Full blooded racing yachts are generally designed with one sole purpose – and that is to win. So when the Commodore of the RORC approaches you and asks for a boat that will win the 50th edition of the Fastnet Race, the pressure is on. Yet that is the both enviable and unenviable position that designer Shaun Carkeek was put in when asked by James Neville to pen the lines of Ino Noir. The boat is a 45 footer with which Neville hopes to build on his second place in IRC overall in his heavily modified HH42 Ino XXX in the 2021 edition of the Fastnet. Neville turned to Carkeek after noting his the success of his designs on the Fast 40+ and 52 fleets and gave him carte blanche to design a boat optimised for coastal and offshore racing but still capable of turning it on over a shorter inshore course when required. The boat has been built by Carrington Boats, taking up 15,000 man hours to build from the keel up.
The result is Ino Noir, a boat that certainly looks the part, decked out in an eye catching and rather lustrous crimson paint job. The boat features the now well known Carkeek chamfered foredeck which, married to reverse sheer, makes the boat look like it’s going fast even when at rest. In terms of design, the boat reflects Carkeek’s desire to optimise it for offshore racing and as such, she has a chined stern section with comparatively fuller bow sections, slightly emmersed to give her power in heavier conditions while reducing wetted surface area in light airs. Carkeek has stated that he wanted to design a boat that was optimised for mid range winds and the boat is stiff wit
