Happy

A lot of members may be aware of "Happy" the little 14ft by Jay Benford for Howard Wayne Smith. She was lost on a reef in Noumea. Jay designed an even smaller replacement in alloy plate which was built in Noumea, called "Happy 2" and Wayne continued on to Australia where he lost this one to Australian Customs. Some thing irregular in the paperwork I believe

 

The first naturally is the moulded timber" Happy" The two on the hard are "Happy 2" as displayed today at the South Brisbane Maritime Museum. The remainder are as I saw her after being seized by customs at Mooloolaba yacht club, with Waynes possesions in the zip bags on deck, all he was allowed to take, a couple hours later he was deported back to USA. The mast looks disproportionate because it was salvaged from the wreck.When asked what the trip across the Soloman sea was like he said" like living in a cement mixer". Jay B told me that Wayne considered "Happy" to be too big after he got going and the 9'6" of the second boat was equal to the space he needed. That is really down-sizing things to the extreme.

 

Now, what kind of wave pattern is that?

 

A classic one, see Da Vinci's drawings of current flow about a bridge pier.

 

Given the sight line in the photo, it would seem that the photographer was either standing in the water or in a boat with very little freeboard. This might suggest that Happy was in quite shallow water, which would contribute to the effect. Either that, or its pitching down on a little bow slam...

 

Well... not so common kind of bow wave for a sailboat, I must say. Unless it has a VERY full bow, which is not easy to evaluate from that angle. Even the barge-like dutch traditional sailboats have the bow wave attached to the hull:


I tend to agree with DMacPherson's second guess on this one. It looks like the photo was taken a moment after the bow has slammed down, for whatever reason (can't see any waves around).

Perhaps we should put that photo in the X-Files section of the forum?