Australian High Performance Catamarans

by Editor · Published June 8, 2010 · Updated May 24, 2019

Photo: Beth Gibson – Alter Cup on C2s 2010-
The name says it all. Capricorn, Viper and C2 are just that, high performance cats made Downunder. With the launch of the Viper and the C2 plus the recent association with Darren Bundock and Carolijn Brouwer (2B Sailing) AHPC has managed to challenge the big 2 in quality and racing cats market share. This is only good news for everyone, as elevates the standard and benefits customers everywhere. Greg Goodall’s company has transformed itself from being a small-medium top quality custom builder to a key player in the Cat Racing market. Greg´s son, Brett Goodall, a double degree Engineer and curently in charge of Customer support at AHPC, give us some details on the company current projects status.
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CatSailingnews: Last year we had a preview interview on the C2, now that you have the boats on the water how smooth was the process?You had time on a planned schedule or you were running against the clock? You launched your 1st C2 at Paris Show right?

Brett Goodall: This project went together extremely smoothly, with Greg’s experience and the new CAD design capabilities we, employed problems and mistakes were virtually nonexistent. All the elements of the design where built in a CAD environment and assembled to ensure the fitments. When it came to assembling the first boat it just clicked together and the only modification was 5mm to the tramp.
It wasn’t the original plan but it was the first C2 that we launched at the Paris boat show. With any project like this you figure out how long it will take and then double it. We set our aims pretty high in relation to a time line and we did get setback by a number of situations out of our control but for all intent we managed to get into production on time.

CS:1st results on C2 are promising, not only at the Aus Nats and Bundy being 2nd just 1 point of Mischa on his 1st regatta but also Francis won. Are you satisfied with the boat performance till now? I mean there is some room for tuning or other impovements till the Worlds?
Brett: The C2 has blown us away, the results so far have really reinforced what we always knew; it really is a quick F18. We achieved and excelled what we set out to. The two C2s we had at the Aussie National titles where put through their paces by us in Melbourne and Darren, Carolijn and Stevie in Sydney. The feedback these guys gave us was really important in setting up and fine tuning the systems.
To come out at the first regatta being the Australian nationals after building the boats on the beach and taking 1st and 2nd in a good fleet has set the standard and for Bundy to be so close to winning in Eurocat on the first boat out of the moulds (Paris boat show boat) was extremely promising considering the standard of the fleet.
Francis Ferrari started the season winning the Raid Iroise and our Belgium customers Joel Lefevre and Erwan Griziaux recently won the Raide des 3 Phares.
We are extremely happy with the boats performance and right now the focus is on fine tuning our 2010 boats for the worlds.

CS:I know you are having a huge demand for the boat in France for ie, are you delayed with the production due to this high demand? Did you expect this volume? Photo: Pierrick Contin – C2 dealer Francis Ferrari and C2 1st sail in France

Brett: Did we expect this? Yes and no. We were confident we had built a good reputation for design and quality and that this would support the sales of this boat. But the response was unbelievable.
In France they ordered the first container load simply from seeing it at the boat show and in the US, all of Alter Cup boats where sold before one had even landed in the country.
We have been running the loft and factory around the clock to service this demand. I guess the only down side of this type of successes is customers might have to wait for their new boat, but we have a strict rule that orders are processed in the sequence they are received. It is a good problem to have but a problem all the same and we are upgrading all our procedures to keep up with this demand.

CS:How many boats did you have a Knokke? Estimated for Erquy? (just assuming all those Caps qualify again.) The key numbers here is that your customer are upgrading, or you also have people changing brands for ahpc?
Brett: We had 38 CAPRICORNS at Knokke and to be honest I haven’t done a count up of boats for this year. I never like to count the chickens before they hatch. But I know if we could have sold twice as many boats as we have been able to produce in the time leading up to the world titles… whether they would have sailed at the world titles is anyone’s guess.
There are a large number of CAPRICORN sailors that we have built very good relationships with that have already contacted us interested in upgrading to the C2. These are great friends and very important to the success of AHPC but there are also a lot of sailors have not sailed a CAPRICORN for various reasons that have shown interest in the C2, this really excites us because it shows we are appealing to the greater market and our group of sailors is growing.

Alter Cup. CS:You´ve been provider for 3 years in a row now, this is cause you have an exclusive deal, or because the other companies are not willing to support the event as you do? Brett: We definitely don’t have an exclusive deal for the Alter cup. Fun in the Sun, our US distributor, has worked really hard on this commitment for a long time. The Alter cup is a brilliant testing ground for our product, the boats see a lot of racing in a short time and it helps highlights any problems that we might see long term.
It is a very intense event to be a part of and it takes a great deal of commitment from everyone involved, but at the same time it is great exposure for our boats. I’m not sure why other suppliers have not given the same support to this event.
Next year we are again supplying VIPERS for the alter cup, and also, we will be supplying VIPERS for the Youth Championships just prior to the cup. We are really excited about having the youth on The VIPERS as it will highlight the versatility of the VIPER.

CS:Status of demand for the C2 in USA?
Brett: Great!!! The initial response was fantastic and we have all the Alter cup boats sold and regularly racing. There are another 7 C2s going to the USA as soon as possible. This number of new boats is really great signs for the US F18 class and its growth. It really puts the US in strong standings for a World Title proposal.

CS:In Europe you are having great a exposure with 2b Sailing , Darren and Carolijn are full committed on this project, and they are having such good results. This was something ahpc was missing for reaching the ‘next’ level and start becoming the 3rd leg of the now known as big three cat builders? instead of being the 2 giants and the high quality custom Australian builders? The current level of exposure I think is the best you ever had? Photo: North Sea Regatta, 2B: Bundock-Brouwer

Brett: For an Australian based company it was always extremely difficult, if not impossible to provide strong representation in Europe throughout the season. We always knew this and by this time last year we decided that if we were to continue growing we had to put something in place to combat this.
With Darren and Carolijn both retiring from their Olympic campaigns and looking for a new careers, it was a partnership that both sides could greatly benefit from. Greg and Darren have known each other since the early 90s when they competed in the Tornado class and I think the mutual respect really helped lock in this deal.
We have always been the little specialist company ‘fighting out of our weight division’ and have only recently grown to be renown in the general sailing population. We still fall well short of having the resources that Hobie and Nacra boast but Darren and Carolijn have an unbelievable wealth of knowledge that will help us push AHPC into the next stage.

Photo: Wendy Daunheimer-Vipers at F16 USA Nats
CS:Don´t want to touch the Viper weight because it is a dead talked issue… How great is the demand for the Viper? Besides any weight discussion, you’ll be able to form a one design fleet any time soon, right?
Brett: We have over 100 VIPERS sailing all around the world and they always seem to cause excitement wherever they go. The demand is strong and steady but it is our goal to increase this. To do so the VIPER really needs to fit into a fleet that it can race over the line (not on handicap as we have been seeing recently). The VIPER is already one design in that all the boats come from the same manufacturer and all have the same measurements, it also has its own SCHRS rating. The versatility of the Viper means that it can also be sailed as an F16 or 104.
Currently our French customers are showing interest in having the VIPER a one design class in France, where there are sufficient numbers to warrant this. We are currently writing the VIPER class rules for this and with the intention to eventually seek ISAF recognition for the class. It would be cool to one day hold a Viper Class Worlds as the class is growing worldwide. This will give the VIPER the added bonus of being sailed in the VIPER class as well as the F16 and 104 Classes.

CS:In Argentina for ie, is quite difficult or almost impossible right now to form an F16 fleet, same situation in many countries, as after so many years of zero cat racing we’ve form the F18 fleet, so there is no room for a boat of similar charateristics in performance and I must say price. Nacra and Hobie have other less technical alternatives for a 16 feet racing fleet, are you planning entering that portion of the cat market?
Brett: Greg and I have often spoken about designing a simple beach cat, however right now we are busy enough with the demand and promotion of the C2 and VIPER. Coming from an A-Class and Tornado background, our talents and experience lie in design and manufacture of high performance catamaran.
I’m sure there is a great market for such a boat but this would mean going directly into the territory of very established Hobie and Nacra fleets and fighting on their grounds. The market chooses these boats because of the strong fleet racing, not necessarily outright performance. AHPC owes its success to the commitment of quality and performance, and this would not necessarily translate into success with these types of boats. It would mean we would have to remodel our design and marketing strategies to enter this market, making it a much bigger project than just designing a boat.
I think in the future such a boat would really complement our other products but right now we have to focus on all our current projects and customers, and be careful not to spread ourselves too thin.

CS:The Capricorn is still produced in here in Arg, Ian Rodger is doing a great job and the boat is as competitive as the Infusion for ie in the right hands (as any other design) Do you have plans in the future to expand the C2 production? Photo: 2 Arg Caps at Mar del Plata.
Brett: Expanding the production of anything is a very problematic thing to do. It is very time consuming and expensive and there must be some real benefits of doing so. That’s not to say we won’t be doing so but such things really need to be researched and planned out.

CS:Can you match right now the production level in quantity of Nacra and Hobie? you already have the quality, if you maintain it and at the same time you scale prod your may end as “AHPC and the other two”…?
Brett: I’m not really in a position to comment on the production capabilities of other manufactures, but there are major factors that limit the level of production. One such factor is hull production; you can only pop out a certain number of hulls per week out of each mold so you are limited in production by how many molds you have. From what I am lead to believe we can, and already, do match the production capabilities of Hobie and Nacra in the F18, however they have a much bigger product range.
Given the response from the C2 and the ongoing support of the VIPER we had to upgrade all of our systems to cope with the level of demand. Since the end of last year we have been strongly focusing on upgrading and streamlining our production systems.
But I guess for us the real essence of such production upgrade is to keep the quality. AHPC has been built and owes its success to the quality of its product and as such, above all, we are 100% committed to this quality. Greg in particular has a sometimes painful obsession with ‘getting it right’ and over the years this has rubbed off on all the staff that now has the same commitment. After all, the AHPC company policy has always been to “BUILD THE BEST POSSIBLE BOAT”

CS:Future Plans?
Brett: One of our strengths is that Greg has been designing and building boats since he was 16 years old and he knows there is always be something new on the drawing board – new systems, new hull shapes, new concepts, new production techniques – and you need to be able to embrace these changes as they occur. This has been the fundamental philosophy of AHPC.
AHPC would like to acknowledge that we could never have achieved what we have so far without the full support of the dedicated team of people working with us. This includes the dedicated design team, the production teams at all manufacturing sites, the growing distribution network, and finally, the customers who have trusted and enjoyed sailing our boats, they are the reason we are dedicated to this project. Photo: Brett Goodall sailing the Viper at Aus F16 Nats
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