The new X-Yachts XR 41 is currently resounding very strongly throughout the sailing community: With hull #1 in the water and already sailing her first miles on Christmas Eve 2024, this new all-out racer by the Danish shipyard is the focal point of at least the racing community. Anyways, X-Yachts launching a new racer (their first in many years) was and is always a big thing. In this I am sure that the new XR 41 will certainly be one of the major highlights and must-see boats of the upcoming Boot Duesseldorf boat show.
It has been a bit more than a year since the Danes had announced the new racer/cruiser. Footsteps of their legendary racing boats are huge: Lastly the XP-44 was and still for many is a hell of a yacht! The story behind the development of the new XR 41 is surely as vibrant and interesting as well. One of the guys being employed by the shipyard to have his unique capabilities incorporated: Max runs his own business as a sailing coach and consultant for yacht-optimization according to ORCi-rules, VmaxYachting. I´ve talked with Max about his work for X-Yachts and their new rocket.
Talking to VPP-guru Max Gurgel
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „Max, good to meet you in person at last! What a great occasion that you have been working on the XR 41 as well. Tell me, what did you do to become part of this exciting project? I mean, did X-Yachts call you on the phone, just like that …?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: (laughs) „Well, yes, kind of like this actually! Some time ago my dear Danish colleague Casper Nielsen of C-Performance kind of disclosed that there was something very special and very exciting coming up. He did not specify any details whatsoever because he had already signed his NDA, but he assured me, it will be something very cool. A while later X-Yachts executive designer Thomas Mielec approached me and told me that the shipyard was ready to launch a proper all-out racer. In this he asked if I would like to be part of the team developing that new boat. And of course I was red-hot and hooked! I met with Thomas for Cappuccino in Kiel-Schilksee a bit later and we discussed first ideas of how we would approach such a project.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „What exactly was your part within the developing team of the XR 41?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „It was clear that this new X-Yacht would be designed under ORC rules. At that time I had myself worked pretty deep into the VPP (Velocity Prediction Program) of the ORC regulations as there had been made significant changed from 2022 to 2023, which I had been critically oberserving since. When Thomas approached me I was already programming and modelling parts of the VPP with my Matlab software and had started thorough research into the outcome of those said changes of the rules set. For me this was the starting point for the XR 41 project as well to begin optimizing the hull geometry of the boat. It´s quite a technical ride, you can imagine: Together with my colleague Hannes Renzsch from Friendship systems we set up a virtual hull model in CAESES, another parametric design tool, to start playing around and modify the hull geometry. This is called a „semi-parametric“ design: We start with a basic hull design and change these parametric settings little by little to create a new hull.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „If you refer to a basic hull, which starting point did they give you? Has there already been a finished design for the hull?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „It was rather the other way round: After Hannes, Casper and I had been finished working on our CAESES-model, X-Yachts did send us a variety of basic-hull designs they had been developed. These basic hulls showed a variety of all the interesting characteristics and features we wanted to look into. In this we were able to systematically derive from each and every base-hull by X-Yachts a number of variations according to our optimization parametrics. In a second step we analysed these iterations, sorted out, quantified and qualified to a point where we had a few hulls deemed for further development.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „Tell us more please about how exactly this optimization process is done. How can I imagine one of your normal working days? Is this all done in front of a screen on a computer?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „Yes, exactly. Imagine high-tech servers running the CAESES- and also CFD-software. We check the performance of each single design iteration properly. Since the ORC VPP-software does not allow batch-calculating the measuring certificate we had to find a workaround here to make a trustworthy and exact ORC estimate for those iterations. Remember, we are talking about tenths of thousands of design-variants for a hull. I had to program a lot by hand myself. This was the greatest challenge on this project: To choose the most promising designs and put them to the CFD-simulation. Because of the fact that this is a very expensive and elaborate part, we couldn´t check all of the designs. When our work was done, on top as to say, we were able to prolongate the hull a bit and still maintain a little margin to play with to the CDL threshold of Class B. This was pretty amazing and shows how much we were able to optimize and squeeze out of the design in the end!“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „Back to the start: What has been the design briefing of X-Yachts like? Or in short: What is the new XR 41 due to achieve?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „That was pretty simple and clear: X-Yachts wants to offer the fastest boat you could have in ORC Class B! The boat should be sailing very quick in front of the pack in free wind and at the same time was to have a very good ORC-performance. In simple words: She must be a fun machine on the water but must also appear not so fast “on paper“ in form of the ORC-certificate. To achieve this, we really had to eliminate some hull designs which had superior ORC-performance, but they would have never been started to plane. This means, when in doubt, we put sailing fun first over the rating. Accordingly to the fun-aspects, X-Yachts was also asking for a boat with great Gennaker-performance. And of course, she was set to also have planing-capabilities, which was part of the very first briefing.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „In their briefing, did they come up with direct competitors or specific boats for you to have a special eye on?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „Yes, sure! There was such a list. As we´ve had a pretty detailed briefing and aimed at ORC Class B, we of course looked at the top yachts in this category. That´s for example the Italia Yachts 11.98, the Grand Soleil 44, the J-112 and the still very powerful X-41 by X-Yachts.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „Could you name two or three examples, even if they are tiny details, where in the new XR 41 a true „Max Gurgel“ is built in? Which parts of the boat have been changed the most following your optimization-suggestions?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „Most of the time we worked on the hull itself, so here´s a lot of “Max” incorporated if you will. But Casper and me also did a lot of effort to optimize the keel-fin, the keel-bomb and also the rudder. It´s worth noting that especially for the keel and the rudder I worked with a proprietary AI-powered profiling-algorithm. We are working with this specially trained artificial intelligence very successfully for a couple of years now. This is set to optimize 2D-profiles for specific operating points of the boat.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „What do you think will be the most impressive part of the new XR 41? In which conditions is the boat unbeatable?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „First of all I am very sure that the boat will be a very, very strong allrounder! If we take the X-41 for example and compare this boat with the new XR 41, you can see my point. Both boats share almost the same weight. The new XR 41 is about one foot longer, has some 12 square meters of upwind sail area more and has a 20 to 25 percent higher righting moment at a 20 degrees heel. So it’s a very powerful and fast machine! But here it comes: Despite these numbers, the XR 41 is allowed to sail slower than the X-41 upwind from 10 knots TWS in the ORC rating! I would say that this says it all …. I mean, under ORC-rules, this yacht will be pretty hard to beat upwind! The righting moment is also very interesting for all who seek to take part in single- and double-handed racing.“
Lars Reisberg | NO FRILLS SAILING.com: „With the first boat in the water, is the project closed now for you? Or will there be a secondary phase where feedback from actual real sailing is analyzed to maybe further improve the boat?“
Max Gurgel | VmaxYachting: „In principle for us the project is closed, our work is done. But of course, with the XR 41 now sailing a completely new phase starts. Now it is about finding the best settings to get the theoretical performance into the real world. This is absolutely amazing as it involves a lot of sailing in race mode under various conditions. Something I very much look forward to! X-Yachts has developed a boat that – if the owner ticks the according boxes when ordering one – can win the ORC World Championships in yard-standard configuration, without the usual years of finetuning. The shipyard and we offer to counsel XR-owners after purchase for example if the ORC-rules get changed and how to react on those. On the other hand, I am sure that there will be XR-owners striving for the last bit of performance.“
Thank you so much, Max, for this interesting insight! We are all delighted to see the XR 41 live in Duesseldorf and also the first owners competing in the ORC- and other races.
Pictures with kind permission by (c) X-Yachts and Bendix Hügelmann
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