Britton Chance - Portfolio

If the W37 did "rate" as a One Ton (27.5 IOR) it surely would not have been competitive with real One Tonners.

If the goal was to win IOR races I know which would have been the nicer boat to sail.

 

I took a look at the Chance 37 design and I have to laugh at statements about how nice it sailed.

This design is the epitome of the early "pinched end", squirrelly IOR shape. The Peterson and Holland shapes, not to mention the Farr or Davidson shapes, were far less distorted than this.


I guess when you tart it up with a cruisey looking deck layout and interior that solves all the bad manners of the type!

 

1. She was a boat of her time. She wasn't 'tarted up' with anything. Lots of race boats in 1970 had decks and interiors like that.

2. They may lack downwind stability when pushing big quarter waves, but lots of pinched stern boats of that era still give fun to a lot of people. The secondhand price of Chance 37's in Europe seems to be holding up well. Can't be complete dogs.

3. Compared to the Holland two tonner 'Bugis', she was a dream to sail. Bugis was so bad that she survived the '79 Fastnet by retiring long before the going got rough. We moved her keel back 6 inches after that which helped, but she never was 'well mannered'. After the South China Sea Race, there would be no one clamoring to help bring Bugis back, but there was a waiting list for a berth on the Chance 37.

4. By the late 70's, the Chance was certainly no longer competitive on a world stage as a one tonner, but it held it's own club racing. And it wasn't a bad club: Our three boats from the single club managed a third in the Admirals Cup, only a little behind the US with all their resources.

But hell, what do I know? I'm only going on first hand experience. I should just have had a quick look at a website and trotted out the conventional wisdom. Would have saved all that getting wet.

 

In the 70 I raced Britton Chance 5.5M. Difficult, the rudder was to close to the center of the boat, he did separate the rudder later on. He put a chine at mid freeboard for measurement rule. Built of wood, very difficult not only to built them, but to understand what he wanted, the plans were not very detailled nor acurate. But all that was part of the magic! What a boat when she wanted to go, not often but what a boat. Even I never had the chance to meet him, but I had and still have a great affection for his design and for the man. He inspired me for most of my first IOR design, and I thanks him for having designing some of the most interresting yacht.

 

there was also a Sister ship to the 68' Equation which sailed on Lake Erie as Masker II and later on Lake Michigan as Wind Dancer (with modifications by Graham (sp) and Schlageter. This was a canoe bottomed ketch (originally, later I think it was modified to a sloop rig) with a forward dagger board about a third (this is all hazy memory) of the way back from the water line. At some point I think this was fixed and/or eventually removed. I could be wrong about this detail. We used to call it the "blue canoe" when it was on Erie (the owner would have been Robert Way). I don't remember it being all that successful. I lost track of Wind Dancer about ten years ago and I know the current Wind Dancer on Lake Michigan is a GL70 (Santa Cruz 70).

 

do you have any drawings of the PT 30-I am trying to build a model of this yacht-Thanks for your help!

 

Warrior (molded wood 50Ft sloop - early 70's), Ondine IV (Derecktor aluminum ketch about 75Ft - mid 70's), Wildflower (molded wood 2 tonner - mid 70's), Mariner (Derecktor aluminum 12 meter - innovative but a disaster), he also did a daggarboard one tonner in the mid 70's ( I think it won the one ton worlds the year it was new) and a handful of other custom designs.

Difficult to work with but extremely bright (and extremely arrogant)!!!

 

Ondine IV

You said Ondine IV (Derecktor aluminum ketch about 75Ft - mid 70's).

How can I obtain the plans of this boat?

This is the "Cisne Branco", here in Brazil.

Thanks for your attention.

 

Ondine IV

Please, my e-mail is edsonlsreis@globo.com. Thanks.

 

I'm sure you'd have to speak with Mr. Chance to get the plans.

 

There's a few more of his designs I forgot to mention. A one ton world champion called Resolute Salmon (I think it was a daggarboard boat like the 2 tonner Wildflower) and One of Pat Haggerty's (the founder of Texas Instruments) Bay Bea - it was the only molded wood boat Palmer Johnson ever built - it was quite beautiful.

 

I have oft hear of Mr. Chance and the ill fated 12 'Mariner.' Mr. Turner did him no favors either. What has happened to Mr. Chance? It is good to read about his earlier accomplishments, and I hope he kept designing after the AC debacle with 'Mariner.'

 

There wasn't to much from him after Mariner - he has sort of vanished. He really was an unpleasant man, maybe he got that from Turner (a truely miserable "human being"). I think it was his brain working at a higher level though - he had very high IQ but extremely low EQ (emotional intelligence).

I will say though I really admire his willingness to stick his neck out. His Resolute Salmon (one tonner) was a awesome design.

 

2.4mr Mariner

Hi!

Regarding Britton Chance Jr. and his design Mariner an interesting contribution can be found at the site:

http://www.24mr.se/projects.tmp/SWE 335.html

Here is the Hasse Malmsten project that he has been fiddling with for the past 2 years. It’s the by now 11 years old prototype for the Stradivari that he designed in 1995. It is a 2.4mr.

Studying the design development in the bigger sisters, especially the Twelve’s one cannot neglect the Mariner fiasco. In short Britton Chance Jr. had in the tank work prior to the design of a Twelve for the 1976 Cup found that by increasing the bustle and introducing an underwater transom there was a an evident increase in speed potential at least in the tank testing. Unfortunately it did not turn out as predicted. The boat was slow and though there was a lot more to it than just the design error it still was evident that the problems inherent in scaling was completely misgauged. For a curious designer/builder the natural question arising from this experience is then “at what rate of scaling does the findings from the tank testing become invalid”. Would the Mariner concept work for a 2,4mR, there’s only one way to find out – full scale testing.

First Malmsten tried an increased bustle in the style of ¼ tonners like Mazanita by Ron Holland that looked like having dimples when seen from behind. This did not work out very well so Malmsten decided to rethink the Mariner concept and move the underwater transom back to the L1 station as opposed to Mariners that was positioned at the waterline position. This had the effect not only to decrease the relative size of the transom it also increased the length of the underwater body and the volume of the hull.

These first trials against his friends in our fleet leaves no doubt in my mind, the boat has been improved significantly. So far Malmsten has sailed her in conditions varying between 6 and 14 knots. As it seems now he has no problem with the pointing and the pace is there upwind as well as downwind.

Several alterations Malmsten has done to the boat, and don’t ask him how the different alternations are working or which one doesn’t. What can be said for sure is that the underwater transom does not create the kind of turbulence and drag so obvious on Mariner.

I have raced against this “2.4mr Mariner”. I agree with Hasse Malmsten. What Britton Chance Jr. didn’t manage, Hasse did.

Regards,
Booster

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There was also a 32 footer build by Wauquiez in France.

He designed a lot of succesful 5.5, among them, SUI 130 had a lot of success.

http://5.5inventory.org/SUI/130/results/

A friend had a Chance 37 and was very happy with her, she looks really strange on the drawing send by PaulB but quite nice on the water, different but nice.

I think he also did a 1/4 tonner and also a 3/4 ton (Northstar helmed by Eckart Wagner)