Dave Chisholm and Adam May are the cornerstone of the Velociraptor.  They have been mates since the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.  Adam was of course the Team GB Tornado Crew, but a lesser known fact is that Dave was the Transport and Logistics Manager for the whole of Team GB - not just the sailors - the lot! They ended up flying out to Sydney on the same flight, and after finding they had several mutual friends (Dave was sailing at a high National level in a wide range of boats from Laser 4000 dinghies to Mumm 30's) they became friends. After the Games they kept in touch discussing a wide range of sailing projects, International 14's and the like, but the Moth always seemed the ideal collaboration. Adam was coaching full time and working on moths in the background and Dave had gone back to his 'real job' as a composites specialist - having been an structural specialist aircraft engineer in the Royal Navy for 13 years, followed by further specialisation in composite repairs and structures - and after the year of the Sydney Games worked at Green Marine during the build of the Volvo 60 'Assa Abloy'.... But now, 6 years later it was different, Dave had his own composites business carbonology.com and carbonology had just kicked up a fuss in the sailing media by working with US designer Paul Bieker (who Adam put Dave in touch with!) designed GT60 - the outstanding 'left field' entry for the ISAF new womens skiff class trial at Hyeres...  

Adam (left) and Dave at the Dinghy Sailing Show, London 1st Mar 2008

So the die was cast and the Velociraptor project began - first just called project V, then growing to have it's own file in the office, and finally a new company was formed - Department V Ltd, to which Dave and Adam are equal partners and directors. 

Dave's 'other' job as technical director at carbonology is to provide technical advice to customers, deliver training and most relevant, to provide consultancy to companies who are looking to introduce composite materials to a project.  Selection of materials, processes and tooling are all essential to any project, and the Velociraptor is no exception.

At the forefront of mothing in the UK and regarded as one of the pioneers of the foiling age, Adam loves sailing and designing Moths, so it figured that his job in the team was pretty easy to define - come up with the best boat you can!! So from the outset, we let him play with that... Always interested in what makes fast boats, and most things high tech, Adam has been involved in both the Aerospace industry, and the top end of the sailing world. Wind tunnel and CAD office work at Airbus UK, through to the Olympic Games in 2000, and a technical role with the Victory Challenge America's Cup team, makes for an appropriate cv for work on a flying boat!

A fast moth is nothing without a fast rig... The moth rig is an interesting hybrid - a windsurfing slyle fully battened sail, using camber inducers and clever luff profiles to generate a powerful yet controllable shape.  The current crop of sails are all very good, but we wanted to find a new way - maybe work with a sail company to develop a range of rigs for the boat... We needed a company with a strong understanding of dinghy sailling, but with even more experience of windsurfing and the construction of light weight sails.  Many moons ago, Dave and Adam had discussed collaboration on a super light hiking skiff (codenamed GT60 would you believe!) and at that time we had done some provisional work with Roger Tushingham.  We gave him a call to see if he would be interested in working with us on the Velociraptor, and were delighted to have him agree almost on the spot. Roger and his long time sail design partner Ken Black are a World class combination and we have been working with them since the beginning of 08 on the rig. 

So, with any project like this, it is bound to start a few rumours - a short bit of prospective journalism on the International Moth Website came out in November:

"9-Nov Rumours are reaching us of a new Moth development project. What we heard was a new UK Moth consortium may actually be feedback from a rather more modest collaboration between designer Adam May and carbon technology engineer Dave Chisholm. Technically it is going to be very interesting since Dave, builder of the GT60 skiff, also has experience and connections in aerospace and top flight motorsport and Adam has Americas Cup and Moth design cred. Whether you and I will ever able to buy one is less certain, but who knows!! McLaren Moth anyone?"

...shortly after that, a full blown article in The Daily Sail, said the same thing...  We had always thought it would be cool to build a couple of boats, gauge interest, then look at production, but the interest just these articles generated wasn't going to give us that much time! So we started to think about the production version, and who to get on board to help us build it.  Well this was of course November 2007 we are talking about - and in November 2007, ISAF decided the Tornado would not appear at the Olympic Games in London... Why is that relevant? Read on!!

Dave C... "The first person I rang when I heard about the ISAF decision was was Graham Eeles - mainly to just see how he was getting on. Graham was understandably not that pleased with the decision as he has been building Tornados for some time and has invested heavily in tooling for them... It suddenly occurred that the Velociraptor would be very easy for Graham to build - We arranged a meeting and showed him the project and discussed a way forward.  That seems like ages ago now!"

Another neat fit is that  Adam and Graham had worked with each other before the Athens Games as well, so it all slotted into place.  The prototypes and pre-production boats have been built by Dave and finished by Graham and his right hand man (another Adam), but as of production boat 1, the internal structure and racks will be built by top carbon man Ben Sharman at Carbonology and supplied to Graham, who will build the hull and deck mould to an approved 'recipe', assemble the whole lot and do the finishing.  the boat then goes back to Dave who fits it out, test loads all of the critical areas (no, not by standing on stuff!!) and co-ordinates the delivery/collection by the cusomer.  At the same time Graham will build the foils - another speciality he is famous for world wide...  This all works much slicker than it sounds when you understand that Graham's works and the Carbonology works are less about 35 mins drive away from each other, both set in the beautiful coastal countryside of the Essex and Suffolk borders... Show's and events will also see Kerry Ryan in attendance - Dave' girlfriend Kerry is a good dinghy sailor and a brilliant project manager - she'll be foiling before too long too I should think!!

So that's the team! We hope to meet you soon to show off the boat and get you foiling faster than you've ever before!