Dibley Open 40' Short Handed Racing Yacht, Dibley Marine

Dibley Open 40'

Short-Handed Racing Yacht

Designed as a short-handed, high performance racing yacht, the Dibley 40 also had to be exciting and easily sailed. Designed for events such as the Route du Rhum and across the Atlantic Race – the ‘Transat’, this design would also favour the shorthanded races such as the Melbourne to Osaka and Melbourne to Hobart.

The brief for this particular design was interpreted as follows:

The hull has been designed to be easily driven. The hull incorporates a fine ‘U’ shaped entry with narrow waterline but moderate overall beam and a well-balanced hull volume distribution allowing superior performance characteristics.

The keel cants 50-degrees and to counter leeway, a daggerboard cants 15-degrees in the opposite direction to maximise profile area and thus minimising leeway.

Both Daggerboard and keel are also lifting allowing access to shallow waters ports. The canting system is hydraulic with a very high safety factor built in to counter act the high loads that the systems can encounter at various times.

dibley marine open 40 racing yacht

The cockpit was designed under the clients brief that he will be spending a lot of time living on board and sailing to the various events and so required a cockpit that was as comfortable racing offshore as it was in port when entertaining guests and sponsors.

The helmsman can steer from either of the twin 1100 mm-diameter wheels. Tiller steering or one-wheel options are available, however.

dibley marine open 40 racer yacht

The carbon winged, rotating rig will be engineered by Chris Mitchell of Applied Engineering Ltd. who has been involved in numerous Open 40 , 50 and 60’s as a consultant to various design firms.

The powerful sail area is well balanced with the high righting moment of this design. A 1.25 metre (4’-1”) fixed prod has the dual purpose of having a Code Zero on furler at the end as well as a protruding prod that further extends 1.25 metre (4’-1”) for the Gennakers.

It is pulled back into the fixed prod from the confines of the cockpit. The prod caters for a large masthead asymmetrical spinnaker, as well as a fractional.

dibley marine open 40 racing yacht

The interior has been designed around the watertight bulkheads that are a requirement in the IMOCA Class Rules. The most important part of the interior is the Nav station where our client will be spending a lot of his time going through Data and Navigation info during his crossings.

Opposite the Nav Station is a small Galley, and aft pipe berths and a comfortable saloon make up the rest of the internal layout.

Structural Engineering is being done alongside High Modulus who will be basing their work in line with IMOCA Class Rules including provisions for ISAF category ‘0’ and ISO 12215 structural requirements.

Their own in-house safety margins will also be used where it is deemed necessary.

Overall, this design will cater for single-handed offshore sailing in a fast hull form with a comfortable layout.

Various alternative layouts can be catered for to suit the individual, but the current set up suits our client perfectly.

SPECIFICATIONS AND PRINCIPAL DIMENSIONS

LOA 12.200 m 40’ - 0”
LWL 12.000 m 39’ - 5”
Overall Beam 3.770 m 12’ - 5”
Draft (board up) 1.500 m 4’ - 11”
Draft (board down) 3.000 m 9’ - 10”
Displacement (1/2 load) 4,600 kg’s 10,140 lbs
J 5.144 m 16’ - 10”
I 15.350 m 50’ - 4”
P 18.000 m 59’ - 1”
E 6.730 m 22’ - 1”
Disp/Length 74

SA/Disp 44.8