wallyrocket51
- LOA 15.5 m, beam 4.3 m, draft 3.5 m
- Displacement 6,250 kg, 640 L water ballast
- Sail area 160 sqm upwind, 360 sqm downwind
- Design by Botin Partners, structures by Pure
- Development by Vasco Vascotto and Guillermo Parada
- Southern Spars rig, Harken hardware, Gurit composites
- Crew of 11, shorthanded capable, Yanmar 40 hp auxiliary
- Launched October 2024, won its debut championship in May 2025
A one-design that games the rating rules
Most owners face a choice, buy into a one-design class for pure racing or optimise a boat for handicap silverware. The wallyrocket51 refuses the either-or. It is conceived as a strict one-design, so identical boats can race each other level, and its hull, foils and sail plan were simultaneously optimised to score under both IRC and ORC. The press called it a rating buster and a TP52 beater, and neither label is marketing.
The key decision is ultra-low displacement. At 6,250 kilograms the 51 is dramatically lighter than the cruiser-racers it measures against, which transforms downwind speed, and the design compensates upwind with a 3.5 metre draft keel, a 640 litre water ballast system and generous sail area. The result points high, accelerates instantly and sails the handicap sums in its owner's favour.
The strongest team sheet in the size
Wally staffed the project like a grand prix campaign. Botin Partners drew the boat, Pure engineered the structure, and the development was steered by Vasco Vascotto and Guillermo Parada, two of the most decorated figures in America's Cup and owner-driver racing. Their fingerprints show in a boat deliberately made easier to handle with fewer crew, because both men have spent careers watching what actually wins regattas.
The supplier list reads the same way, Southern Spars carbon rig, Future Fibres rigging, Harken deck hardware, APM keel and Gurit composite engineering. Styling stayed in the family, Luca Bassani with the Wally design team and Studio Santa Maria Magnolfi, so the boat carries the brand's clean, aggressive look. Nothing on board is experimental for its own sake, everything is the current best practice of the sport.
One design for level racing, optimised for IRC and ORC silverware, and a national championship won in its first regatta.
Sailed by eleven, or far fewer
The 51 races with a crew of eleven, but the water ballast changes the arithmetic. With 640 litres shifting side to side, the boat can be sailed hard shorthanded, and the deck plan was drawn for that flexibility, coarse and fine controls led where a small crew can reach them, manoeuvres simplified, loads managed by geometry instead of muscle. A 40 horsepower Yanmar handles the harbour and the delivery calms.
Sail areas are 160 square metres upwind and 360 downwind on a 15.5 metre hull with 4.3 metres of beam, numbers that promise the boat will plane early and reward aggression. Wally's stated ambition, inspired by owner-driver one-designs, is racing where the sailing decides the result. For owners tired of chequebook arms races, the format is the point as much as the performance.
It arrived winning
The first hull launched on 14 October 2024 and spent the spring of 2025 in sea trials that Wally described as revealing the boat's dual soul, one-design purity and handicap potency. The racing debut came at the ORC Central and Southern Tyrrhenian National Championship in May 2025, and it was emphatic, three wins from four races and first place overall against an established fleet.
Winning a national title in a boat's first regatta is the kind of result that fills order books, and it validated the low-displacement gamble in public. It also set up the class vision, because a one-design only works if the boats win owners. The 51's early record, and the halo of the wallyrocket71's maxi world title above it, give the young class the credibility that most start-up classes spend years chasing.
The thinking owner's race boat
The wallyrocket51 sits in a gap the market had left open, below the TP52's professional cost base, above the club cruiser-racers, and unlike either it is built by a brand with three decades of owner loyalty. For a sailor who wants Wednesday-night wins, championship campaigns and the occasional fast family passage, one boat now covers the calendar, and its one-design future protects the racing from the optimisation treadmill.
There is also the brand dividend. A wallyrocket51 owner joins the same fleet gatherings, regattas and social orbit as the wallycento and wallywind owners, entry to the most stylish scene in sailing at a fraction of the ticket. The boat is serious enough to justify professional trimmers and forgiving enough to hand the wheel to family, which is exactly the dual life its developers designed for.
Who it is for: The owner-driver who wants to win on handicap and race level in the same boat, with a grand prix design team, controllable campaign costs and the Wally fleet scene attached.