THE GREAT CUP - GC32 Official WebSite

Facts Sheets

975
weight(kg)

12
LOA (m)

6
width(m)

168
sail area(m2)

GC32 ONE DESIGN
The 32ft Full Flying Carbon Catamaran
Inspired by the 34th America's Cup and the advent of the AC72 catamarans racing with their giant hulls flying above, rather than through, the water, the GC32 is fitted with high performance foils allowing the boat to achieve a fully flying foiling catamaran. The GC32 is substantially cheaper than an America's Cup catamaran and much easier to sail and to run.

The GC32 is a product of created by THE GREAT CUP.

A QUICK INTRODUCTION
The GC32 is the quickest production boat of the world with top speed of 39.7 knots. The GC32 is aside incredible speed, the boat has great behaviour. Hear more form the sailors about the GC32

ACCESSIBLE TO OWNER DRIVERS
The most asked question by owner drivers we get is if they will be capable to sail the GC32. Look at this video we did with an owner that has never driven a catamaran of his life. After 15 minutes assisting him, this owner foiled upwind and downwind.

AN AMAZING WORLD CUP
The GC#2 Word Championship is the epic moment of the class. Come to join us!

A FAST, SAFE AND ROBUST BOAT
The usual comments heard about the GC32 is that it is very robust and stiff. Threw the past years of extreme racing, the GC32 has sustained aggressive load case generated by determined sailors to win races. Listen to the Sailors telling why the GC32 is so safe

EASY LOGISTIC
Cutting the logistics burden and costs was a top priority for THE GREAT CUP. It takes 2 guys 1 day to prepare your boat for racing.

ROBUST AND EASY MAINTENANCE
After 3 years of development on the several circuits, the GC32 has proven to be a solid boat for the high speed we are racing.

Technical Detail

J FOILS
The GC32 foils are so called J-foils due to their J shape. The shape allows the leeward foil to form a V-shape in the water when fully dropped. The V shape is good provides excellent ‘heave stability’, in other words it causes the ride height to stabilise automatically - when the boat start to lift up too much, the immersed V shape will decrease and therefore stop the boat to lift up more. Conversely if the boat drops down, more of the V gets immersed providing more lift and raising the boat aloft again.

The kink in the lower part of the board's vertical shaft allows the V shape to become more of an L-shape, to help minimise its unwanted contact with the water when on the windward side of the boat.

Relative to foils used on the foiling AC catamarans, the GC32's foil are larger (in fact the 1.6m long tip is as big as the smallest tips used on the AC72s in San Francisco). However they are very high aspect to minimise their drag, which would otherwise limit the boat’s top speed.

Saying this the more high aspect the foil is, the more of an engineering challenge is created to make a foil that can withstand the loads it will endure without breaking. The long foil tips enable the GC32 to fly in as little as 7-8 knots of wind and even to foil upwind in 18-20 knots (depending upon the sea state). It also makes the foiling very stable and prevents pitching.

Controlling the GC32’s foils is much simpler than on a AC cat. The bigger foils require less ‘active’ adjustment and there are no hydraulics. The foil can be easily raised or lowered with a rope lifting system, while the rake control can be adjusted from -3 to +6 degrees depending on how much lift is required. The rake control is simply a continuous line that operates a worm drive that is capable of moving the top of foil’s case fore and aft easily, regardless of the speed the boat.

T RUDDER
The rudders are fitted with T-foils. The shape of the rudder allow the boat to gain extra longitudinal stability by countering or helping the effect of the daggerboards.
The rake of the rudders can be adjusted during sailing. The bottom of each rudder case is on a lateral hinge while the top of the case can move fore and aft operated by a worm drive. To maintain the same rake on both rudders, the worm drives are linked by a belt that spans the breadth of the boat on a aft side of the rear beam.

MAST
The GC32 has a conventional catamaran mast: a 16.5m tall Southern Spars carbon fibre wing-profile rotating mast, with a relatively large section of 320 x 140mm, which helps maintain luff tension on the gennaker. The rotating wing mast allows the mast-mainsail to form a better aerofoil shape which is vital on a boat with such high performance where aero drag becomes a significant issue. The rotation of the mats is adjusted via an aft-facing spanner at the foot of the mast. The mast is made of two pieces with a join just above the single set of spreaders (to speed up the stepping process, the halyards are also discontinuous, separating at the join and kept in the mast during transportation. The mast is braced by a set of diamonds that are attached to a single point inside the bottom of the mast, so that both sides of the diamond can be tensioned simultaneously at any time. The forestay is made of PBO while the diamond and shrouds are made of aramid. Marlow provides the running rigging

SAILS
The sail wardrobe for the GC32 comprises just four sails - a flat top main, a small and big jib and gennaker, all one design and all supplied by North France. Each sail is made of RAW 3Di making the sail strong and stiff. The mainsail and jibs are all on locks – while the gennaker is hold with a karver clutch. Luff tension is applied via a Cunningham – the jib Cunningham for example resides inside the forward spine on a 12:1 purchase.

HULLS
The GC32 features a very complex hull shape. The two hulls are toed out by 3 degrees so they become vertical when the boat is flying a hull.
The hull shape has a little rocker and the cross-sectional area has a surprising amount of volume low down in the hull. The hull is relatively pinched at its mid-section, while her ends remain full in order to reduce pitching.
The wave piercing bows has low volume decks which not only help reduce pitch polling but ensure the bows to pass cleanly through waves. As wave piercing bows tend to make for a wet ride, the stems not only have an angle half way up, but a tiny notch spray water rather rapidly instead of soaking the crew.

BEAMS
For easy assembly the beams simply drop into recesses in the deck and are then held in place with just four bolts per beam (two each side). The beams are wedge-shaped that helps lock them in place making for an ultra-rigid structure which is a must have with foiling boat.

SPINES
The GC32 features separate forward and aft spines running fore and aft up the centreline of the boat for ease of assembly and transportation. The spines attach to fore and aft sides of the main crossbeam while the aft spine attaches to the underside of the aft crossbeam.
Beneath the spines are two kingposts (dolphin strikers) that are used as what can be imagined as downward pointing spreaders for a EC6 cables that runs from the tip of the front spine all the way aft. The cables comprise what is effectively one half of a ‘diamond’ running from beneath jib chainplate to the main kingpost and back up to the aft beam, plus a second cable that runs from the tip of the forward spine to a kingpost beneath the jib chainplate and back to the main kingpost. The main kingpost also has lateral support with cables running across to the hulls.

The fore and aft cables in conjunction with the kingposts and spines form the structure that provides the longitudinal stiffness of the rig, enabling good forestay/gennaker halyard tension, thereby improving pointing ability (historically a weak point of racing catamarans). The cables and aft spine also help in preventing movement at the mid-point of the crossbeams, again stiffening up the catamaran’s structure.

SPECIFICATIONS
12.00mLength (overall)
10.00mLength (hull)
6.00mWidth
2.10mMax Board Draft
1.60mMax Rudder Draft
16.50mMast Height (above beam)
6.60mBow Sprit Length
975kgTotal Boat Weight
SAILS
55.30m23DI Raw Northsail Mainsail
19.02m23DI Raw Northsail Small Jib
24.17m23DI Raw Northsail Big Jib
88.00m23DI Raw Northsail Gennaker

Facts Sheets

8
Hours to rig

2
Transport modes

0
Crane needed

5
Stands

GC32 LOGISTIC
SAVING TIME AND MONEY IS THE KEY
Spending too much money for logistic related activities is frustrating. THE GREAT CUP has worked a lot on reducing the logistic of the boat.

ROAD TRANSPORT
THE GREAT CUP offers two type of transport to move around the GC32.

ROAD TRAILER
It is possible to store and transport the GC32 inside a a road trailer, trailer able behind a big SUV. This option offers the greatest flexibility to move the GC32 around whenever you want to any places but is limited in space and weight. The Trailer is a full 11m closed box trailer made of 3axles to guarantee a great stability.

SEA CONTAINER
The 40ft high cube container offers the maximum flexibility in terms of weight and space but demands professional transportation. THE GREAT CUP has developed a GC32 custom made container for maximizing the space in the container and to allow the storage of 1 rib and 1 GC32 and to be able to pack the GC32 with only 2 persons. The Container is isolated and features an air conditioning device to make the working space dry and cold or warm when necessary.

QUICK MOUNTING TIME
It takes 2 crew to mount a GC32 to race. Thanks to smart cradles, your staff will be able to mount in a fast and easy way.

HULL CRADLES
THE GREAT CUP provides two type of cradles. The standard 4 cradles made of Alloy and power coated with fire glass splashes and foam.

MAST CRADLES
THE GREAT CUP provides 4 alloy stands in order to assembly the two pieces mast together and move around the mast easily. Also a 3m telescopic stainless steel stand is available in order to step the boat easily without the use of a crane.

RUDDER AND FOILS COVERS
THE GREAT CUP designed covers to protect the carbon daggerboard and rudders. There are two types of covers for the boards. One set for transporting the boards and a second set for when the boards are inside the hulls made of a shaft covers and a tip covers. The rudder there is only one version

Facts Sheets

2012
Founded

2014
Final Version

2014
GC32Racing Tour

2016
Extreme Series

THE GREAT CUP BV
The company behind the GC32

HISTORY
THE GREAT CUP BV is a Dutch company based in Zwaag 30km north from Amsterdam and founded in 2012 by Laurent LENNE: a 43 years old French/Dutch man graduated in 1996 in Southampton as Naval Architect. Shortly after working as Naval architect, Laurent decided to continue his carrier in IT. After 15 years consulting and running an IT business, Laurent decided to start the GREAT CUP in 2012.

Sailing small catamarans for fun, and looking to the next steps, Laurent discovered the gap for mature driver owners to continue high performance sailing. Searching for the right options, Laurent saw an unexplored path to create the best racing ever and lead to the creation of THE GREAT CUP.

In 2013, the first version of the GC32 was built. In 2014, the second version of the Flying GC32 was ready by April 2014 and create the GC32Racing Tour in 2014. Laurent is nowadays mainly responsible for expanding the GC32 racing experience and helping new owners to join the GC32 community.

MISSION
THE GREAT CUP aimed to offer the best racing environment to both pro-sailing teams and private owners looking to experience ultra-high performance racing typically only available to America's Cup teams.
This concept is captured under the brand GC32Racing. It means the following strategy:
- To make racing exciting, fair, safe and affordable
- To promote and expand the GC32 Racing brand around the world.
- To ease the entry level for owners and Professionals.
- To create an amazing GC32 community.
- To create a sustainable economical environment for professionals sailors.

VISION
GC32 Racing is about the best racing (fair, fast, safe, affordable and exciting) and creating a friendly community and great events enjoyable for owners and Pro's. Focusing on both aspects will ensure a long lifetime. THE GREAT CUP believes to achieve their goal by following the following guidelines:
- To deliver GC32 ready to race and in line with the best competitors.
- To expand or partner to increase the amount of circuits and GC32 racing experience around the world.
- To help owners and sailors to enter the GC32 Arena.
- To create financial product to open up opportunities for new owners to join
- To help developing safety procedures.
- To control the running cost.

CONTACT THE GREAT CUP TEAM

LAURENT LENNE
OWNER/FOUNDER/CEO
Contact Laurent Lenne
laurent@thegreatcup.com
+31 613347842

	GC32 Racing T.
Amount of events	5
Focus	Owner/Sponsor
Location	South Europa
Venue type	Small City
Hospitality Type	Informal
Racing Style	AC Course
Max Course Leg	1.2 miles
Top Speed	up to 39 kts
Average Race time	25min
Long distance race	sometime
# of races per day	6
Owner driver prize	yes
Pro's vs Owners	50% / 50%