[Jeff_H]

I want to touch on a couple points that SailorMitch that was actually on the original topic, Mitch says, "But again I see those boats [Volvo Ocean Race] as entirely different animals from the kind of boats most everyone else on this list will ever need. The VOR boats use extreme beam for form stability to save overall weight. They also use water ballast to keep the boats upright. As Isabelle Autisier (no doubt misspelled) has demonstrated on a couple of occasions, turn these modern, wide ocean racing boats over, and they will stay there."

I think there are a number of errors in that statement. Volvo Ocean Race boats (VOR) are raced under a rule that really derived from the IMS rule and is intended to actually encourage good seaboats and close racing. As a result the VOR boats are actually not extremely beamy. They do carry their beam quite far aft. They actually have tremendous stability even without the moveable ballast water tanks. I believe that this current generation supposedly has positive stability well into the 160 degree range and minimal iverted stability. VOR boats, like most IMS rule optomized boats as well, really do not count particular heavily on form stability. If you look at their hull forms out of the water, boats like Gilmers Blue Moon and most of Shaws later boats were actually far more form stabilty dependent than the VOR boats.

With all due respect, I think that SailorMitch is confusing the Open Class boats with the VOR boats. Open class boats are their own aberation. These are constructed to no real rule and, Mitch acurately noted count heavily on form stability and moveable ballast, as Isabelle Autissier demonstrated. This is a very different and in my book far less relevant to the boats that most of us sail, breed of race boat and one that I agree is not a good model.

But it does not appear that the Open Class boats are especially influencial on production boats that we see in the US, while IMS and other VPP derived typeforms seem to be. Certainly when you look at the Farr designed Beneteaus (36.7, 42s7,440, and 45f7) and to a lesser degree the Berret designed Beneteaus, these are not high form stability boats. They tend to be low vertical center of gravity boats which is much more typical of the newer breed of boats.

I strongly disagree that this discussion is about apples and oranges. In every generation cruising boats have been pushed and shaped by influences beyond simple cruising boats. What you might consider ''traditional'' boats derive in large part from earlier generation of fast boats, be they pilot schooners, or meter boats.

I too had the chance to discuss Bruce Farr with Olin Stephens. At least in my conversation, his gripe was with the singular nature of Farr''s race boats. But Bruce Farr and his office has also designed a wide of cruising oriented designs. My own boat, a Farr 38, is one of those designs. It is a design that is still popular 20 plus years after its design, in some of the windiest and roughest sailing ventues, such as Cape Town South Africa.

It is too easy to write off what is new. It is too easy to look at the most extreme examples of a design concept that is pushing both technology and the design envelope, and condemn an idea without understanding that in each generation there have been breakthough design ideas that have become the norm and in generations to come will be looked back on as ''traditional''.

When I think about the designers that you mentioned Bill Shaw, Tom Gillmer and Bill Crealock, I can only say that Bill Shaw built his career out of taking the ideas learned in designing race boats and finding ways to use these ideas to benefit a larger boat buying public, Tom Gilmer is the guy whose fame came from a slightly stretched F.G. clone of L.F. Herreshoff''s H-28 and who also the man who brought us the original Pride of Baltimore (speaking of traditional boats that stayed quite inverted), and Bill Crealock whose fin keeled current designs reflect the current trend toward finer bows and moving the center of buoyancy aft to increase speed and comfort of motion.

Respectfully
Jeff