Hull speed and wide sterns

[SailorMitch]

Denr,

As for the marital aid part, I recommend that your wife douse you with it from head to toe as required. It may do nothing more than make her feel better, but isn''t that what marriage is all about?

[windship]

(laughter)

Dennis

[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

[SailorMitch]

Jeff,

It''s late. I''m going out of town tomorrow and don''t really have the time for this. ''Tis true I only have a liberal arts degree from William and Mary, so my comments on naval architecture could have errors. But I am fully aware that Isabelle was not racing in VOR boats when she turned turtle (twice I believe). I only brought up VOR boats because someone else had in the Wide Ass series to support their argument. The first Pride of Balto was primarily designed as a dockside attraction and not really to go to sea. Did you know that? Besides, it didn''t turn turtle anyway. Pride II was designed to go to sea from day one. With all due respect, you missed the two main points of what I wrote: the Sailing World article doesn''t support the broad stern argument, and we all should stop showing off and go sailing. Please reread my last paragraph in my first post on this topic. That is what it''s all about.

[Jeff_H]

Actually, you are very mistaken about the purpose of the first Pride of Baltimore. From the day she was first concieved to the day she got her CG certification, to the day she sank, she was seen a roving ambassador for the City of Baltimore. I used to have (and probably still do) a piece of the earliest fund raising literature for the first Pride and it used the term "roving ambassador" and talked about trips representing the maritiem traditions of Baltimore "overseas". She was never intended to be a dockside exhibit. She sank by being hit by a downdraft and knocked down to below 90 degrees and could not right before she down flooded.

I didn''t miss your two main points, I just disagree with them. On your first point, the paragraph that I posted clearly explained why the center of buoyancy has moved aft and sterns have gotten more voluminous on more modern designs. On you second point, I see nothing showing off here. In my mind if you can''t discuss the technical aspects of sail boat design on a sailing forum, where is it acceptable to discuss sailing. I do agree with your point that we all should buy the boats that appeal to us and go sailing. I try to follow that ''go sailing part'' of that at least 4 times a week this time a year.

Respectfully,
Jeff

[Quida123]

Jeff,

HERE HERE!!......Thank God you are on this message board. It is so funny that a few recalcitrant fellows on here just won''t admit to ANYTHING other than what they themselves want to accept. No matter what anyone else says. Rarely do I read about anyone of them admitting to not being right, even when the evidence is weighing heavily against them. You (and other sailboat designers) show scientific & measurable evidence to the contrary to what they believe and they still argue that they are right. Lol, its laughable and I am sure as they read this they will not recognize themsleves.

Keep your head in the sand boys

[saw-bones]

All, at this point, I would like to point out that I visited the Mayflower II in Plymouth last Summer. I would say that design was very traditional, and it had a very wide stern. Perhaps the Pilgrams lashed their lawnmowers to the stern - I don''t believe that they swam off of them though. Just my 2 cents worth in this discussion.

[Jeff_H]

Actually, the Mayflower (either number) was an example of the cods head and tail theory of design where the maximum beam occurred very far forward in the boat. Oddly enough this was very efficient for very heavy displacement boats that could only downwind. If all you have to do is go downwind slowly and carry a lot of weight with a minimal stability available, then the roughly teardrop shape of a 17th century Carvel was actually a pretty good shape. The compartively truncated stern occurs above the waterline by the way.

Jeff

[WATERNUT]

As Jeff H. suggests, the volume of the aft sections correlates directly with the yachts bow wave/stern wave handeling ability.
More volume aft generally a faster boat.

I''d like to Biblio this but don''t have the book with me.
Denr sorry I missed you in Chicago.
H2ONUT

[Denr]

I''ll admit that as I "sail past" the new boats in the 36-38 foot range with my little 34 footer, they do look like they are going fast. Perhaps looks can be deceiving.

Waternut, you say you missed me when you were in Chicago, were you trying to hit me? I did see a crazed skipper on a Catalina 400 this weekend that was having trouble furling his in-mast main, was that you?