Offshore sailing in ClubSwan 36? Bring it on….

Offshore sailing in ClubSwan 36? Bring it on….

Boat does accelerate tremendously fast. And yet you keep full control all the time

And Now for Something Completely Different, as legendary comedy group, Monty Python said several hundred times. The ClubSwan 36 is a game-changer, boat who won Innovation Award at European Yacht of the Year 2020. Brand new and progressive 11m (36ft) long, a high-performance racing machine developed and manufactured by the Finnish luxury sailboat manufacturer Nautor’s Swan. ACI Sail owns the largest fleet of these beauties in the world and in collaboration with Nautor’s Swan, we have created the first worldwide ACI Sail Club Swan 36 training centre. Our mission is to awaken your senses. We want to share with you our love of nature, our passion for sailing and the thrill of racing.


In the series of stories about ClubSwan 36 and ACI Sail we would like to inspire you to expand your comfort zones and become a sailor. We will share our experiences with ClubSwan 36 and give you some useful tips and tricks about this phenomenal boat.
In episode 1 we will tell you something about offshore sailing with a boat designed for the inshore racing. Yes, we did some tough tests with Finnish rocket. First, we had almost 200 miles long delivery from Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona, then we sailed in regatta Jabuka, one of the hardest and toughest races in the Adriatic and for the end, we took Line honours in Saint Nicholas regatta. Our project manager Ivan Kljaković Gašpić, famous Croatian sailor, was on board during all three offshore tests, so he is the right person for some proper insider information.

Ivan Kljaković-Gašpić, ACI Sail project manager and Olympic sailor

Ivan Kljaković-Gašpić, ACI Sail project manager and Olympic sailor

As we all know the boat was not primarily designed for the offshore racing. Freebord height is nothing but low and you could expect a lot of wet moments in the cockpit. Actually, during offshore sailing, you realize that there is a lot of challenge to keep yourself dry, First of all. But during sailing reaching and sailing upwind with the quite wide boat, you pop yourself high above the water when the boat is healed and you most of the time you stay completely dry. Speaking of downwind, of course, that’s a bigger challenge, but then when we realized how to use foils on downwind. Yet again we kept boat a little bit more healed, sailing super fast and this way allowing the foil to create hydrodynamic lift. It starts to lift about the bow out of the water and therefore keeps you dry again. So there is a chance that you’re going to get wet, for sure, but if you’re steering accurate and if you are really fast with the boat speed you actually keep yourself literally dry“, refers Ivan.
As been said, ClubSwan 36 is akin to a modern supercar. Very fast, but also very safe. During regatta Jabuka the downwind speed was 21.7 knots…
The boat is designed so meticulously with lots of sail area and ability to accelerate enormously but yet it is super super safe and easy to navigate that is both suitable for professional sailors as well as for enthusiasts. So far, you could feel these things in windsurf or high-performance big boats like TP-52. But ClubSwan 36 accelerates even faster because she’s so light and with so much power in the sail area. So she does accelerate tremendously fast. And yet you keep full control all the time. I would say that she is steady and nimble like a sports car.“, explained ACI Sail project manager Ivan Kljaković Gašpić.
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