Amaryllis

If I remember correctly they did give line honors in the other classes, just no 'overall line honor' of the entire fleet.

At that time I do not recall that Cascade was the slowest boat in the fleet. And no, I would not suggest that all the others follow this example. I was simply pointing out that the rating rules often can affect boat designs above and beyond those rules of 'mother ocean'.

Bruce King's twin dagger-board design was another vessel that got axed out of existence if I remember correctly.

 

The Cascade issue still brings a lot of important factors into perspective. But if we say OK, we'll just follow the "rules of mother ocean", how do we know what they are and how will a viable fleet work under them? How will races work under them? Will everyone just race together and let the biggest tri win? How long will people keep on turning up if that is the case?

How many successful and numerically strong fleets under really open rules have there ever been? I can't think of any such "class" that was popular, widespread and long lasting.

You say "look at the French and their fantastic ocean racing boats both mono- and multi-hull; exciting innovation", but the vast majority of French yachts that are racing appear to be conventional monos like Beneteaus, old IOR boats, Sunfasts, Js, and JPKs. There are 5000 boats, mainly of such types, in the HN fleet and about 900 boats with IRC certificates. Compare that to about 40 (I think) Class 40s, a few dozen (from what I can find) active shorthanded Minis and a small number of Figaros and multis and it appears that even with the huge publicity around "Open style" boats, the French mainly sail conventional IRC/PHRF/HN style fixed keelers. Shouldn't we multihullers try to learn from that?

You say that fully battened mains are undoubtably superior, but even those of us who have used them since we had them in our first boats as kids know that they are inferior in some ways. That's why people like the builders of new dinghy classes in the UK, TP52 mains and Sportsboat mains often have "semi rigid" sails. So again, why not learn from these more popular boats, for the good of multihulls, instead of assuming that we multihullers have superior technology?

Why do we even need to "speed our progress across the seas"? If we like sailing, why spend less time doing it? Just about every sport can increase its performance dramatically by changing the rules, but the popular ones do not because they recognise that other factors are much more important than speed when it comes to making the sport appealing and popular. Look at a hugely popular sport like cycling - it has very rigid rules that keeps gear quite slow and the most famous and legendary contests in the sport have taken place at about 10 mph! I would probably have been doing well over 30 knots on my high wind slalom windsurfer a couple of days ago but to be honest it wasn't all that exciting. Shouldn't we learn from other classes and see that placing too much emphasis on speed can be holding the multihull cause back?

It's a bit like the myth that Amaryllis was banned - we multihullers have been assuming for 150 years that the failure of cats to catch on in old NY was because of the ban, when in fact the cats didn't survive for other reasons. If we'd look under the surface and realised that the "ban" was BS then we may have been able to learn why the cats didn't catch on, and use those lessons to make multis more popular.

Basically, wouldn't it be better for multis if we LEARNED from the more popular types, instead of assuming that we and our boats and forms of racing are superior?


PS - thanks, as always, for the honest and friendly tone of your posts.

 

CT, did you say earlier that cats were banned from sailing with the monohulls of their time, but no one prevented them from racing with other multihulls?

 

It wasn't so much that no one PREVENTED them from sailing with other multis - they actually ENCOURAGED them to sail as a class. For example, the first regatta held by the predecessor of US Sailing gave cats more prize money per entry than any other class, and the cats were apparently the only class that the organisers specifically tried to encourage if memory serves me correctly.

Class racing was the developing thing in those days and they recognised that racing like boats as a separate class was clearly the best way to do things. As Francis Herreshoff wrote, all his dad wanted was to race cats as a class.

The cat Neried was, however, allowed to sail with the monos of the New York Yacht Club because she had accommodation and was much larger than the Herreshoff and Fearon cats. She did not perform well.

 

So, as I understand it, these historical references of catamarans being banned from racing (with monohulls) in some clubs was not fiction-it was fact, right?

 

What do you mean "these historical references"???? Can you find anyone who claimed that cats were "banned from racing (with monohulls) in some clubs"????

The usual claim about Amaryllis is that (as claimed on SA's front page) "multi-hulls were banned from organized sailing races pretty much for 70 years after" or (as Wikipedia claims) that Amaryllis's arrival "resulted in multihull sailing vessels being banned from organized sailing competitions."

That sort of claim is incorrect - they were NOT banned from organised sailing races, any more than catboats or giant schooners or canoes were. They were treated in the same way as just every other boat around that time, and raced as a class against similar craft. As the original post said " it is clearly unfair to race boats of radically different models, and built for entirely different purposes, against each other."

There's nothing wrong with the fact that cats were "banned" from racing monos in some clubs. Monos are "banned" from racing in the cat club in front of my old home, and they were "banned" from racing in the cat race for my father's memorial trophy. Monos are "banned" from racing my cat in my current club, just like F1 cars are "banned" from racing in some (or all) motorcycle clubs, some of my bikes are "banned" from some events I ride in, and windsurfers are "banned" from racing the cats at Texel. If cat sailors do it why can't mono sailors?

 

Perhaps 'banned' is the wrong word.

Rather you might say that for years multihulls were ignored, or not asked to race by some clubs as they did not want to entertain the idea of providing them with a handicap system, nor did they want the extra burden on the race committees to provide an extra start and finish for them.

I do know this was the case with the 'pretentious' Annapolis Yacht Club and the governor's Cup. Multihulls were 'dis-invited' to participate for a number of years.

 

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But multihulls were banned from organized racing with monohulls, right? At the time of the first multihulls the only organized racing was with monohulls. Seems at first there was no problem letting a cat in --until it proved to be very fast. And then they were banned.(from racing with monohulls, which again, was the only organized racing around.)
So maybe the revisionist history is all wrong and the early stories right?

 

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Isn't that special?! I just tried and The Foiling Week link is deader than a doornail......
Found it again-scroll down: http://www.foilingweek.com/blog/

In order to prevent lawyers from rewriting history be sure to read where it says "banned from organized sailing competition" and add: "with monohulls", which of course organized the predominate sailing competitions of the era effectively banning multihulls from sailing competition(with monohulls).

PS-A lawyer might add: "But they(multihulls) were completely free to organize competitions among each other." In other words, they weren't banned at all-they were completely free........

 

No Doug, the revisionist history is NOT wrong. The catamarans were NOT banned, they were welcomed to race as soon as they could get a class - just like all the other boats. It was common practice at the time to require boats to race as a class and not to start if there was only one boat. You may as well claim that 16' catboats were "banned" because they were not allowed to start if there were no other little catboats. You may as well say that a 100' schooner was "banned" when it was not allowed to race in an event just for sloops. Cats were treated just like every other type. God knows who could whine about that.

Here are a few of the races for cats in the 1870s and 1880s - eloquent and final proof that they were not banned.

As early as July 22 1877, the New York Times was referring to cats racing in New Orleans and with the San Francisco Yacht Club. The races in NO and SF are confirmed by local sources.

In 1878, the first race of the New York racing season was a duel between the cats Tarantella and John Gilpin, on April 9. That same week, it was decided that the first all-club regatta of the NY season would include a special class for catamarans (one of just 5 classes). That same season the cat Nereid WAS ALLOWED TO RACE WITH THE NYYC. Yep, the New York Yacht Club itself. Of course, the founder of the NYYC had been a cat owner too, but some people like to pretend that the NYYC always banned cats.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 12 May 1878 reported that the Brooklyn Yacht Club was giving free entry to the catamaran class (only to the cats) in their regatta. Monos had to pay to race.

The Tarantella, John Gilpin and Minnie and Bella raced in the cat class in the Empire Yacht Club race, as reported in detail in the NY Times of September 5 1878.

On 28 June 1878, the Eagle reported on the "Open Boat regatta" where three cats (Minnie and Bella, Tarantella and Deception) raced and were the fastest craft afloat.

On 19 June 1879 the Eagle reported on the upcoming regatta of the Long Island Yacht Club, which would include a catamaran class. The Eagle later reported that because of light winds only Tarantella and Columbia could get to the start in the cats. The other classes were catboats, open sloops and cabin boats - a typical example where they did not mix the different types of monos. When they did not race different monos together, why should they mix monos with cats?

On August 10 1880 the NY Times reported that the first regatta of the National Yachting Association of the United States, Department of New-York (which later collapsed) included three cats. They paid lower entry fees and got more prize money per entrant than the monos.

In October 13 1883, the NY Times reported on a match race in which the catamaran Jessie (owned by the Commodore of the New Jersey YC) beat the catamaran Duplex over the NJYC by just 16 seconds in a race over 4 hours long. The prize was $200. This sort of private match was common, and of course no yacht club could ban such events.

The NY Times for September 7 1884 reported that the cats Duplex (COMMODORE Longstreet, NJYC), Cyclone, Jessie, Hermis, Rocket and perhaps Nightmare would race in a sweepstake.

In June 1885, the catamaran Nemesis raced in the New Jersey YC regatta and then raced Duplex and Fred Hughes' catamaran Jessie. The same month, Jessie beat the catamaran Iris.

In May 1885, the cat Duplex of the New Jersey Yacht Club, won $100 in a race against a Yonkers boat. Later that month, Duplex beat the cat Alger.

These are just a few of the races in which cats (in several instances sailed by YC Commodores) raced their own kind, because in those days class racing was the way it was done - widely disparate boats rarely raced each other.

Cats were also listed among the yachts owned by member of the Corinthian YC (as in the NY Times of May 10 1887) and other clubs. The rear commodore of the Boston YC was a cat owner, as noted in the NY Times of March 31 1889.

Facts are facts. The New York Times and other papers prove, as an undeniable fact, that cats were NOT banned and they DID race with many of the yacht clubs of New York. They were raced like other boats and several were owned by leaders of yacht clubs.

By the way, around the same time another new type of sailing craft appeared - the sailing canoe. In England, Australia and New York the early canoes ran their own races, formed their own clubs. A few years before that, the first ocean races had started. The owners ran a private sweepstakes rather than demanding that people run races for them.

The funny thing is that some people who claim that they are up to date are refusing to come to terms with the fact that modern newspaper archive sites allow us to find out the truth of what went on many years ago. One would think that a flexible thinker would be able to change their mind when faced with the reality from sources such as the NY Times and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, among others.

 

Perhaps, but that happens to just about every type of sailing craft, and probably just about every comparable type of sporting equipment. As noted earlier, my local cat club refused to race windsurfers. My local mountain bike club doesn't race road bikes. Formula One cars are not invited to the Le Mans races. I'm not allowed to race my boat fully crewed in our shorthanded races, or to race my Laser with the kites. So the multis are not being treated specially; they are just being treated like everything else.

And in some ways, why should one discipline of a sport have to spend its time and effort running events for another discipline of the sport, or making sure that the other discipline is not ignored? It's probably more efficient if those who do a discipline run and promote their own side of the sport.

If ignoring other disciplines is so bad then why does no one abuse multis for doing the same thing? Did anyone abuse the organisers of The Race for not promoting monos and letting them race? Did anyone criticise the ORMA or Hobie classes for not promoting monos? Did anyone criticise the windsurfers for not including dinghies in their events and promotions? If the multis and windsurfers and kites can ignore other disciplines then why can't the monos?

It only takes a quick look to see that internationally, multis were not ignored in the sailing media, at least. Mags like Seahorse actually had a much higher level of coverage of multis than monos in the '80s and '90s, if you look at the number of pages in proportion to the number of racers.

And even if the multis had been disadvantaged in the 1880s and 1980s (which they do not seem to have been) surely it's all such old news that we can just ignore it..... is it really forward thinking to still be bringing up something that happened when Queen Victoria was a young babe?

 

It's too bad there isn't a definitive book on those early times of multihull development. It would probably put a lot of the hoary old myths to bed for good. I think it's about time multihull sailors get over it and concede that Amaryllis not being able to compete as part of a particular fleet didn't amount to a blanket ban. It's a convenient claim that is trotted out ad nauseum to attempt to claim some kind of victimhood. At first I was skeptical of Chris's claims but on looking into it they do check out and while fleet growth was small in catamarans and not well documented they did exist and did race in their own fleets.

My personal view is that cruising is what builds fleets to the point where there are more people interested in racing. That casual club racing is the source of most crews that will ultimately choose to compete in racing in organized regattas. At Hastings in Westernport Bay which effectively is the de facto multihull club in Victoria the multihulls are still comfortably outnumbered at most starts by monohull participants. Multihull racing is just not that popular compared to racing in plentiful small monohull trailer sailors. Part of the reason I'm sure is the cost of entry which is much lower for monohull sailors as the boats are plentiful and many are already equipped with all the gear required for racing. Folding, trailerable trimarans have changed the scene considerably but it will take a long time to build a fleet of similar size to the existing monohull contingent.

With more and more multihull cruisers getting around we might ultimately see a boost in multihull racing numbers but it cant be forced and complaining about Captain Nat's historical exclusion from a particular event with his radical boat (for its time) wont help the matter.

 

Revisionist History

I've always been a bit suspicious of attempts to revise history-whether its sailing or something else.
It seems to me that the "controversy" about cats in the 1800's may have arisen from attempts to "ban" them from sailing with monohulls, but I don't know for sure.
I don't have the time now to look into it as much as CT has so for the time being, at least, I'll defer to his research.

PS-Corley- you say you looked into it-did you go back and look at the available research?

 

A replica Amaryllis hangs in the Herreshof Museum here in Bristol. From a modern designers point of view she is a fascinating vessel. What one much remember is that the catamaran presented enormous structural problems to builders of the era. It simply wasn't possible to build a large light structure that was rigid. So it had to have all sorts of stress reliefs built in order to survives. In the Polynesian model, these are fairly sophisticated beam lashings which allow the parts to "work" in a seaway. NGH applied more modern mechanical spring systems to the problem, but the intent was the same, to allow the two hulls to "find their own way" through the waves.
Gougeon's trimarans were more or less the same idea, instead of forcing the ama trough the waves at the trim state demanded by the main hull, allow it to pitch independently. This results in energy lost in wave encounters. However, once one starts flying the center hull, it all goes to hell because nothing controlling the pitch of the rig. Amaryllis would suffer the same fate if you tried to fly a hull. And ,once you are none hull, the torture of being in two or more waves at the same time goes away.
So while these boats are interesting artifacts, they aren't fast by modern standards.
SHC

 

There isn't much unfortunately in terms of reference material but there are newspaper articles the concept that catamarans died out due to them being prevented from racing with monohulls is a distortion. There were some small fleets active for some time after as detailed in Chris's newspaper reference dates but searching them up is laborious I'll dig through the article listings on the NYtimes site and see if I can find them again.

Here is the article from the NY Times on the 5th of September 1878 (you can download it as a pdf: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E6D7103CE731A25756C0A96F9C946990D7CF

You can search the rest through the NY Times archive function if you're interested on researching further.

p.s. Does anyone subscribe digitally to the New York Times? It would be much easier if someone could look at the dates on the Times machine archive and post a screenshot of the articles or retype an extract.