Wind in their sails

It's all hands on deck for a bunch of boat-building students who've built a high-tech racing yacht, writes Michael Smith.
The future of New Zealand boating is in good hands - those of Unitec boatbuilding students who've crafted a 9m speed machine called Karma Police.
The prize-winning yacht, first in January's Bay of Islands Regatta, incorporates the latest materials and technology - advances that are now trickling down to the consumer market. It was built over  two-and-a-half years  by students at Auckland's Unitec, under lecturer and boat designer Rob Shaw.
Usually, Mr Shaw says, students build a vessel's hull and deck which is sold for completion elsewhere. The income helps pay for the programme's materials. But when it came to Karma Police (the name comes from a Radiohead song), the students took over the entire build. "We wanted them to experience the boat becoming a boat," says Mr Shaw.
The 50 students did it all: building and installing the canting keel, the carbon fibre masts and spreaders, the twin asymmetric daggerboards, and the rest of the polished composite hull, decks, and equipment.
Below deck, it's sparse: room for sails, some safety ggear and two pipe berths under the port and starboard sides of the cockpit. And that's about it.
Above deck, it's clear Karma Police was built for speed. Indeed, over the 120-nautical mile course of the 2009 HBSC Coast Classic race from Auckland to Russell, it averaged 12 knots - and finished third.
"It's a bit of a thrill when she's going well," says Mr Shaw, leaning back against the gleaming cockpit. Downwind, with the big gennaker rigged, it can come close to the wind speed, he says.
The technological advances in the boat include the materials - carbon fibre and composites - that mean it weighs just 1300kg. Such things as the canting keel - which can be adjusted up to 50 degrees on either side - are usually found only on world-class racing yachts. Eventually, advances in racing boats will find their way into family cruisers.
"[It's] just like the auto industry benefited from Formula 1 cars," Mr Shaw says.
That's futuristic enough. But the skills the students learned will pay dividends for years in New Zealand's marine industries, Mr Shaw says, justifying Unitec's boating programme.
"In spades. You need a source of graduates that can start with a base level of knowledge so they can get into the workforce and be productive from an early stage."
New Zealand is among the world leaders in boating technology, but the industry doesn't have a very high profile locally, he says, because much of the work is immediately exported to grateful boaters abroad.
Still, Unitec's boatbuilding grads have little trouble finding work, even in today's difficult economy, he says, whether it's working on racing yachts, building and refitting superyachts, or designing and manufacturing vessels for the  trailer-boat industry.
Karma Police will be on display at the Auckland International Boat Show, from March 11-14 at Viaduct Harbour.