Hogfish Maximus - 44ish sailing sharpie?

Two more Hogfish blogs by Chris Morejohn

A 28' Junk rigged Yawl design

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Chine runners for flat bottomed sailboats, some thoughts

 

That little 19th century photo of a junk/lug yawl is.....
English yacht "Heathen Chinee", dual centerboards and lugsails. Note jib battens.
This boat was only about 24ft on the waterline. Something on the boat was published in Forest & Stream and I'd like to find out more.

There is a bit about her in
Sailing Boats from Around the World: The Classic 1906 Treatise

http://www.thecheappages.com/junk/tutorial.html

 

Very good info Gilberj

Chris' picture...

Below from Gilberj's link...

Here some info in French, in the below quote a Google automatic translation.... (beware for automatic translation mistakes of the jargon)

Below the in the above quote mentioned Valkyrie...

 

Thanks, found her at page 222, see also page 223 & 224 . . .

The dual centerboards turned out to be in tandem configuration.

 

Hogfish Maximus.... How shallow can you go? | Chris Morejohn

 

Chris Morejohn has started a blog where he is posting designs he's developed over the years. They are not exclusively Hogfish sharpie designs.

HOGFISHDESIGN


Hogfish Maximus

 

"This is a yawl "Heathen Chinee".

It illustrates the inventiveness of homebuilders.

Launched in 1889, this ship will surprise observers at the time, for his remarkable speed.

Equipped with two anti-drift boards, the yawl had its moment of fame for beating the challenger to the America's Cup, "Valkyrie", in a race between Southampton and Colne. (Angélique's note: don't know which Colne is meant there )"

That sounds a hell of a lot like complete codswallop, or else someone is ignoring the fact that Colne is inland and that Heathen Chinee would have been easier to load onto a railway wagon. No such race is mentioned in the two exhaustive studies of the career of Britannia, Valkyrie's near sister, which both list every racing start in the UK for the two boats and give almost day-by-day lists of their travels.

There are contemporary records of HC's racing career. She is noted as being a failure, and shown as retiring from races. She did win some, but it appears that was because she was classed as a lugger and therefore given an absolutely enormous handicap reduction - no less than 40% at times!!! To put that in context, it's about as much handicap as a Catalina 22 gets from a J/44, or about as much handicap as a Sabot or Optimist gets compared to a Laser.

 

"The mizzen sail offset on the stern was so radical. Who was this guy Bolger that said you could do this and not follow convention?..."

He was someone who followed the example of Brit Chance with the 1972 (approx) IOR boat Equation.

Sure, Equation did it differently (and arguably in a more radical way) but arguably it is an example that other people were quite happy to break "conventions" when they worked. Perhaps the issue is that most people felt that an offset mizzen would be in disturbed air on one tack and not the other, rather than being scared to break with "convention"?

 

Maybe the River Colne in Essex was meant there, but I found that info questionable too, especially since I couldn't find any reference about such a race ever held, hence I added the note in the quote . . . :idea:

 

The poem is from 1870, if that helps...

[The Heathen Chinee]

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see, --
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor," --
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs, --
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, -- that's wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, --
Which the same I am free to maintain.

---------------------

Some historical background...
http://www.uky.edu/Centers/Asia/SECAAS/Seras/2011/16_The_Heathen_Chinee.pdf

 

See page 118-120 of this old Forest and Stream...

https://books.google.ca/books?id=0t... chinee junk rigged forest and stream&f=false

 

Thanks Jamie, but couldn't read it there, so I've looked it up here...

HathiTrust’s digital library --> Forest and stream --> Volume 28, 1887 Feb-July -- Page 118 -- Page 119 -- Page 120​

 

Thanks Angelique. I couldn't quite make it all out either.

 

Thanks Angelique and Jamie - great stuff.

The junk rig was of course commonly used in the canoes of the day; rigs designed for fast reefing remained vital in English canoes long after the US canoes had gone to "standing rigs". It was said at the time that the British canoes sailed in much more variable conditions and therefore needed easy reefing. Seeing HC as a giant canoe that did best on rivers makes it easy to see how the rig fits the boat and conditions.

 

More drawings for a Hogfish 32 from Chris Morejohn