Old Quarter Tonners -Magic Bus

As I recall the Purple Pendragon was sold to another John (old age is keeping me from recalling his last name) in del Rey. This guy also owned a fractional Holland 42 called Predator. I think this was possibly the last (and slowest) Holland IOR boat ever.

Around '78 to '82 I was sailing Olson 30s in Marina del Rey, often on the same boat with Zeke. I would have known if he owned Pendoggie. He owned "the tippy boat", the Whiting 1/4 tonner without the internal ballast.

So if Bullitt won in '79 and '80, who was the 1/4 Ton Cup winner in '77?

 

'77 quarter ton

I'm guessing here: Yamaha in Japan - a windy series where the ultra lightweight antipodeans had problems, also there was some sinkings and capsizes if I remember correctly. Or was that 1978?

 

correction again

Manzanita, which won the 1977 Cup in Helsinki.
Manzanita is now owned by the Irish sailing duo Neil Kenefick and Joxer O'Brien.

 

I was thinking that it could be Manzanita, but for some reason I didn't think Holland designs won the cup twice.

Where are you getting all this great info? All the stuff I've been posting is stuck in my head. I hope you are not as crazy as I am, and have some other source you are referencing.

 

Japan was '78. Big conditions devastated the fleet. At least a couple of daggerboarders flipped and had the boards fall out, resulting in one sinking for sure.

No lives lost, but enough of a concern that the rulemakers took action to eliminate most of the rating benefit of the lightweight board boats.


I'm sure there are some very cool old QTs from that era sitting on trailers somewhere in Japan, probably Osaka, waiting to be restored.

 

1/4 tonners

hey Paul B
Yes I'm a nutter (like you, perhaps?) - but I had to dig through piles of old ripouts in the back shed for some of this historical stuff. The other longer posts here from me are excerpts from my self published book "Light Brigade - the New Zealand school of yacht design." Thanks to you, I have made corrections.
More about Ron Holland's Manzanita - Spanish (of course, means Little Apple) with multi-national crew and helmed by Rodney Pattisson. Davidson's centreboarder Fun was also there, as a US entry (with Clay Bernard and Bob Chilton) as pre-race favourite, started well but fell away a bit in later races while Manzanita was more consistent. There was another impressive lightweight, Charlie Papa Due from Italy that was also a high finisher.

 

Where would I find a copy of your book? It sounds like it would fit well into my library. Wasn't CT249 (another person who posts on this board) working on a similar book?

Here in the desert of SoCal we have Manzanita bushes, but apples don't grow on them.

Bob Chilton had a well known Holland QT named Business Machine. I think he was out of Dallas, TX.

Clay Bernard was also from Texas, and later built Great Fun, the 50' Davidson. That boat had some interesting history, with an insurance job that took two attempts to sink it.

I seem to recall the original Charlie Papa was in the hunt in '75 (France) when the Farr won.

I used to have a huge library of old magazines from that era, but I binned them after I left the boat biz back in the late 80s. I wish I would have kept them for reference.

 

kiwi lightweights

At the moment I'm updating the book (plus corrections) - when finished I could send you a copy. Actually I would like to put it on boatdesign.net for pdf downloading but it is, with many colour and b&w images and line drawings, quite a large file. I didn't know about CT249's effort, goodonyer mate.
Back to Laurie, here are some images of Fun plus Business Machine and the first 34 foot Wednesday Night Racer, called Fantail.

 

Please let me know when the book is available and I'll send you a check.

It is very interesting to see the difference in heel angle between the fractional rigged FUN and the old masthead rigged Business Machine. The ability to change gears was the real advantage to the fractional rig.

I believe the Davidson Wednesday Night Racer morphed into the Dash 34 here in the USA.

My own boat is also a Wednesday Night Racer. They are referred to as "Beer Can Races" here in SoCal, so my boat was originally referred to as the "Beer Can Boat". At 28 feet it is slightly longer than these old QTs, weighs 900kg, and is a blast to sail. Doug Peterson built the boat for himself back in the golden era of the QTs (1980).

When I bought new sails last year I converted from the normal symmetrical spinnaker to a bow pole and assymetric rig. More horsepower is good.

 

lightweights continued

Paul
In that shot of Business Machine, the print doesn't show the really ugly scoop was belatedly added to the stern (to little avail). Actually Laurie was disappointed with that series because he became ill and couldn't helm and he was adamant that Fun could have won or come second to Magic Bus. Business Machine did not have the hull form stability (especially in the transom area), compared to the kiwi hull designs, to stand up straight; also her sail area was considerably larger, hence the heeling.
The two jpegs are one of of Davidson's continuation of Fun with his centreboard Half Ton champion Wave rider (the open transom in those days was very new and radical) - plus the Wednesday Night Racer theme (yes, became Dash and other slightly larger versions) carried over into the 52 foot Castaway Fiji, (a very early computer co-designed and handled by Digby Taylor) a very fast yacht ahead of its time until it was lost in a Melbourne/Osaka - name was retrospectively unfortunate.
Your own minimalist beer can racer is a very neat looking craft.
One of the mythologies here in NZ is that Doug Peterson came here in the centreboard era "to sap the minds of the kiwis" before designing his centreboarder One Tonner B195. Could be apocryphal of course - and I'm sure he will agree.

 

Well, considering B195 was launched and raced in the same year (1977) as the first Farr Centerboarders, and also Smackwater Jack I don't think it was influenced by any prior art in the One Tonners. In fact, if I am remembering correctly, Pioneer Sound (B195) actually beat the fleet in the Aus Nationals, the run up regatta to the Worlds that year. The Farr boats went back and re-ballasted after that regatta and dominated in the big breeze at the worlds. So maybe the antipodeans learned something from a septic.

Sadly B195 burned and sank when she arrived in the USA, before she really had a chance to race. Mr. Jumpa, the beautiful Farr, did race the SORC and won. B195 did manage to do well in the Clipper Cup before coming to the mainland, winning the Around the State race overall.

Of course Peterson had seen FUN and Magic Bus in Texas. His own entry that year was Star Eyed Stella, and they finished 4th or 5th. SES was light and fractional, but not a board boat. She may have done better that year, but there were rumours of actual fistfights during the regatta between a couple of the people sailing the boat. I don't know if that is true, but with personalities like Tom Blackaller and Jim Pugh trapped together in such a cramped space I wouldn't doubt it.

The Peterson Half Ton fractional daggerboarder OOH NO won the North Americans the year Wave rider won the Worlds the first time. She did not go to the worlds. The Peterson shape was more balanced and better in the light/moderate stuff, the Davidson/Farr boats better in the breeze. Pictured is a sistership of OOH NO, but this one, Scorpion, had a keel.

If I did not own my little sportboat I would own Scorpion, or OOH NO if I could find it.

 

My boat is built on the same lineplan as the Blazer 23, an early Peterson sportboat built by Tom Stephenson in Australia. My boat simply has the station spacing increased by 6" and, viola, a 28 footer. It was built in partnership with a local (famous) boatbuilder in San Diego named Kerry Geraghty. Geraghty was building the dominating Peterson 38 footer Dust Em for Dennis Connor and Chuck Hope. At the same time Peterson acquired a dented Etchells mast and decided they needed to put a boat under it, something they could have fun with in the bay. Scraps from the Dust Em build were used in the construction.

Both the Blazer 23 and my boat are from the same hull shape family as the Peterson Cassiopea Due (Classe Libera boat, 45 foot trapeze boats in Italy and Switzerland). Cassiopeia Due was the fastest boat on the lakes for two years running, but lost the Centomiglia race twice after leading at every mark. My boat would actually have qualified as a Classe C boat at that time.

Our best speed, flat water, not surfing, pure planing, is 21.6 knots. Not bad for a boat designed and built back in the IOR days. In fact, it is quite a bit quicker in a buoy race than the 27.5 rating One Tonners were, and off the wind it is as fast as the 50 footers from that era. In 20+ knots offwind it is as fast as any maxi boat of that time.

 

IOR to sport boats

Just excellent, no frills, very attractive looking, fast designs - is it any wonder that these historical pre-sports boats are making a comeback and being restored. Those high performance figures for your stretched design are as modern as you could get, probably better.
You know, the Davidson Fun/Wave rider/Pendragon were more balanced and narrower in waterline hull shape than the more wedge-like Farr and Whiting designs - and the US designs appear very similar to Davidson's - although Laurie would probably point out large and subtle differences. I think it would be fair to say that of the kiwi designers in that era, he would have had the most contact and communication with the US. He had visited Britton Chance when he was thinking about designs that lead up to Resolute Salmon. It was the distinctly kiwi Farr who started the light thing off here and prior to that Davidson was doing pretty heavy (but always attractive) designs - but then with Fun, he changed directions to radically light with the world's first IOR LD centreboarder - actually they were all daggerboard boats, not centreboarders. And if you want to be pedantic, I'm sure there were other non IOR light board designs before Fun. There was a lightweight centreboarder designed here by Bo Birdsall called Magic in the late 1950's. But Davidson knew all about lightweight board boats from his years in the 18's, like the (frightingly) lightweight Envy and Daniel Boone in the 1950's. So it wasn't a volte face.
jpegs: Davidson third from left, Envy crew, 1953. Birdsall's Magic, late '50's

 

Actually, things like Melges 24s (size of an Old QT) are faster than the 27.5 rating One Tonners. Even though I love these old boats they were not fast by modern standards. It would be great if there was still a worldwide development rule where guys like Farr, Whiting, Holland, Davidson, Peterson, etc could build boats and compete with the big design houses on a level footing. More design ideas from talented people (like those mentioned above) help push the sport forward.

Some of the Davidson boats were less distorted than some Kiwi counterparts. The 3/4 Ton Pendragon vs the Whiting Riotous Assembly. Fun vs Magic Bus. In larger boats in ensuing years even the Davidson boats were still a bit off the pace in the light air here in SoCal. The Davidson 44s (5 of them) just couldn't compete with things like the Peterson 44. Of course the Davidsons came on when the breeze came on.

In a correspondence file in Peterson's office there is a letter from a young designer, asking for advice what he should be charging for design fees. So at least that person was also in contact with North America, and one of his designs won a North American ton cup before any Davidson boat arrived here.

Different people call the same boats lift keelers (Farr's term), centerboarders, daggerboarders, daggerkeelers, and more. Lift keel is probably the best term.

Yes, I knew Davidson was doing typical "heavy" IOR boats prior to Farr's arrival. When he made the move he did a great job of it.

The thing that always amazes me is when people lump Holland in with the "light brigade". His QT cup winner was still the old masthead, pintail style boat. Even his half tonner lift keelers were very pintail-like. I would say his evolution was more along the Peterson line than the Farr/Davidson/Whiting line.

One interesting note is during a Tahiti Race one crew consisted of three youngsters who would later become quite well known. Peterson, Holland, and Tom Wylie did that race together on George Kiskaddon's 33-foot Spirit. All of them had early IOR designs that were of a similar type. I wonder what those lads talked about during the race?

 

Mate, we are straying off course here somewhat ..... but what the hell.
Although NZ is way down under and in those days was even more isolated, kiwi yacht designers and sailors knew what was going on overseas and sure, Farr, contacting Peterson was not unusual - and Whiting, Davidson, Young and others knew what was happening - but Davidson spent time in the US, was married to a US citizen (maybe not then, but later on) and had visited US designers, subscribed to piles of nautical publications and was very well informed.
He showed the Half Ton Tramp/Blitzkrieg lines drawings to Chance and Chance, who then was doing a lot of tank testing, told him the keels were too large - and Davidson said later, "You know, he was right." Chance was respected here because he broke from the norm and took chances (no pun) - and some kiwis like that.
The thing about Ron Holland being from the NZ light displacement school, that is an overseas interpretation - but not a NZ one. His boats were always heavy jobs, masthead rigged with skinny sterns like Peterson, not kiwis. His relationship with Gary Mull and then getting Improbable built here by Keith Atkinson was impressive and that was an interesting yacht, which the US thought a very light boat - but not here by critical kiwis, still too heavy, although it was dinghy shaped.
Holland also knew John Spencer (Atkinson was a builder in Browns Bay where Spencer lived) and they built the Kiskaddon light displacement New World schooner, and yes, he sailed on the flush decked day boat, the S&S Spirit when they came down in the fast time of 6 days or something from Fiji - that was a sweet looking boat and I've got a print of it somewhere. Time to stop, my son has just handed me a glass of 9% Chimay beer ......and I'm starting to feel the potent effects - Trappist monks know how to brew their booze.