Passports in general have a very good reputation in terms of build quality. I am not familiar with the 42.
With regards to canoe sterns the following is a draft version of an article that I wrote for a different venue but it may prove helpful, but a bit lengthy:
"When you look at really old double enders (Egyptian passenger barges, Viking ship, canoes, Skerry traders) you see some things in common. These vessels all tended to be quite light and fast for their era and intended to be propelled at pretty high speeds with comparatively little power. The traditional (up until the late 19th century) double ender actually had very fine ends and a mildly burdensome mid-section. This shape was evolved for speed and seaworthiness in low powered-low volume vessels.
This fine-ended double ender was a great shape for rough sea conditions. In theory when a boat is running before breaking waves, its own wake can disturb the waves astern and cause them to break prematurely. These fine-ended double enders threw smaller wakes and so were less likely to cause waves to break on them from astern. And even in a situation where the vessel was hit by a braking wave, the fine ends meant that the wave did not collide with the flat surface of a transom. (It has been speculated that is also the same reason that the transoms on traditional boats had as much rake as they did.)
That all works well for light weight working craft with minimal sources of power. As double ended working craft became more burdensome they began to have a different set of problems. One of the key problems with the more heavily loaded, fine ended double enders were that they did not have as much reserve buoyancy as transom sterned boats of that era. So while waves might not be induced to break in their wake, they could they would and did get pooped (flooded from astern by overtaking wave).
The Roman and medieval cargo ships, which we know a lot about, were all double enders below and just above the waterline and they most certainly were not light weight or fine ended- the cogs, shuyts and fluyts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were capacious, slow, cargo carriers.
The reasons that these ships, and most European fishing boats to this day, be they Norwegian, Scottish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Maltese or Greek, are double enders are two-fold- the first being is that a double end is generally easier and less expensive to build in wood than a counter-stern.
Another often cited reason for the earliest of double enders is that these vessels had/have to lie alongside each other in close proximity in artificial harbors. The double ender is less likely to suffer damage from boats alongside. In venues where this is previlant you would more typically find double enders. Elsewhere, like the Breton coast of France or the East Coast of England, where the sea conditions are just as bad, but there are natural harbors, estuaries, etc. you will more frequently find transom sterns and counter sterns. In a pooping, a transom stern without a counter gives more buoyancy aft and so is better suited to a high displacement hull, while being almost equally cheap to build. The counter stern gives a drier after deck (important in sailing ships, which were conned from the poop) and more space for handling sails (and nets, on fishing boats)
The next big development in heavy displacement double enders comes with Colin Archer. Archer was searching for a way to make boats that would not cause waves to break that would also have sufficient reserve buoyancy in the ends. When you study the
lines of a Colin Archer design they were really amazing. These were not delicate boats by any stretch of the imagination. Yet they had beautiflully modeled
lines at almost any angle of heel. These were truly beefy. They had to be. They were rescue boats and pilot boats that had to be able to stand station in the worst the North Seas had to offer and still make a rendezvous. They had to be able to lie against a stranded ship and take the pounding while rescuing people and property. They earned a reputation for their seaworthiness and ability to withstand the worst that nature had to offer.
Archer was a theorist and was looking for a way to design powerful boats with powerful
rigs that would still remain balanced. Archer also had a tremendous ability to model the
lines of these heavy boats so that they had a fairness of
line and fineness of water
line that is not readily apparent at first glance. They are deceptive boats in many ways. For all of their weight they were reasonably easily driven boats. They were capable of spreading really huge sail plans or being snugged down to a handkerchief
By all descriptions that I have ever read these were not easy boats to sail. These were not the “sailed by a man and a boy” fine ended double ender that might be epitomized by Tancock Whalers that popularized in the late 19th century fisheries off of Nova Scotia. The Colin Archers took large crews and a lot of brute strength to sail and to some extent they also survived on the iron wills and good seamanship of their crew.
Then along comes Atkins, who takes the Colin Archer rescue boats and adapts them into yachts. Atkins like Archer is a master of the carefully modeled hull forms and in many ways his “Ingrid” is the definitive Colin Archer type yacht. Comparatively fine, yet buoyant and burdensome the ''Ingrid''s are a masterful example of the art of yacht design with the emphasis on art. I keep hearing people refer to these boats as fast. They are fast for what they are but in a relative sense, even in heavy going, they are not fast when compared to more modern designs.
They also reputedly have very comfortable motions in a seaway. I suspect that that is more a product of their round bottomish wine glass sections more than their double ends. It was the image of the ''Ingrid''s and ''Eric''s that did wonders for placing the idea that double ended yachts are some kind of ideal for distance cruising. This was an idea that was further embedded in the cruisers pysche by the ubiquitous Hanna Tahiti and Gulfweed Ketches.
By the late 1960’s double enders began to be viewed as relics of the past. Well-modeled double enders are not easy to model in fiberglass since there was often some tumblehome in the stern. It probably would have stayed like that if the character boat craze had not gotten started in the early 1970’s. At the time the whole character boat thing was hard to fathom. After decades of being eschewed by knowledgeable sailors, suddenly bowsprits and molded in plank seams were getting popular. (If you actually owned a wooden boat during those days, you went to great lengths to conceal the seams and make the topsides look “just like fiberglass”.)
Emerging into the scene during the early days of that period of looking backwards, the Westsail 32 became the poster child for the heavy duty traditional offshore cruiser. The Westsail 32 is a fiberglass version of the Atkins ‘Eric’ altered to supply more room down below and be easier to mold in glass. The Westsail (like the Tahidi ketches of a generation before) pretty quickly became an icon for the “serious blue water cruising boat”. Derided as heavy, slow and wet, with many being bought by posers and wannabes, in reality the Westsails have proven to be enduring boats with an admirable cruising record. (Needless to say, they’re not my kind of boats)
What the Westsails and boats like them did was to bring a focus on the growing gap between “cruiser-racers” and purpose built offshore boats. It was about that time that a young Bob Perry happened on the scene. I have always believed that Bob’s goal in designing the Valiant 40 was to design a boat that bridged this gap. Seen today the Valiant 40 seems very solid and conservative but in its day the Valiant 40 was revolutionary. If you look at the sections and underbody waterlines of the Valiant, they were remarkably similar to the early Sparkman and Stephens designed IOR boats (like the Tartan 41) rather than to anything that Colin Archer designed. Obviously a bit more burdensome than an out and out IOR racer, the Valiant 40 dared to be a moderate displacement (for the time) boat with a fin keel/ spade rudder intended for serious offshore cruising.
I also suspect from articles that I have seen over the years that the trunk cabin and canoe stern were chosen not for some inherent sailing or seakeeping advantage but as a clear statement that the Valiant 40 was and is intended as a serious offshore boat. If you look carefully at the stern of a Valiant 40 it in no way really resembles the traditional canoe stern chosen for low wave making and low drag. This is a very powerful stern consistent with the Valiant''s more modern
lines and underbody.
Of course for every brilliant design idea there are a bunch of bone-headed copies. Having drawn a few double enders in my day, I really think that they take more skill than any other hull form to get right. Poorly done they are awkward in appearance and offer few if any of the traditional double-ender advantages, but still come complet with all of the disadvantages of a double ender. Perry got it right, (to my eye, perhaps more so on the 37 foot Esprit), but a lot of designers never did. Designers like Garden, Benford, and Crealock have designed many a fine double ender, but I think Bob Perry was there at the right time with a design that really understood the problem and looked good doing it.
So back to the original question, “What are the advantages and disadvantages of a double ender?”
If the stern is not carefully modeled and matched to the other properties of the design, there are not any inherent advantages to a double ender; none at all. Properly designed in the fine-ended model, they offer a lower resistance, less wave making and a cleaner wake less likely to cause waves to break astern. Properly modeled in canoe stern model, they can offer a lot of reserve buoyancy in the ends with a minimum stern overhang for reduced hobby horsing. They also offer less corners for
lines to foul on which was far more important in the days of Gaff
Rigs with booms that over hung the transom than it is today.
The disadvantage is that a double enders have quite a bit less room aft for their length than a transom stern boat. This means a more cramped cockpit (or aft cabin). In terms of sailing performance, with modern
rigs and underbodies it is harder to get a canoe stern boat to work with modern underbodies which are designed to surf and sometimes plane. This means that they are not suitable to today’s lighter faster design principles. Its not an issue if your interest is in a heavier, more burdensome, long range cruiser but if your goal is coastal cruising where speed becomes more important than carrying a lot of ‘stuff’ then a canoe stern might not make sense. Canoe stern boats can be a bit more expensive to manufacture in glass as they often require special molds to handle the tumblehome in the stern. It is much harder to install the kinds of equipment popular with modern cruisers such as davits and
radar masts, or to carry the weight of a heavy hard bottom
dinghy.
At this point I view the current crop of double enders mostly as a fashion statement. Most of us sail boats that we bought because we like them. We like them for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which may simply be that we like the way they look. I think that today’s double enders often carry with them a variety of features that attract a certain kind of sailor (or someone who wants to be that type of sailor). To that type of sailor the double-ender is an attractive piece of the equation that draws them to their dreamboat."
Respectfully
Jeff
Linear Mode
