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Triton185:
I would say that you are correct that in my opinion CCA boats were inferior sailers to as compared to modern boats in terms of motion comfort, seaworthiness, and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. But I did not pull that opinion out of thin air.
I grew up sailing, owning, and racing CCA era boats and still sail and race on them routinely to this day. I also have owned, sailed and raced on boats from most of the design periods that preceded and followed. I sometimes get to sail on CCA era boats back to back with boats from the IOR,IMS and IRC eras. My opinion (and I do readily acknowledge that it is an opinion) has been shaped by 47 years of comparative experience of sailing different types in varying conditions.
But beyond that I have been trained by and worked as a yacht designer with guys who actually worked with Alden, Rhodes, S&S, and Alberg, and listened to them unanimously decry the excesses brought on by the CCA rule and the negatives of the boats that it produced.
My opinion is shaped by the theortical world as well. I have attended yacht design symposium for most of my life and have listened to the papers describing test results on models and real boats, and talked to the actual presenters as they discussed issues that were important to me. Motion comfort and seaworthiness have always been important issues to me, and the compromises made to beat the CCA rule compromised both seaworthiness and motion comfort, plus produced rigs that are less efficient and much harder to handle than the rigs that preceded and eventually followed the CCA/IOR eras.
I also have an interest in sailing and yachting history. Again, as I look the most seaworthy and seakindly working watercraft, or look at offshore cruising boats designed during the CCA era and compare them to the aberations of CCA rule beaters, I come away believing that the CCA hullforms, keel forms, and rigs are the antithesis of what I would consider ideal or even suitable for offshore work.
Further more even back in the 1960's when the CCA boats were the norm, while they were a revelation in terms of being fast compared to the boats that preceded them, even in that era, there were editorials by yacht designers and experienced cruisers decrying their poor heavy air characteristics compared to the longer water line boats that proceded them.
So, yes it is fair that say that I do not like the results of the design compromises made beat the CCA, but fortunely for me, my dislike of the CCA rule is consistent with traditional design principals, designers from that era and today, with theorists from that period and today, and with my own experience sailing and owning CCA era boats.
As to Ted Brewer, even during the late CCA era, his boats typically lacked the extreme short waterlines and extreme short keel length/attached rudder designs that made them such poor designs. And while I have tremendous respect for his body of work, he is also a designer states that he refuses to even look at the merits of IMS/IRC boats even though they are the results of a return to a more wholesome hullforms, and interest in motion comfort. His comments on their seaworthiness were in relation to middle period IOR boats, which I think few designers would deny was a period that a real lowpoint in yacht design history.
And to touch on RTBates question, "Albergs are NOT offshore worthy????"
I would put it this way, I keep seeing people suggest that Alberg's designs make good seaboats. In my experience they are barely passible. With luck, skill and pluck, they make be acceptable cruising boats, but for the dollar there are much better boats, boats that are easier to sail, more forgiving, more copmfortable in heavy going and generally better boats in all ways. Many of these boats are 40-50 years old and have been weaked by fatique and a life of use. So while people can, and people do take these boats cruising, I would suggest that there are much better choices out there.
And more to the point, some years back, I was at an Alberg 30 post race party. This was a group of experienced sailors, some of whom have owned their boats for 30 or more years and had sailed them all over the place. There was also former Triton owners in the group who had bought Alberg 30's when Triton class racing pretty much died on the Chesapeake. The discussion turned to the fact that on the internet there seemed to be an opinion that Albergs and Tritons were good offshore cruisers. Nearly to the man, there was a unimous agreement that without big crews and a lot of upgrading and re-structuring, almost none of these folks considered either class suitable for serious offshore work. All seemed to agree for the money and effort that it would take to make these old boats capable of reliably withstanding the rigors of offshore use, there were much better suited boats out there, by which the discussion focused on issues with the rig design, hullform, poor tracking, heavy weather helm, and pitch and roll characteristics.
And yes I agree with Triton that boats should be taken on their individual design merits and that within the CCA era there were better and worse designs.
Respectfully,
Jeff
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