicap and fastest time by 8min 34sec to the second boat.

How good is all of that??

I trust all is well north of the Bombay Hills.
Cheeeeers Pat Smith
Armageddon T4137.

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