Canting Keel Monos vs Multihulls

How was Amaryllis a "failure?"

 

CT 249;
I am saddened to see that you have resorted to the tactics of the losing debater and fanatic; you have begun to misquote, talk off topic, and limit meaning.

To address my comments in order and correctly.

In post #7:

I did not address route racing until you brought it up in post #79 after Chris Ostlind had our little discussion about round-the-worlders. However, almost all the examples you have used since then have been route racing but you have quoted my prior discussion of round-the-world vessels. OK, indeed I have said a boat is just a tool and you should use the right tool, however it is very disappointing that in your last post (#88) you did not even address the issues I brought up about the 2002 Route de Rhum but keep harping back to your prior examples.

In post #11:

Again notice here that I am discussing around-the-world vessels. Wether plywood is a "modern" composite is dependent on your point of view. In the larger picture, you take issue with the term "any major ocean ability". In 1896 two men, George Harbo and Frank Samuelson, rowed across the Atlantic in 55 days. Other crews just finished up a race across in the last month. Are you willing to argue that an open boat has significant ocean crossing ability? Stunts like that of Peter Bird do not help the progress of ocean crossing however much they add to tradition. "I am going for a walk...I may be some time" is heroics, not development.

In post #70 after citing several around-the-world examples;

Here I am most saddened; you keep comming back to the route ocean races that multi's won, not the around-the-world races that I addressed, in an attempt to disprove my first bullet. Not only that, you keep coming back to the races multi's won, not the ones that they lost, or that boats were damaged in. I note that Phil Weld, who you hold up as an example in the 1980 OSTAR (or Transat if you perfer) in Moxie, capsized Gulf Streamer on the way to the '76 OSTAR. As I pointed out, in the 2002 Route de Rhum 15 of 18 multis in ORMA (0pen 60's) retired. And that is a class with over 10 years development at the time. For the open Jules Verne trophy starting in 1990, 3 of the first 4 to attempt broke and all told, 9 vessels of 19 attempts have broke. And all vessels that held the record, except the first, have been damaged attempting the record. These are large multi's, state of the art, and they are failing in their designed loads. There is a serious issue here that someone who wishes to advance the multi-hull's banner should address. Even with modern composites, and CAD design, it appears that it is a 50-50 chance that a multi-hull ocean racer will suffer a failure and withdraw. Compare that to the 84 ACC'er out there and you will see that multi-hull design is not what many would call "well developed". A 50-50 risk is not "major ocean ability"

rayaldridge;
Amaryllis was a failure the same way New Zealand ('98) was a failure. They were intended to, but failed, to have a significant impact on their veune (the yachting scene) at the time of thier operation. No that they themselves were not "good" vessels, but rather they did not perform thier intended purpose. Additionally, to look at them in 20/20 hindsight is rather decieving. Unlike America, or USS Monitor, Turbinia, or USS Nautlius there were no immeadiate effects of their existance. They still populate the chain of development to the future, but were not touchstones.

 

Je, I'm rather saddened that you are resorted to the tactic of using words such as "fanatic" that imply the person with whom you are debating is highly biased. To repeat myself, I'm not a fanatic about multis and I personally prefer monos. How such a stance makes me a "fanatic" remains unclear. I was discussing your claim that multis pre modern composites did not have "any major ocean ability" and that prior to the mid '80s, "there was no advantage to multi-hulls in ocean crossing."

Since the terms "major ocean ability" and "ocean crossing" were not defined, I couldn't see any reason NOT to bring in both the round-the-worlders and those who crossed major oceans like the Pacific and Atlantic. Please note that your own first example was Nina v Hokulea, which involved no round-the-world voyages. I'm sorry if you feel you were misquoted, but given the fact that you were referring to "ocean crossings" and "ocean ability" and giving two examples which didn't sail around the world, I think many people would agree that it was reasonable to think that "ocean" meant "ocean" and not "round the world".


Re "Whether plywood is a "modern" composite is dependent on your point of view"

I agree totally which is why in most post 79 I asked "how do you define "modern composites"?


Re "Here I am most saddened; you keep comming back to the route ocean races that multi's won, not the around-the-world races that I addressed, in an attempt to disprove my first bullet."

As discussed above, I was not trying to disprove the round-the-world examples you raised. I was specifically addressing the comment that "The only reason that a cat or a tri has any major ocean ability is due to one thing: Modern composites" and the claim that they had "no advantage". If you'd just said "hey, I meant round-the-world sailing and I included the reference to Nina and Hokulea for good reasons but it did obscure that I meant round the world sailing" then I would have just said "cool, no worries" and understood instantly.


Re "Not only that, you keep coming back to the races multi's won, not the ones that they lost, or that boats were damaged in. I note that Phil Weld, who you hold up as an example in the 1980 OSTAR (or Transat if you perfer) in Moxie, capsized Gulf Streamer on the way".


But, with respect, you keep coming back to the races multis lost, or were beaten in. I'm aware of the poor finishing rate and performance of most of the early multis. I'm fully aware of the problems in the 2002 Route de Rhum. It was a disaster for the multis and an indictment of the ORMA 60 rules that allowed over-rigged boats. I think it was a dumb rule set and so does at least one of the best designers. I'm aware of excessive development in Jules Verne boats. I think it's dumb. I didn't address these examples because problems caused by excessive development in composite multis in the 2000s seems to have little bearing on the ocean ability of pre-composite multis prior to the mid '80s.

Secondly, I wasn't ever saying that multis were safer, or better, or that they had a better finishing rate. I was merely demonstrating that they COULD cross oceans (and therefore they did have some ability to do so) and that they DID have some advantages pre the mid '80s (as clearly proven by their clean sweep in the OSTAR from 1980, the fact that they held the singlehanded round the world record). Even if "ocean ability" is somehow read to mean only round-the-world voyages, the fact that the alloy tri Pen Duick/Manureva did an Transat, raced the Transpac unofficially, did (I think) a full Pacific crossing and did a round the world trip before finally disappearing (for reasons unknown) in the RdR may indicate at least SOME ability for pre-composite pre '80s multis.

This whole "debate" centres around two things, it seems. One was that I picked up on your reference to to "major ocean ability". It could be seen that in the context I should have read that as being limited to round the worlding, however it can also be said that when you refer to "major ocean ability" it means the ability to cross major oceans. Multis could do so before composites or before the mid '80s.

If you choose to define "major ocean ability" as meaning as reliable as a mono or having a certain failure rate, it may have been better had you made that obvious. I never said that the multis did it better. I never said that they did it safer. All I ever said was that they COULD do it, and the best multis pre mid '80s did have some advantages (even if that was perhaps limited to their speed downwind or in races in good weather).


PS- I remain unclear about how the 70' Manureva's one-stop singlehanded RTW voyage can be compared unfavourably to the 77' GBII's three-stop fully crewed RTW voyage.

I use the term "transat" because it maintains the identity of the race despite the sponsorship changes that have occurred.

Was Amaryllis intended to have a significant impact on the yachting scene or was she intended to be just a nice race/fun boat?

 

I would classify getting multi's banned as "a significant impact on their venue (the yachting scene) at the time of (its) operation" ... It is now 2006 and the debate still rages ...

Now that may not be what was intended, but it is a significant impact.

That ban is directly responsible for powered abortions like VO70's.

 

I agree. Amaryllis had an enormous impact on sailing which is still felt today. The boys in blazers were so scared by its implications they banned it and thereby set two presidents that exists to this day.

1) Only grudgingly allow multihulls to compete, if at all
2) If it doubt - ban it.

It's this reactionary stance by the main stream sailing establishment against innovation and change, especially in relation to multihulls, but also other things including wing masts (Krazy K-Yote 2), polygamous relationships, simplified sailing rules, professionals, that have shaped so much of what we consider to be 'normal' in the sailing world.

If the advent of Amaryllis had been embraced by the powers that be, and if the full force of the world's designers had been applied to its subsequent development to satisfy the demand from the racing world, then maybe monohulls might only exist today as exhibits at Mystic and Greenwich.

 

Dunno about that, Craig.

According to the stuff I can recall seeing, Amaryllis was originally allowed to race quite happily. Yes, she was later banned - but surely it's understandable that people who have a lot invested in a conventional boat that is racing happily in a fleet, don't want to see their boat made worthless.

Multis have probably banned just as many things. Consider;

the tris were banned from C Class cats after Crowther and the Gugeons created tris that beat the cats (years later, the fact that the expensive tris dominated F40 was said to be a reason that class died)

the F18 cat class bans light boats, canting hulls, etc

the A Class cats ban wing masts, lifting hydrofoils, etc.

the less-restricted, no-bans open B Class is long dead.

the less-restricted, no-bans C Class races about once every 4 years.

the less-restricted, no-bans D Class is long dead.

According to Nigel Irens, the LACK of restrictions on ORMA 60s is a major problem.

etc, etc, etc.

There is no such thing as a succesful class or type of sailing that hasn't banned many developments that threatened to make the fleet obsolete. If you make a fleet obsolete, you lose sailors. The Moth class, poster child for many a pro-development sailor, is now about 10% as popular as it was EVEN IN ITS STRONGHOLDS. The development has actually pushed sailors out of Moths into more restrictive classes like Lasers and Europes, possibly therefore actually REDUCING innovation.

Sure, Amaryllis was banned from racing the sandbaggers and other boats. But my F16 cat is banned from racing Hobies or F18s and A Class class races too. My cat club won't allow windsurfers or dinghies to race. There's good reasons in those bans and there were good reasons in Amaryllis' ban.

Sure, multis aren't allowed in many races. So what? Motorbikes aren't allowed in Formula 1 or the Tour de France 'cause it's a race for pushbikes. A Tornado isn't allowed in Hobie races 'cause it's for Hobies. A windsurfer isn't allowed in the Ronde Um Texel 'cause it's for cats. An 18 Foot Skiff isn't allowed in the A Class worlds 'cause it's for A Class cats. Just because some people want to muscle in on a bunch of people having fun racing a certain type of boat is no reason to say they have a right too.

If people want to race a certain type of boat that they like and other's don't, surely they can go out and do like the windsurfers, the skiffies, the dinghy sailors in the dinghy boom, the monohull ocean racers, and many cat sailors do - make their own club and their own race and not horn in on other people's race and stuff it up for them? L.F. Herreshoff wrote that the Herreshoff cats raced as a class for a few years and then died out.....either the concept wasn't attractive enough, or the cat sailors didn't spend enough time trying to entice sailors into the class. Neither is the fault of the mono owners.

Monos wouldn't die, they do a lot of things better than multis. Try finding a close-racing 28' multi that tacks fast, is light on the helm, heels like some of us like a boat to heel, and has standing headroom, and doesn't cost much. Doesn't exist. Monos are damn great boats, as are multis. The attitude that monos only survive because of conservatism surely only gets people's backs up and therefore only puts the cause of multis backwards.

My family's in the third generation who have formed multi clubs, made multis, grew up on multis, but there's no way we'd say monos should only be exhibits, we all love monos just like we love multis just for different reasons.

It wasn't even just the boys in blue blazers who banned cats. The skiff boys banned cats in the 1800s (Mark Foy's Flying Fish) and the '50s (Kitty Cat) and that's fine, they wanted to race skiffs not cats and that's their free choice. If they had allowed cats, we wouldn't have the choice of cats or skiffs, we'd only have cats. We'd have less fascination, less diversity, less choice, and sailing would be the worse for it.

 

Amaryllis

....a few excerpts from the news of that day, Source: Anon. (Editorial). "A Revolutionary Yacht." The World, June 24, 1876, p. 4.

"The second of the series of Centennial regattas was sailed yesterday, and was a perfect and entire success. The entries were restricted to yachts of fifteen tons and under, and if the weather had been made on purpose for a regatta of yachts of this size it could not have been improved in any one respect. There was just wind enough to develop all the best sailing qualities of the yachts, and not too much to permit of their carrying full sail. The wind blew steadily from one quarter all through the race, and the water was smooth. The entries were perhaps not as numerous as had been expected by some, but they included all the most famous flyers known to these waters, and the victors can truly claim to be the fastest vessels of their respective classes in the world. The nondescript, half-Catamaran [sic], half-Balsa and wholly life-raft constructed by Mr. Herreshoff, of Providence, whether ruled out by the judges or counted in, can justly claim to be the fastest thing of her inches under canvas that floats, and it is doubtful if there are any steamers of her size that could out-speed her in a straight reach with the wind abeam. Whether she is ruled out of this race or not need make but little difference to her owner, as he can justly lay claim to a medal and diploma of the Exposition as presenting the fastest sailing craft in the world: That she is this every one of the many thousand that witnessed her performance yesterday will admit.

After the race was over, the captain of the Clara S. protested against the Amaryllis, on the ground that she is neither a yacht nor a boat; but it was the general opinion that the protest came too late, and should have been made before the start. Had it been, there is little doubt that the judges would have barred her out."

....note she was referred to as a raft on several occassions, and there were very few if any persons who really believed she might be competitive, so why not let her race and fail.

I will again reference this very good summation of Herreshoff's design reasonings and goals, in his own words, written to a paper 'The New York Herald' on Apr 10, 1878:
"How the Yachting Wonder of 1878 Was Conceived and Built"
http://www.runningtideyachts.com/articles/amarylis.html

 

I agree totally about class racing - I was the first to ask for some 'class' guidance in the Builder's Open model debate.

But my point was not whether it should have been allowed to race against this boat or that, but rather whether it's appearance in June 1876 was 'actively embraced' by the sailing fraternity. My argument is that it was rejected, not only from that race, but from the sailing mainstream as a whole.


I still believe that if they had seen its potential and offered a class for such boats in all subsequent regattas, and gone out of their way to promote them, then things would be different. But when I started ocean racing in the seventies, multihulls were still considered 'freaks' and the closest they got to the mainstream was the events organised by the Royal Western Yacht Club, like the OSTAR and the RBI. Certainly none were seen in the classic ocean races of the time, (Fastnet, South China Sea, etc) even in their own class.

 

Sorry Crag, I'm sensitive on such issues as several of the classes I love and used to sail in have been destroyed by people walking in and saying "let's change all this" and accusing anyone who raised reservations of being too conservative. Races like the Fastnet were created by people who happened to choose to race monos and my own opinion is that they had the right to race only what they wanted to race. Same with classes and clubs, if a bunch of people are having a good time on a bunch of monos (or Sharks, or Shearwaters, or Hobies) surely can decide that they'll keep on sailing what they want.

It looks like I was wrong about Amaryllis being allowed to race for a while before being banned; I thought I remember an LFH account of her doing some more races against the monos.

Nat H. wrote in the piece that Brian scanned (and thanks for doing that Brian) that interest in the catamarans had been "so generally evinced last summer" and that he hoped the cats would have a club and a regatta the next year. LF H wrote that the papers "created all at once an interest in catamarans", and he says the principle reason the cat class died was being banned from the major races. So it seems that quite a few people saw the potential. LF Herreshoff wrote there were soon 20 in the area. An 1877 regatta list has only 32 sandbaggers and an old Rudder report uses that to show the popularity of the type, so the numbers may not have been enormously against the cats perhaps. I wonder if after a while the thrill of the speed wore off and the problems of sailing a cat on cold water remained, and that lead to the boats dieing out?

It's also interesting that LFH wrote that Amaryllis was "subsequently ruled out" after protest, yet the account Brian gave implied that she wasn't. I wonder which is true?

It's interesting that when the Skiffs were banned (possibly not because of conservatism but because they attracted gamblers, and there'd just been a scandal when a world champ rower tried to rig a race because of betting) they just went out and did their own thing, made their own clubs, ran their own regattas; just like Captain Nat seems to have advocated and just like the cats did for a while. I wonder why one type succeeded as an "outcast" and the other didn't?

Small multis here used to be enormously popular, but regattas that got 300+ boats now get 15 or so - and the "cat only" clubs have suffered terribly. Nor have the big multis become very popular even when allowed into yacht clubs.

 

CT 249; I would like to apoligize for my hasty and ill considered words I may have used refering to our discussion.

The point of our disagreement seems to center around the terms "major ocean ability", "ocean crossing", and "modern composites". Let me put forth my logic on how and why I define those terms.

Yes, I will concede that multihulls crossed oceans before modern materials. However, I stand by my belief that thay could not be considered all ocean vessels, which in my opnion is a requirement for "major ocean ability". A look at most of the examples we have for multihulls crossing oceans prior to post WWII, occur between 35N and 35S. The reason for this is clear when a study of the hull weight, required strength, and environmenta loads is undertaken. Simply, the load capacity of the hull cannot take the necessary accomidation and stores to protect from the weather and still provide the necessary strength to survive the higher, steeper seas found outside the trades. If this was not true, the Norse or the Romans or the Tlingit, who all possesed the timber and the skills necessary to build any "traditional" multihull vessel of any size, should have constructed multihulls. I will say with certianty that a knarr if fully capiable of sailing in any ocean, any direction. I cannot say the same for a polynesian canoe. Taking it one step further, Herreshoff, who had a vested interest in multihull development and argueably the most able designer of his age, should have been able to build accomidation onboard, but apparently was unable to come up with a satisfactory design. To quote him: "For extended crusing, where one lives on board, the catamaran is not adapted. There might be some accomidation afforded by tents upon the deck....". I contend that he was unable to build a sufficently strong and light enough vessel with accomidations to exploit the advantages of a multihull. Yes, I believe that he could have made one with accomidations, but it would not have had the performance he wished. I my mind, this begs the question of the suitability of the present day low bridgedeck crusing cats. Are they the pontoon boat of the ocean? Anyway, I believe the reason you do not see all ocean capaible multihulls with trational construction is that the structural weight necessary to build one outweighed any advantage that could be gained by the increased righting moment.

Post WWII in the 1950's is a good point to start "modern" material and sailing advancement. Plywood, cold and hot molding, welded aluminum, fiberglass, nylon, dacron, etc. were all tried and tested in the cruicble of war. The use of these materials lead to a radical shift in the load to structure ratio of all sailing vessels, and most benifited the multihulls because of thier high strength to weight requirements. Also at this time we first begin to see the rise of what is best called extreme sailing (The Kaiser's Cup of 1905 and Bermuda race of 1906 started it, but it was very low key compared to classic racing like the AC). Wether it was due to the social attitude at the time or the fact that many were looking for new Everests is open to debate, but the OSTAR, Golden Globe, and Whitbread changed sailing forever. Throw in high profile bragging rights and lots of sponser money and we are off to the proverbial races. Into this stepped several designers now armed with lots of money, new materials, and only one goal...speed over the course. Therefore "modern materials" and a racing venue, leads to the "all ocean" modern racing multihull. It was not born out of economic necessity or overall superiorty, however it does dominate it's extreme sailing venue.

On one hand, extream racing pushed material and design development, on the other, it leads to unbalanced designs that may be manifestly unsafe. This is because in speed sailing, the two prime factors are low weight and large righting moment. The multihull seems to fit this bill to a T. However, in order to have the load carrying ability the size must grow. Which means that the weight must grow disproportionaly for a multihull. To combat this larger size, higher strength to weight materials, and lower factors of safety are used. The problem with this is soon the vessel begins to approach wave spanning size in the higher sea states. It is really not mine to comment on designers analysis and design methods, but it appears something is lacking. As someone who sets the environmental loads for large "must work, any time, any place" marine structures, I could not get away with the failure rate they are having. It may be acceptable to the sponsors to play "prime time roulette", but that is not advancing the art.

When I started listing comperable roundings in post #70, it was designed to show that, prior to the mid '80's, a good average speed was about 7-8 knots for a rounding regardless of hull type. This reflects the reality of the variable ocean environment, the lack of good weather routing, and the size of the achievable multihull. There was no advantage to using a multihull, as average speeds were comparable, regardless of top speed. The doubling of the average speed in the last 20 years, is due to two things, improved weather routing (it increased average speed 50% for monohulls), and the increase in size of the multihulls. It is the development and application of the newer composites like CF that allowed this size increase. The trade off is increased failures.

 

AFAIK the Pacific is the world's biggest ocean. Surely being able to cross the world's biggest (and therefore MOST major) ocean represents "major ocean ability"?

BTW the Pacific, like many other parts of the world was named based on a first impression, and one which is often incorrect. The Pacific does see some of the worst storms on Earth, (and these storms happen in low lattitudes) it is not always peaceful.

 

Aren't you contradicting yourself? You are saying if cats weren't banned we would only have cats, but prior to that you said that mono's wouldn't die.

If mono's have so many advantages over multi's then why not let them race each other? Why are mulithulls not allowed in races like the Sydney-Hobart? Surely it would be preferable to have real SAILING boats compete, than having boats which need to have a diesel engine running all the time so they can tack?

Allowing multihulls to race alongside monohulls doesn't limit your choice does it? I would have thought it would INCREASE it. Right now, if you want to enter races like the Syd-Hobart you are LIMITED to a monohull. Doesn't that restrict your choices? So why is sailing not the worse for that?

 

Please don't get pissed off on my account. I am probably whole heartily on your side. I guess the thrust of my argument wasn't about change or whether multihulls are better, but merely suggesting that the delay in the development of multihulls might have more to do with a change in attitudes amongst the sailing establishment than necessarily the arrival of modern composites. I still believe if they had been whole heartily embraced at the end of the 19th century, then Victorian engineering ingenuity would have found some way of getting them built. It was about that time that laminated bamboo and paper maché were all the rage, and it only need a truly water proof glue to make them suitable materials. Who knows what would have been possible if Vickers had applied their airship technologies to the multihull world.

In addition, if multihulls had been embraced whole heartily, then races like the Fastnet would have included them from the word go because they would have been popular boats of the day. The arguments we have now about the 'seaworthiness' of multihulls are not that relevant back then either. Many of the extreme monohull racers of the day were not ocean going vessels either. My Great Uncle's tales about sailing Britain's America's Cup challenger to New York in 1914 hardly makes it sound like an easy or comfortable undertaking. He was glad to get back to fishing.

I guess I should finish by including the usual 'multihull' disclaimer. Apart from a brief and torrid affair with a F27, (that frankly left me feeling a little unclean), I have been a faithful monohuller all my life. The best class racing has been in boats that were well past their prime, including growing up in a club where 12 Square Metres still rule to this day. I recall the arrival of an Australian Lightweight back in the seventies, that everyone said would finally kill off the old gaff rigged boats, but luckily if never happened and the original fleet still thrives.

But I agree such resilience is not the norm. I too have seen fleets of perfectly good boats decimated by the arrival of the latest boat wonder. I fought to get publicity coverage for a keel boat class that still had over 200 active boats, whilst the magazines were full of the latest sports boat classes that never grew to more than a dozen, at best. (Projection 760, Bull 7000...etc). I know innovation is necessary and some new boats obviously hit the mark (new Laser keelboat) but we should do more to maintain the class base that we have.

 

Polynesian/Micronesian/Melanesian canoes never crossed the Pacific in one go, they island hopped because thay lack the transport capacity to make the voyage and the exposed accomidations resricted them to warm waters. That is why the Polynesian/Micronesian/Melanesian voyaging culture never exceeded 35N to 35S. For laughs and giggles plot all the major polynesian/micronesian islands and the 20C surface isotherm and you'll see what I mean. The actual longest distance required between islands is less than 1500 nm, which is less than the distance between the Canarys and Leewards. Even Easter Island and New Zealand's north island are above 35S.

And it appears that the the southern ocean you use as an example (and which eats round-the-worlders) was never, successfully, reached by the Polynesians/Melanesians except in costal voyages (NZ south island and Taz), besides being much too cold. There are some social/economic reasons why the polynesians/melanesians never pressed into the higher latitude, but that only enters into this discussion so as to state that the southern ocean was not a design factor.

 

In that case, we have to ask why the Polynesians stayed out of the southern ocean. Perhaps they simply didn't see any reason to? If I were an explorer for a culture that sprawled over a huge variety of tropical islands with nice climates, then somehow I doubt I'd have much interest in encouraging my people to expand into rough, cold climates. Perhaps they were simply happy with what they had, and didn't feel much of a need to go far out in the middle of the ocean?