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We were intrigued by a press release last week from the European based MOD 70 Class announcing that the California based Orion Racing had purchased the Veolia trimaran from the circuit organisers.

Sail Racing Magazine editor Justin Chisholm tracked down Orion Racing skipper Cam Lewis to find out from the horse’s mouth just what the thinking was behind bringing the first MOD 70 to the USA.

Just back from a multihull class win aboard Peter Aschenbrenner’s 63ft ‘cruising’ trimaran Paradox in the Caribbean RORC 600, Lewis was enthusiastic about the prospect of getting his hands on a thoroughbred racing tri and upbeat about the potential of re-launching fast multihull racing on the west coat of America.

SRM: This is an unusual move isn’t it to bring an MOD 70 over to the US, when the rest of the fleet is in Europe? Why an MOD 70 and what are your plans for the boat?

Cam Lewis: The guy that has bought the boat wanted to go faster, farther and have more fun than the current catamaran that he has and the trail led to the MOD 70 as a good option compared to buying something like an old ORMA 60 trimaran.

The ORMA 60 option has some issues because they were all built to a real limit and most of them have very expensive titanium jewelry that holds them together – for lightness and speed and such like. So the maintenance and refit on one of those would have been an interesting exercise.

Plus there is no circuit to join – we would have ended up like in the RORC 600 racing on some silly handicap system against a house boat. [Ed. note - likely a reference to the high performance Gunboat 66 cruising catamaran Phaedo which finished second in the RORC 600].

So the MOD 70 guys happened to have bought the Veolia boat back and we looked at the options of a lease charter or a charter to purchase and it ended up at the end of the day being a purchase. 

SRM: Do you plan to ever race the boat in class in the MOD 70 European circuit?

Cam Lewis: Right now I haven’t delved into what the MOD 70 circuit has planned for this summer in terms of a sailing season because it doesn’t really impact on our plans for the boat.

I know that OC {Offshore Challenges] has a Round Europe Race [Ed. note - La Route des Princes 2013, a sailing race around Europe scheduled to take place in June, open to all multihulls larger than 50ft] and there is talk of the Transat Jacques Vabre.

I don’t know what the other MOD 70 guys are planning, whether they are all working together and are going to do the Fastnet Race and Round Europe Race, Transat Jacques Vabre or what they are going to do. Like I say, it’s not important to our programme currently, because we are not going to be there.

Hopefully, the powers-to-be at MOD can find the way to keep the fleet together, get some title sponsorship and continue with the goal of running events globally. I know Jean-Pierre Dick has a brand new unused boat ready to activate in his shed in Lorient and bear in mind that they have a lot of the materials to build boat eight ready to go. 

SRM: So what are your immediate plans for the boat once it arrives in the US? Is the Transpac or Cabo Race on your radar?

Cam Lewis: I have got to talk to our owner because we don’t have a set plan yet. The boat will re-commissioned and sea-trialled in Lorient before we ship it to Mexico where he has a base. We will get the guys together there and do some saying prior to taking it up to San Francisco. 

We don’t have a plan right now to do the Transpac this summer. I know Lau Real, is planning to do the Cabot Race but I don’t know whether any other non-conventionally ballasted boats are doing that race or not, so they will probably be racing against The Wizard which is the old Bella Mente which is 74-feet [monohull]. 

SRM: How do you think the MOD 70 will fit in amongst the other high performance boats on the west coast of the USA? What else is out there right now?

Cam Lewis: Things are heating up on the west coast. [John] Sangmeister has got his Tritium Racing programme [Ed. note - purchased/purchasing the ORMA 60 Gitana from 34th America's Cup Challenger of Record Artemis Racing].

Loe Real is still the fastest ocean racing sailboat in the USA right now and that boat was built 20 years ago for a movie called Waterworld – as a prop.

At one point in time George David’s chartered Rambler 100 was probably the fastest boat from the US, the 90′ Rambler I don’t know is faster than Loe Real so the MOD70 will be the USA’s fastest racing sailboat.

There are some coastal races and such so we will get some sort of handicapping system worked out between the various west coast groups  maybe MOCRA [Ed. note - UK based multihull rating rule.]

SRM: So what’s in it for the new owner?

Cam Lewis: My vision of the programme is to get him up to speed so that he is having a good time helming the boat. He is pretty much new to sailboat racing and Grand Prix racing – I don’t believe he has done an offshore overnight delivery or race.

So I want to bring him up to a comfort level that he is happy with with a good summer of training and then see if we can find some fun events to do.

Beyond that if the owner enjoys himself and at some point wants to go and try out against the good guys on the European day racing and transoceanic circuit, it would be great to get that going at some point. We will just have to wait and see how we get on.

SRM: What is the team going to look like?

Cam Lewis: We have got a core group of good sailors that we have sailed with in the past and we are bringing a couple of the MOD 70 guys over initially to help us rig and tune the boat up and make sure we understand all the limitations.

We have all sailed boats with canting rigs and foils and stuff before before, but I only sailed a MOD a few times so I have never been out to choreograph six sailors doing high-speed gybe-sets. In San Francisco Bay we will be moving around pretty quickly from shore to shore.

Cam Lewis at the helm of MOD 70 Race For Water.

SRM: Are you considering any record attempts?

Cam Lewis: There is no real plan to go out and bust records although there are certainly plenty of records to go play with – all sorts of holes you can go burn holes in the ocean. But there is no real commercial entity behind us that wants its name in lights.

I mean what’s important? The real record on the west coast would be the Los Angeles to Honolulu but we are not trying to put trophy heads on the wall right now.

The goals will develop as the project matures – the boat’s not even finished painting yet.

SRM: Do you think this could trigger a surge in high performance multihull racing in the US? 

Cam Lewis: For me, the attraction beyond the fact that the owner is a great guy, is that we have the chance to bring along another generation of US multihull sailors.

There are a lot of young sailors who, with the America’s Cup stuff going on, are realising that sailing fast boats fast is better than sailing slow boats fast. Like the guys who were keen to get involved with the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup for example. So I think there will be a lot of young guys who will want to be sailing on this boat.

Although the MOD 70s are relatively simple to sail, with roller furling staysails and Solents and such, the boats are grindathons on the manoeuvres – two pedestals and a hydraulic mainsheet.

My idea is to put a good team together, certainly bring in some older guys from my generation who have had some multihull experience and go and do some great racing. But it is really in the embryonic stage right now and we don’t have a one, two, three or four year plan right now. 

Image credit: Fred Eagle.

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