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Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

6K views 32 replies 15 participants last post by  outbound 
#1 · (Edited)
Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Dorade, a 1930 wooden 52' full keel S&S design corrected to 1st place in the fleet in the 2013 Transpac: Yacht Scoring - A complete web based regatta administration and yacht scoring program

Read the results and weep, all followers of the "Interesting Sailboats" thread!

On elapsed time, (that is real time) boat for boat, Dorade beat a Jeanneau 44 Sleeper, a Tripp 40 Sansari, and a Beaneateau 47.7 La Sirena !!! :confused::eek::laugher

Dorade is:
1. 80 years old;
2. Wooden;
3. a yawl; and,
4. Full/deep keel.

Again, like the "Classic Plastic Smokes the Fleet.." thread ( http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gener...lastic-smokes-fleet-2013-down-bay-race-7.html ) wherein a 40-year-old Hobie 33 beat the living daylights out of some larger, modern boat show boats, is is just possible that all the advances in sailboat design and technology are merely incremental, and a good old boat can still kick arse in the right conditions?

Let's hear the excuses in support of the boat show boats!

Let's hear from those who say deep/full keel boats are slow!

Let's hear from those who say new, modern sailboats are faster in all respects!

BTW, Dorade, at 52' in length, has a beam of only 10'3", about the same as a modern 30' boat-show sailboat (no sugar scoop transom, aft shower or double berth under the cockpit!).
 
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#19 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Here is what a real sailboat looks like, Dorade under full sail: Transpac 2013 Unfiltered - Dorade - YouTube
Dorade is a beautiful sight under sail in that video. And yes, she still looks fast enough to be out racing, even today.

I noticed the mizzen main was reefed, probably to put more power into the mizzen staysail. She looked pretty steady in those conditions.

Thanks for that.
 
#3 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Fantastic, I love to imagine Olin Stephens is smiling, somewhere... :)

There's a lot to be said for a mizzen staysail in a Transpac Race, however...

In other Old Woodies vs. Carbon Fiber Fantastics news, the 66' Gunboat PHAEDO was dismasted early on in the race... I'd guess the price tag on that rig alone was easily in the neighborhood of $200K...

Extremely fortunate no one was hurt, in that deal...



 
#15 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Fantastic, I love to imagine Olin Stephens is smiling, somewhere... :)

There's a lot to be said for a mizzen staysail in a Transpac Race, however...

In other Old Woodies vs. Carbon Fiber Fantastics news, the 66' Gunboat PHAEDO was dismasted early on in the race... I'd guess the price tag on that rig alone was easily in the neighborhood of $200K...

Extremely fortunate no one was hurt, in that deal...

You sure don't need a caption to imagine what he is saying! And I think lots of those words would get beeped out here!
 
#5 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Dorade is a beautiful boat. I have known about her for a while and everytime I see a pic, I find myself drooling.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

I have a wood 40' cutter with 10' beam & full keel built in 1932 . I've lost count how many times I've had folks on her under sail & hear I thought this old boat would be a tub or something to that effect . She moves right along .
 
#7 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

I saw Dorade a few months ago in a San Diego Harbor. We had a famous sailor on board that told us her story. I have always had an admiration for Sparkman and Stephens designs.

Dorade

Let's hear from those who say new, modern sailboats are faster in all respects!

BTW, Dorade, at 52' in length, has a beam of only 10'3", about the same as a modern 30' boat-show sailboat (no sugar scoop transom, aft shower or double berth under the cockpit!).
Same beam and half as comfortable as a modern 30'.

No doubt Dorade is a beautiful boat and fast but the reason it won was on corrected time. If you really want to get the best bang for your buck on a S&S design I would suggest the Classic Plastic Dolphin 24 which won the Transpac Overall a few decades ago.

I think the previous discussion had some valid points in terms of being able to be competitive on a plastic classic. I doubt the purchase price, upkeep, comfort or cost to race of the Dorade is going to be any less than a TP52. Ar least with a Hobie 33 or J24 you are saving money on the purchase price with the ability to still be competitive.

While sailboat designs may come in slow increments over the last 80 years those small steps have added up to a huge leap. James if you have not been on a modern racing boat in 15 knots of wind, you owe it to yourself to at least experience it. You can then come here and say "eh, its not for me", but at least you might have a better understanding what 80 years of progress, carbon fiber and 10 or 100s of thousands of dollars gets you.

Given the once in a lifetime opportunity to race the Transpac I would be hard pressed to decide between racing on Dorade or a TP52. While either would be a great experience I would regret not having experienced the other.
 
#8 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Brilliant idea for ventilation down below - the boat pioneered it then, and she is still going strong - wow!

From Wikipedia:

Origin

The first appearance of Dorade boxes was on the Olin Stephens-designed Dorade, a yacht built in 1929 for ocean racing.[1] As originally built, the Dorade's vents led directly below, but this was found to allow water below, and the vents were modified in the early 1930s.
 
#9 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

The following quote springs to mind:
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than illumination"
-Andrew Lang
 
#11 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

The following quote springs to mind:
You are correct - I enjoy pointing out exceptions that undermine the absolutes and erroneous generalizations put forth on this forum (and propagated by commercial interests) such as:

A deep/full keel boat is slower. Dorade has a full keel, she beat a number of modern fin keel boats, boat to boat, on elapsed time.

Newer is always faster and better. Dorade beat a number of modern boats, including a Benneateau 47.7 and a Jeanneau 44, boat to boat, on elapsed time.

How is that possible?

What about all the supposed improvements over the last 80 years?
 
#12 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

So what we learned is a well-sailed wooden boat with a favorable rating can beat a condo with a mast.

An old race car could probably beat a 2000 Hyundai Elantra.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

So what we learned is a well-sailed wooden boat with a favorable rating can beat a condo with a mast.

An old race car could probably beat a 2000 Hyundai Elantra.
Dorade beat the Beneateau 47.7 and the Jeanneau 44 on ACTUAL time, and corrected time, so an old wooden yawl with a full keel can beat a condo boat, boat to boat, without any correction.

That was also one of my points in the Hobie 33 thread that was lost - it beat the much larger, modern (supposedly better and faster) boat show boats, and almost the entire fleet, in actual time.
 
#14 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Applying that logic the original folkboat would be the ultimate boat around here, as they regularly beat us and several other more modern hulls on corrected time.
And they just revolutionized the class by allowing Alu masts (although many were against modern abominations like alu).
 
#16 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

I would expect waterline length, narrower beam, experienced crew, all to trump newer boats. Then add a pinch of "even a blind pig finds an acorn" if they caught one good puff that set them into slightly better wx timing at any point, so surprise there.

Copy Dorade's design into lightweight aluminum or frp, use modern materials all the way, update the keel and rudder, and then see whether the old design still beats the new.

Old or new, has little to do with "fast".
 
#17 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Bob has made the point several times that narrow boats are easier to keep going fast. Paulo has exposed on why current open class boats and their take offs are faster if sailed well. Be interesting to know PHRF of Dorade v. modern boats of same LOA and elapsed times for same LOA. Still, Dorade is drop dead gorgeous and a great boat.
 
#20 ·
#18 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

To me this results scream to me a need for a rating change for Dorade.

If you look at the results of the TP52s: After 8 days of racing the split between the fastest and slowest TP52 is under 17 minutes. This gives you an idea of how competitive this event is. My rough estimate is .15% speed difference between the two.

The owner of Dorade had bought the boat and did a total refit to start winning and racing this boat. There is also a list of the owners accomplishments which are impressive and many, to which he can add 2013 transpac winner.

Her rating is probably based on previous performances against other 1930s or maybe some of the fancy new fangled boats of the 1940s or 50s. After her most recent refit I imagine she no longer has her original engine, standing and running rigging, sails or even bottom paint. Its possible even some of her underwater lines might have been changed up a bit. My guess is she is probably sporting some water ballast and canting keel.;)

I'd be interested to see how the original Dorade would do against the current one. I'd also be more impressed if the current winner beat all other boats against a fleet of similar boats like in a TP52 or even against a fleet of other Dorades.
 
#22 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

The crew of the Dorade should be rightly proud of their accomplishment. They sailed a really old (and lovingly restored) well and smartly. However, remember that in the end, it is a numbers game. At 254, Dorade was one of the slowest rated boats in the entire fleet (only two had higher ratings). Dorade's number was over twice the ratings of the sleds like Pywackett and the other seventy footers. To put it in perspective, the lone J105 entry, with a fraction of Dorade's waterline, rated a 233. The Elliott 100, the "scratch" boat finished in 6 days, 8 hours, Dorade did it in12 days 5 hours. The Jeaneau 44 which Dorade beat on straight time, finished 4th over-all on corrected time. A pretty heady accomplishment in its own right for a "production boat" to beat out all those racing sleds. Only the last two divisions (Dorade was in the last division) had "racer-cruiser" type boats. The rest of the fleet were pure sleds.

Having raced to Hawaii (2nd place '08 PacCup), I can tell you, the race is more than just boat speed and ratings. It is a navigators and driver's race. How good your navigator is in forecasting winds down course will determine your ultimate outcome (we had a professional weather forecaster as our navigator). After that, it is how good your helmsmen are (Not just your first or second drivers, but how good are your third and fourth ones.) Then there is "luck" - did you get "good" wind in the squalls, were you on port board when they hit? How much "battle damage" did the boat accumulate during the race and were you able to affect repairs without impacting speed? Ocean racing is pretty complicated and no single factor will bring you victory. That notwithstanding, those aerial shots of Dorade under a full suit of sails is a thing of beauty. I can watch it over and over.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

"So while her win is impressive, recognize it for a wonderful feat of seamanship and boat handling that it was, but don't try to make it more than it is."

Seriously? What it is, is 1st place overall. No ifs, ands, or buts. Sailing to victory and doing so in a wonderful feat of seamanship is usually what any crew does, especially when they win.
 
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#32 · (Edited)
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Hate? Now there is a strong word....

I don't know who that is aimed at, but speaking for myself, I truly love that 'Dorade' was able to pull this off. In fact, I really love it when any of these old birds ('Nina', 'Dorade' , Cal 40's and Rhodes 41's for example) beat up on modern hardware in a major race. To me it represents a collection of what makes for the best kinds of racing; where a well prepared boat, racing under a skillful skipper and crew, under a fair rating system, can win for all the right reasons.

I love what her win says about Olin Stephens and his brother Rod's amazing abilities. Her win shouts volumes about what a super designer Olin was. In the 83 years, since her launching its easy to forget how radical she was in her day, or how young Olin was when he designed her. Olin was only 21 years old when he penned 'Dorade' 's lines. His brother Rod, was a genius at designing and sorting out rigs.

If you are not a student of yacht design history, 'Dorade' might seem like a perfectly normal design for her era. But seen in the context of her day, 'Dorade' and the Fife designed 'Hallowe'en' (which set a Fastnet record that lasted 75 years until beaten by Ted Turner's 'Tenacious' in the 1979 Fastnet, yes, that Fastnet) were breaking new and untread ground. In their day they were as shockingly outlandish and alien seeming as the release of Jimi Hendrix's first album.

In those days race boats were predominantly designed for inshore race courses. Offshore race courses were dominated by boats derived from working watercraft designs. What Stephens and Fife did to shake up the world was to adapt core design principles from the best of these inshore race designs to the design of offshore racing boats.

At the time, the sailing press lambasted their tall Bermuda rigs, narrow beam, and small keel areas. The debates surrounding the current bleeding edge race designs are but an echo of the debates that raged within the establishment of their day and which slammed boats like 'Dorade' and 'Hallowe'en'.

The proof that the 21 year old Olin got it as right as he possibly could have is that 'Dorade', dominated the major race courses of the world until her younger sister, 'Stormy Weather' hit the race course. As Olin commented, 'Stormy' was a little beamier and could stand up to her sail plan better, and so was generally a slightly better all around boat than 'Dorade' .

To me, there will always be iconic boats, which in every era represent a major leap forward in the art and science of sailing vessel design in their day. To me, boats like America, Glorianna, Jolie Brise, Colin Archer's Redningsselskape, Malabar II, 'Dorade' , Hallowe'en, International 10 sq. meter decked Sailing Canoe , Uffa Fox's first planning International 14, Finnesterre, Trinka, Intrepid, the Cal 40's, Ganbare, J-24's, Valiant 40's, Gaucho, Farr 40's, Melges 24's, 2000's era Open Class 60's, 2000's era Mini-Transat's, Foiling Moth One Designs, and so on, were landmark designs; each of changed the way that the sailing world looked at boat design. They are the missing links in the advancement of yacht design and while some of what these boats pioneered has not stood the test of time, at least some their DNA is discernable in the boats of today.

In my mind these are all boats which should be revered and celebrated; and each of which I personally admire for what they are. But to me, celebrating these designs is not about putting them on a pedestal and pretending they were perfect designs for all ages. To me, celebrating these designs means understanding them in the context of their times, understanding them for their strengths and their weaknesses as compared to the designs that came before, and those which came after them.

In that vein, there is no doubt in my mind that 'Dorade' was a super boat for her day. There is no doubt in my mind that her original and recent Transpac wins are impressive on all counts, and demonstrated that well sailed and well prepared boats like her remain highly capable race boats in the right venue and under a fair racing rule.

But I also recognize what I believe to be the reality of the situation, if we compare 'Dorade' to a modern 52 foot race boat such as a TP-52, or to a modern racer-cruiser of the same displacement sailing on a windward leeward course, triangular course, or a distance course that includes all points of sail, I would be skeptical that 'Dorade' , for all of her other virtues, would get line honors.

But 'Dorade' not beating a modern racing design boat for boat is okay with me. I'd sooner look at 'Dorade' any day of the week and would probably have a bigger grin on my face if I was ever honored enough to sail on her than I can imagine having on any modern race boat.

Respectfully,
Jeff
 
#33 ·
Re: Eighty-year old wooden full keel boat beats new "Interesting Boats" in Transpac

Got to chat up the skipper of Passion 3 days ago. Old new design given how rapidly design moves along. He was all smiles-just won Halifax I believe. Going off to try Hobart later. Think there's great romance in long distance offshore races. Especially the ones where different classes and ages of boats sail. Something the A.C. just doesn't have IMHO.
 
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