In 2006,  J&J had a rare opportunity to embark on a national project where the sponsors (i.e. large state-owned companies) would finance the development and build of a racing sailing boat promoting our new country, Slovenia.

The design team was put together and preliminary design and tank testing were done. But political changes did not favor the continuation of the project, and it was shelved. 

The mission of the racer was to win highly popular Mediterranean races like Barcolana regatta in Trieste, or the Middle Sea Race in Malta. Its size was 100 feet, the maximum length allowed, and we aimed for it to be the fastest 100-footer on the planet. 

We invited Doug Peterson, the America’s Cup winner, and young Guillaume Verdier (eleven years before his designs would go on to win his first America’s Cup…) into the design team. There was friendly competition between our three offices. Doug was responsible for synchronizing the dimensions, stability, and wetted surface data to make the designs comparable. First a series of nine models were designed (three per office); they were made at 2.4 m length and then tested at the Southampton University test tank. Based on the results, each office then designed a new set of lines which gave birth to three carbon-made 6.5 m models which were tested at the big Haslar tank. 

Doug designed a “scow” fat bow-fat stern symmetric-lines boat which blew away everything at wind speeds over 10 knots, Guillaume did a sharp-bow-fat stern winner in a variable range of conditions, and J&J went for a slender bow-slender stern low-wind speed winner. The final design was a blend of our three philosophies, with Doug’s predominant (it would take another fifteen years before ocean races would be won by such lines physiognomy). The final boat was designed narrow (under 5 m) and light (under 28 T) with a carbon-fin canting keel.

Made in Slovenia never sailed, but we all learned an enormous amount from the results of the work we invested, and from the open communication between the three worlds of boat design. (To be honest, Doug did not learn much.) J&J used the knowledge we acquired for our later sailboat designs, and within five years, Guillaume was blowing away the competition in all singlehanded ocean races to become, arguably, the most renowned racing sailboat naval architect in the world.