X-Yachts IMX-40

One of my treasured memories is of driving through green pastures dotted with villages, on the way to a Danish boatbuilding yard to buy a new sailboat. There we spent the afternoon talking with the builder, selecting the boat and agreeing on equipment options, shipping arrangements and terms of payment.

All the while I could barely keep my eyes off the row of shiny new boats, one of which was about to become mine, all mine. They were immaculate examples of precise, tightly-controlled production, attention to detail and a flair for understated stylishness which I will forevermore associate with Danish products.

What's more, those boats were the leaders of their day in that particular racing class. They were expensive, but I was buying a chance to enter the fleet at a truly competitive level.

That was long ago and far away, and now is probably the time to confess that the boat in question was not a 40ft cruiser/racer but an 11ft Europe-class single-handed dinghy, worth perhaps a 45th of the yacht featured on these pages.

Nonetheless, my friendly feelings for that little Danish dinghy came flooding back when I stepped aboard Howard de Torres' IMX-40, Nips 'n' Tux, because here is another example of Danish production yacht builders' skill in combining functionality with style, albeit on a much larger scale.

And here, too, is a boat which is currently fully competitive in its class. Nips 'n' Tux had a sensational debut in Australian yacht racing last summer, winning the IMS (International Measurement System) division of the Telstra Cup in Sydney in December, before going on to win the top prize in the Strathfield Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race in January.

Since then, the yacht's program has been lower-key club racing, but meanwhile its sisterships have been scoring impressive results on the European IMS circuit, most recently at the Rolex IMS World Championships in Valencia, Spain, where IMX-40s finished second in both Division A for the bigger boats, mostly IMS 50s, and Division B for smaller boats around the 40ft range. (A third IMX-40 was clearly leading Division B after three races, but when a spot measurement inspection revealed a discrepancy with its stability rating this Dutch entry was penalised out of contention.)

EIGHTEEN NOT OUT
Nips 'n' Tux is Sydney yachtsman Howard de Torres' 18th sailboat - the latest in a long series including Flying Dutchmen and culminating prior to this with the Northshore NSX 38 cruiser/racer, also called Nips 'n' Tux.

Howard showed me over the IMX-40 during the Welcome to Sail Expo at Rozelle Bay, and made me welcome aboard for a winter Sunday's race with the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, where he keeps the boat.

On both occasions there was no mistaking his pride in the new yacht's performance and his enjoyment of its many impressive features.

The yacht arrived in Sydney only just in time for the major regattas of last summer, but two weeks after it was unloaded from the ship, it was winning races at the Telstra Cup.

De Torres is an owner/driver and had to adjust quickly to wheel steering, rather than the tiller of his previous boat. A big plus to the rushed project was the inclusion in the crew of Bob Fraser and Andrew Parkes - two of Australia's most experienced yachtsmen - for both the Telstra Cup in December and the Strathfield Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race in January. Fraser is a sailmaker and the boat has a Doyle-Fraser D4 inventory from his loft. Parkes is also a sailmaker, formerly with the Fraser loft, but these days he is fully involved in marketing the X-Yachts (along with the Bavaria and Oyster ranges) for the Australian distributor, North South Yachting.

Parkes says the Coffs race, a hard slog to windward for the entire 226nm passage, was well-suited to the relatively high displacement IMX-40. "The boat is great upwind and down and it really winds up once the breeze gets to 8kt, as it's quite a heavy boat," he explained. "It did well in the bumpy stuff off Sydney during the Telstra Cup, and in the Coffs Race where we had up to 28kt it was comfortable under a No 3 headsail and full main. The guys stayed on the rail and worked really hard."

Because the boat is first and foremost a racer, results are crucial to how it will be judged by the sailing community. Since its outstanding kick-off, Nips 'n' Tux hasn't really been notching up big results, with de Torres taking a lower-key approach to local racing and using second-string sails during the winter series. His decision not to take the boat north to this year's Hahn Premium Race Week at Hamilton Island denied it a chance to line up with most of Australia's grand prix boats. But the Sydney summer season is just around the corner and if de Torres decides to enter this year's Sydney to Hobart Race, this could really provide an opportunity to gauge the yacht's abilities as a true ocean racer.

THE X-YACHTS STORY
Headed by the Jeppersen brothers, Niels and Lars, with Birger Hansen, X-Yachts has a wide range of experience in both production yachts and high-tech custom projects. It has been on a major expansion drive in recent years with a move towards larger production cruiser/racers and 'performance cruisers'.

The company keeps all elements of draft plans, design, construction and interior design in-house, to keep total control from initial design concept right through to the handover of the completed yacht at their yard in Haderslev, Denmark.

According to the company, its goal with the IMX-40 was "to offer a really race-ready yacht where all the details, which clients normally spend a long time and large budgets to change/modify, are there from day one."

This is reflected in the inclusion in the standard specification of a carbon fibre mast, boom, spinnaker pole and wheel, rod rigging, racing-spec hardware and running rigging, etc.

A large amount of thought has also gone into the practicalities of campaigning an IMS or IRC racer, resulting in the ability to quickly change the keel ballast bulb for an alternative one if this is likely to better suit the prevailing conditions.

CONSTRUCTION
The IMX-40 is built in accordance with the European CE-Certification for recreational craft. Construction is in hand-laid vinylester resin with biaxial and unidirectional E-glass fabrics, with Divinycell foam core vacuum-bagged into the outer skins. The hull and deck both feature NGA gelcoat.

An H-frame of galvanized steel is glassed into the hull to bear the loads from the keel and rig and incorporates a central hoist attachment. The hull features solid laminate around the steel frame, as well as around the rudder stock passage, engine S-drive unit and at each thru-hull fitting, while the deck has local reinforcement at each deck fitting.

Structural bulkheads of Khaya marine plywood are bonded to both the hull and deck. A moulded GRP liner forming the base for engine, bathroom, galley, chart table, seats and sofas, berths in the aft cabins and for supporting the floorboards, is bonded to the hull, while the deck has a moulded GRP headliner of 12mm thickness, integrating the bases for the halogen lighting throughout the interior.

The top part of the cast iron keel integrates a keel bilge and is encased in a faired and epoxy-primed layer of GRP. At the bottom is the cast antimony-hardened lead bulb, also encased with a faired and primed GRP layer.

An optional, alternative lead bulb can be retrofitted within the space of a few hours while the yacht is hoisted by crane or travelift, X-Yachts says.

The rudder blade is vacuum-laminated using Vinylester resin, E-glass and Divinycell foam, while the rudder stock is solid double-tapered alloy.

GRAND PRIX FITOUT
Attention to detail is evident in the deck layout, set up for racing by a crew of eight or nine people. The hardware is good quality and well-positioned. Control lines for the Cunningham, vang and mainsail outhaul, for example, are led to cam cleats on turning bases on both sides of the coachroof, so they can be operated from either weather rail or the cockpit.

The double-ended mainsheet is led back to the trimmer through tunnels in the sidedecks so that it cannot be inadvertently stood or sat upon by other crew members.

The fractional rig features three sets of swept-back spreaders and no runners, with a powerful 60:1 block and tackle backstay tensioning system which relies on a vertical spool hidden below the cockpit floor. This seems to provide a viable alternative to the more commonly used hydraulic tensioning devices.

The sail plan incorporates overlapping headsails, out of favour these days on the sporty twilight racers, but acknowledging the need for 'grunt' to power the beamy hull (and the weight of its cruising interior) through lighter airs and a bumpy seaway.

The cockpit features two cockpit seat lockers and a gas bottle locker in the starboard seat locker. A transverse aft seat is optional and can be installed via fasteners tapped into the cockpit surfaces. Nips 'n' Tux has one of these big moulded boxes and leaves it ashore while racing, with non-essential gear locked inside. It looks like quite a lift to manoeuvre this box back aboard, but would be handy for more casual sailing outings or cruising.

Steering is via a Whitlock Racing system integrated in the GRP moulded cockpit pedestal, with Vectran cable running on an alloy quadrant. The wheel is a very nice Whitlock carbon fibre item, measuring 170cm diameter.

PUTTING THE CRUISER INTO CRUISER/RACER
The IMX-40's interior is a comfortable space with all the amenities required for a cruising getaway, if the racing program should ever permit.

There are three sleeping cabins, two aft and one forward, each with double berths and wardrobes. The aft cabins also include addit ional sea berths of canvas and alloy tubing, for use during offshore racing.

The head compartment is forward of the mast and is not palatial but houses the necessary facilities, including a manual marine toilet, moulded GRP wash basin with vanity unit and pressurised hot and cold water supply.

The saloon houses two longitudinal sofas/berths with hinged backrest cushions on plywood plates. Outboard of the sofas are two shelves with space for additional cabinet sections.

There is a removable central table with central box for bottles and two hinged panels.

The L-shaped galley to starboard features white Melamine table tops, a single stainless steel washbasin with mixer tap for hot and cold pressurised freshwater, a 205lt moulded GRP refrigerator with cooling compressor and plate, gimballed gas oven, drawers and storage space underneath with dedicated space for a garbage bin and an upper cabinets with sliding plexiglass doors for plates, crockery and food storage.

The navigation area to port has a decent navigation table with space underneath for charts and navigational equipment, storage space below the hinged nav seat and placement of the electrical switchboard, plus space for additional electronic equipment.

The look below is 'modern traditional', by which I mean the warmth of timber is combined with clean white surfaces, plenty of natural light and modern halogen lighting and blueplush furnishings.

Floorboards are 16mm 'plastic imitated teak' with light striping, there are clear-varnished mahogany handrails along the deckhead and the hull walls lined with grooved, clear-varnished mahogany plywood.

There are lots of fixed and opening portlights and skylights, with white powder-coated alloy framing, and the sliding hatch and washboards are 12mm plexiglass.

The standard engine is a freshwater-cooled, 40hp three-cylinder diesel Volvo MD 2040-S with S-drive installation, set up with a two-blade geared slimline racing propeller. The engine compartment is a moulded GRP box under the companionway, with access from the front and sides. Engine controls and acoustic alarm for temperature and battery charging are at the helm station.

RACING PERFORMANCE
X-Yachts' website proudly reports recent wins by new IMX-40s at this year's European regattas, including Germany's Maior Cup 2001 on the Baltic Sea off Kiel, where the class took the top three placings in IMS Class 1 in mainly choppy conditions and 5-15kt winds, while at Alassio Race Week in Italy another three IMX-40s reportedly took the top three places overall.

These results, plus those of Nips 'n' Tux on the local scene, indicate what the design is capable of. History has shown how quickly different models can become last year's heroes in IMS racing, and here in Australia the recent explosion of interest in one-design keelboat fleets and the promotion of the IRC handicap alternative have sapped strength from the IMS ranks.

All the same, the IMX-40 has some serious runs on the board as a racer and offers a very attractive, stylish interior, too. It's certainly not cheap, which is no doubt why more have not followed Nips 'N' Tux into Australian waters to date. But it's a very high quality package, which only goes to reinforce my reverence for boats made in Denmark.

HIGHS

LOWS