Amaryllis

I've been reading parts of "Higher Performance Sailing"(Frank Bethwaite and others) that I haven't got to yet. I'm also building an RC scow foiler that will use Hugh Welbourns Q23 foil system but a different hull entirely(Dominion 2-HW http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2434531&page=8 ).
So I was surprised and delighted to find a picture of the lines of Dominion and one of her sailing.
In 1895 Seawanhaka Yacht Club presented the Sewanhaka Cup for competition in small boats, as an international match race series with challenge welcome from any club. George Hierrick Duggan of the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club made the first challenge and won. He proceeded to design 7 defenders that all won. One of those was Dominion in 1898-"a stunningly innovative design"-see the lines and pictures below. Scows were being born during this time as boats that would plane off the wind and heel over upwind to reduce wetted surface.
But Dominion couldn't plane -she was designed with two hulls and was blisteringly fast. According to Bethwaites book notes(p25) after Dominion won:
"Following this challenge, the rules were 'adjusted'(read if you can't beat them ,ban them) to 'prevent the use of abnormal hulls such as Dominion(emphasisDL),or flimsy designs such as Seawanhaka and Challenger'"
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Note: Amaryllis was (not) banned in about 1876 but Dominion was banned in 1898, according to the book. And only after she won convincingly.
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Banning is normal

I never got the "chip on the shoulder" thing about banning multis. So many boats have been banned by racing associations that banning far out boats is just what happens to keep a class or scene viable.

Ben Lexcen (than known as Bob Miller) had his modern 18ft skiff Venom, (or was it Taipan?), banned because it had a deck and therefore wasn't a skiff. It did him and skiffs little harm. If you read Franks book just a bit more Doug you will see that 18s were and still are into banning things - Julian Bethwaite's two handed skiff got banned. Later after skiffs died from too much development they banned the big wings and super expensive skiffs and went one design. Hasn't hurt them either.

There was the bloke who raced a Moth which was basically a sailboard and the Moths banned that. The NS 14s that banned any hollow in the topsides and bottom. Read Peter Mander's book "Give a man a boat" and see the politics that dinghy sailing went through in its boom years in NZ. A little banning won't keep a good man, or boat down.

In fact mono racers are welcoming but the sad fact is that multis don't excite enough people to buy multi racers. On the East Coast of Oz there have been many races open to multis where only Sean Langman turned up. I just was sailing down the coast last weekend and went through a fleet of monos doing a coastal race - Sydney - Bird Island and return. There must have been 40 out there doing that. Great racing. That is the cream of the Sydney fleet. We couldn't even get that many multis for an inshore race, let alone Cat 1 safety multis.

Banning never stopped multi development as the boats could have attracted people who organised their own events. There is no reason why multis could not have organised a follow up race to the 1966 multi Hobart but they didn't. Monos have solid fleets on any piece of water. Multis have thin fleets in pockets. It is not because of any conspiracy or ignorance.

It is probably because multis are too fast, or too fragile, maybe too pricey for a marina berth, or not agile enough for quick tacking in estuaries and rivers. Maybe they don't do well as old race boats turned cruisers but it is not because other people don't like us. It is because the boats don't appeal to racers in general.

If mono sailors disliked multis then they would say so in cruising circles. But that is exactly where multis are growing and rapidly. Ex mono sailors are eager recruits to roomaran cats. The fastest growth is on the slowest cats. This shows that speed doesn't and never has sold.

I read an interesting excerpt from Dick Newick's just released book. In it Dick writes to L Francis Hereschoff. Hereschoff writes back to Dick saying that although his father liked the speed of catamarans he thinks that "in the end I believe, like my father, you will find that a deep keeled monohull best suits for fast sailing" (IIRC) Even Captain Nat, the guy they banned, thought that cats were not good racers.

So lets forget the past's injustices and celebrate our boat's abundant potentials. We can't change the past and if we allow it to cloud our view of others we won't be able to see what wonderful boats we, and they have, to sail.

 

Dominion

I didn't know until fairly recently about Dominion and finding the "newest" info in "Higher Performance Sailing" was just icing on the cake. The development work done by Hierick Duggan and others fascinates me. It's exciting to learn how and why these boats were developed --and when they were developed. After all, Dominion* is probably the first tunnel hulled scow!

http://www.m20-scow.com/history.html

*In 1898 the Canadian boat, Dominion, carried the scow design to its logical end. She was essentially two semi-circular section hulls with a joining elevated floor above the waterline. When heeled, her waterline increased from 17'6" to 27 feet. She won the 1898 Seawanhaka Cup with ease, unbeatable in any condition. Her superior design was subsequently ruled illegal for the Seawanhaka Cup competition. Dominion would later be part of the inspiration for the M-20 design.

 

If there is one thing I have learned from my involvement with the MYCV it's that there is only one way forward and that is cooperating and being part of the whole sailing scene. A niche interest cant dictate terms to other sailors and their existing racing programs and events.

I must admit though I was a bit disappointed when multihulls were barred from competing in the ORCV Melbourne to Osaka shorthanded race after initially being invited to submit expressions of interest. I take onboard that there have not been many multihulls competing in their regular events but we have had a couple of regulars doing most of their bay events. With more multihull racers moving to trailerable boats for cost and convenience reasons it's actually more difficult to field a convincing fleet now than it was in the eighties.

I know a few people who were organizing themselves to be ready to compete in the Melbourne to Osaka race and had submitted expressions of interest. I'd even looked at existing multihulls or to accelerate my F40 build by securing a loan to finance it to be able to compete. Offshore racing is in many ways a better place for larger multihulls to race but it's hard to justify building or equipping a suitable multihull to run a dedicated event when your attendance may only be 5-6 strong. Sometimes I think Don McIntyre was right in saying the 88 doublehanded round Australia race should have been started and finished with a bloke in a tinny. Keeping costs under control is critical to making events with a small number of competitors a success.

 

Nothing I ever wrote indicated that Dominion was not banned - from ONE class - just as windsurfers are banned from the Moth class, which doesn't seem to have hurt Moths or boards.

To quote the man who designed Dominion, her design was banned "as it was recognised that the type, while fast, might lead to excesses which would make very undesirable boats for general use."

The scows that were created after Dominion was banned have since become the dominant class in a significant part of the world - probably more popular (as a proportion of the sailing community) than cats are anywhere in the world. Is that a bad thing? Wouldn't that indicate that the US scow type (while not a boat that I'd prefer) was actually the best type for the region?

It is interesting, though, to note that the scows stopped racing for the Seawanhaka Cup that spawned them. The scows are still strong, the Seawanhaka Cup is now largely irrelevant. So the idea that major trophies are so important that a type that is excluded from them will die is clearly wrong. I suppose we knew that already - the Admiral's Cup and the One Ton Cup were once the top trophies in offshore racing and yet their appeal wasn't enough to keep the fleets coming so it's obvious that trophies are not really that important.

 

Good points. Communication from race organisers could be improved to stop fuelling the disputes.

Offshore multis are great, if there were more people with your attitude, the fleets could probably build again.

 

Thanks for the reference, managed to buy it online. Very interesting read!

 

Enough said.
The Toronto multihull CRUISING club, is a going concern.

 

"...in a liberal spirit.."

A most exceptional article about Dominion with many notable quotes among which are:
--"The design is daring and original despite its freakiness.....
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--"...should be put in a class by themselves and not permitted to sail against single-hulled craft..."
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--"...also a hard and fast rule should be made defining clearly and intelligently the difference between the two types, and a penalty,say, keelhauling should be imposed on
any "tonnage cheater" who attempts to get the better of the rule and introduces a wicked double-hull goat into a flock of innocent single-hull sheep..."

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Boat Design influenced by Rating Rules

This aftmast design maxi 100 footer Comanche has just been brought up over on the aftmast rig design discussion. While trying to discover more details on how they arrived at the decision to place the mast so far aft, I ran across this link:
http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2014/10/06/last-comanche-nears-liftoff/

excerpt....

 

Mast aft is pretty common in performance multihulls to keep the bows out the rigs still very much a mainsail dominated arrangement even though they run large light weather sails to the bow. They proposed a very radical arrangement with Macif of the mast sitting on the rear crossbeam but they didn't end up running with it in the end.

 

Thats pretty much what I said in the aftmast thread Corely. Its more a case of "bows out the front" than "mast at the back". Its about preventing nosediving when sailing to the extreme. Brian says, well it looks similar. I agree, but functionally its done for other reasons.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/aftmast-rigs-623-59.html#post762781

 

I get that some people don't like mainsails but the suggestion that they are not effective nor efficient doesn't seem to gel with any of the evidence I've read or my own practical experience when sailing and racing.

There could be a many reasons to reduce the sail area of a multihull or redistribute over more or repositioned masts but none of them seem to have anything to do with improved sailing efficiency. A more flexible sail plan or easier reefing and handling could be viable reasons to make the decision though particularly if you are physically less able.

If you're cruising you don't have to use the main anyway so it seems a moot point really.

 

Time for a new thread ?

 

This would be on topic in the aftmast thread. I replied here. http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/aftmast-rigs-623-59.html#post762781