Old Quarter Tonners -Magic Bus

[Gary Baigent]

Don't remember those names but Dubois did an early half tonner I think which was very much in the Holland/Peterson/Mull school, almost double ended, moderate displacement, and masthead rigged. Can't remember the yacht's name but do remember a photograph in Yachts and Yachting of Dubois looking completely pissed on champagne at the launching - and why not, it was his first high profile yacht. Re reading this I can see this offers zero information to your question, Phum. But that is all I have. PaulB or CT may be of more help.

 

[CT 249]

Gary, I think you're thinking of Santa Evita; as you pointed out, she was more like his earlier 3/4 tonner Borsalino than the Beach Inspector/Syndicate types. There was some interesting information on her in an old Seahorse, as she was one of the best of the mastheads and one of the crew also sailed on *********.

EDIT - this is bizarre, but the forum software is filtering out the name of the Davidson design that Bouzaid took to 1/2 ton world championship wins in '78 and '79. Very strange! - END EDIT

I can't remember the early career of The Syndicate; she did well, but didn't take out a high-profile event IIRC. I seem to recall seeing her in Sydney Harbour a couple of years ago but that may have been another of the Dubois boats. I seem to recall that The Syndicate was from the modified Beach Inspector mould; the stern was made narrower.

I can't remember where The Syndicate fitted into teh Dubois 1/2 development. I think she came after the Beach Inspector replacement and also had the same modifications. BTW I think Beach Inspector is in Northern Tasmania; Lock on Wood was last heard of in Hobart; Madmen's Woodyard was in also in Hobart last I heard..... at least they got it to Hobart, unlike when I drove her onto a sunfish and took the rudder out in the Sydney-Hobart years ago! Anyone know what happened to Flying Circus, or was she the temporarily-renamed Beach Inspector?

The Syndicate was sitting on a mooring in Port Hacking for several years, if I can remember correctly. John Hearne from Fraser Sails' Rushcutters Bay loft may have some information about her as he had another Dubois (IIRC) around the same time and then crewed on a Farr 920. John is a great bloke and could be worth a phone call.

Looking at the performance of European halves, TS could be a good IRC performer if Yachting Australia wasn't intent on killing small boats by neglect.

 

[Gary Baigent]

Thanks CT, Borsalino Trois was the boat the designer was sozzled at - was a very sharp looking boat.
This weird thing with Wave rider, you have to split the name into two (and not the way Laurie Davidson named the boat) to get it to come up.

 

[booster]

Magic Bus-Magic Box

Hi!
Seems that the Quarter ton is living again. I am sailing the quarter-tonner Butterfly designed by Peter Norlin in 1977. It was third in the Helsinki World's the same year, helmed by Norlin himself. The Manzanita (Ron Holland design) was the winner, with Rodney Patterson. Anyway, in 1974 still heavy displacement quarter tonners could compete, with Norlin's Accent winning the World's in Malmö, Sweden. The Accent was fractional rigged, but heavy compred to NZ designs. If I remember correctly Bruce Farr's 45 degrees South was the winner in -75, and Whiting's Magic Box winner in -76 (Laurie Davidson's Fun was 2:nd or 3rd I believe). Showing more dingy-like designs, with fractional rig. The Accent competed in -76 as well but showed no real speed. The quarter tonner Butterfly was a rather heavy displacement design, at about 2300 kg, with center board and mast-head rig. Still it managed a third, see above. But probably being the last heavy displacement quarter-tonner design showing any speed, at least with mast-head rig.

Anyway, back to Magic Bus. My sister was going to name her Optimist dingy, but found no good name. But Paul Whiting's Magic Bus solved the problem. The Optimist was called Magic Box.

Regards,
Booster

 

[phum]

CT249,
From info from Dubois it was a wide sterned light version.
Lived in Port Hacking for a good while. Probably suffered from lack of budget in those days.
Peter

 

[booster]

Bullit, Son of a Gun, Charlie-Papa et al

Hi!
Many interesting posts here... In 1979 I raced against the quarter tonner Bullit in the World's in Italy. She was increadibly fast downwind. (I can fully understand why the NZ-sailors (temporarily) gave up IOR-sailing after her winning the World's in NZ.) She had a sistership competing as well in Italy, but this boat showed far from the same speed. Showing the sailor skills influence. Compare Magic Bus under other helmsmen than Murray Ross. Paul Elvström sailed the Fontana-Maletto-Navone design "Son of a Gun" and was 2:nd, but the sisterships to Son of a Gun didn't do that well. I not sure if it was Charlie Papa (2:nd in Helsinki in -79), but an Italian quarter-tonner was revamped to half-tonner to compete in the half-ton cup in Italy some years later. The boat was simply cut in half and widened. A long sloping transom was added. As I recall it did rather well despite the low-budget profile. Compare the more succesful revamp of Pendragon from three-quarter tonner to one-tonner. Most memorable is however the quarter tonner Psyco competeing in the Malmö World's in -74. She was 4 meters wide (8 meters long), the stability relying entierly on the hull. It showed real speed. But its potential to recover after turn-over was questioned. They had to add lead to the centerboard?, but never showed any speed after that.
Regards,
Booster

 

[CT 249]

You must have had some great times, Booster.

I think the quarter that was chopped and lengthened to make it into a half was Tuscany B. As a quarter she had an old Soling rig, so they just put an extension on the mast and an extra panel in the sails. Those where the days (or so it seems, I was just a kid reading about it).

There was also an '80s French or Italian 3/4 tonner that was 2nd or 3rd in the worlds, then got cut down into a half tonner a couple of years later and also did well.

In a lot of ways, the fact that you can play off one factor against another seems to allow more room for ingenuity in rating rules than in box rule classes.

 

[booster]

Hi Flyer, Finn Flyer

Thanks CT249!
Those days were great. The quarter ton cup in Italy -79 was interesting in many ways. The winning of ********* in the half ton cup had put some pressure on Helmer Pedersen and crew in Hi Flyer. This Laurie Davidson design was similar to Fun, but looked small in comparison to the Jezekel (spelling?) designs and Bullit (Fauroux design?). The French and Italian designs had developed long sloping transoms. Indeed inspiered by the NZ designers. Hi Flyer did rather well, perhaps 5th place, but Helmer Pedersen certainly had expected more, and the Bullit win in NZ later on could not have come as an surprise. Eyvind Still, most known for the three-quarter ton winner Finn Fire (helmed by Bruce Banks) had developed a quarter tonner Finn Flyer. This boat looked traditional and did not show any real speed (I don't remember if Bruce Banks steered). Anyway, at the half-ton cup in Sweden 1983? (won by ArBigouden) Eyvind Still had designed an extremely long boat (I don't rememer her name, certainly Finn something), according to the findings at quarter ton cup in Italy -79. However, the boat didn't shine despite Bruce Banks steering. It was found that the nose-trim was to extreme. The following year Still cut-off almost 2 m of the transom and reduced the nose-trim. It managed to win its class in the around Gotland race. Any revamping? Yes, Lars Bergström of the famous Bergström-Ridder team had designed a half tonner to the -83? World's in Sweden. It was not unlike the Still-design, and did rather well. But instead of cutting the transom, according to the rule-changes, it was converted to three-quarter tonner. If this was succesful I cannot recall.
Regards,
Booster

 

[phum]

Anybody know the whereabouts of "PUBLIC NUISANCE"?
Peter.

 

[Paul B]

Thanks CT249!
Those days were great. The quarter ton cup in Italy -79 was interesting in many ways.

You might find this interesting. I'm not sure how accurate the results are, but this site lists the top boats at the QT worlds for every year it was run.

http://www.histoiredeshalfs.com/Quarter%20Tonner/Quarter%20R%E9sultats.htm

 

[jamez]

As a kid I remember having a chance to go on board the Bus in the (1975 NZ 1/4 ton Nats I think ). She seemed so extreme back then. I was wowed. Whiting yachts produced them as a stock boat and built a few here but I have no idea how many. They come up for sale occasionally and are pretty cheap these days, usually significantly under 10k.

Later in the mid 1980's i had a look at a cruising top version that was for sale - seemed cheap at the time - about 12k I recall. The cruising cabin gave a bit more headroom and came back to about where the rear of the main hatch was on the racing version. IMO it was a nicer looking boat than the racing version. My ex didn't like it as even with the bigger cabin there wasn't much room and she was used to boats she could stand up in

attached is a couple of pages from a mid 70's catalogue of stock keelboats available in NZ.

 

[SeawayVolcano]

Hi guys.

I found this site while looking for info on quarter tonners. While my boat is probably not technically a QT these days. The builder was Tom Stephenson and he had Doug Peterson design a boat to the IOR that could legally be towed on roads in Australia. To comply with that the overall beam was reduced to 2.4 metres, with the length being 7.87 metres (25ft 10in for us oldies).

Volcano has a lifting keel with about 90kg lead in it, with the rest of the ballast internal. On the water she is immediately recognized as a Peterson design.

I have had a great time this morning looking at some of the pictures on this site and discovering her heritage.

Thank you all for the fascinating information I have been able to find here.

I should add that while Volcano was built for a customer, Tom kept her and raced her for some time prior to handover. She apparently had an interesting race career in the late 70's and early 80's.

Cheers,

RossD

 

[Paul B]

The builder was Tom Stephenson and he had Doug Peterson design a boat to the IOR that could legally be towed on roads in Australia.

I should add that while Volcano was built for a customer, Tom kept her and raced her for some time prior to handover. She apparently had an interesting race career in the late 70's and early 80's.

Cheers,

RossD

I've been in contact with Tom for the past few months and he is a great guy. He's provided me with some very interesting information about boats he was involved with during the old IOR days.

After the Seaway 25 Tom teamed up with Peterson to produce the Blazer 23, also trailerable. After seeing these boats I can't understand why anyone would have been buying J24s back in those days. I guess Marketing trumps good design.

 

[SeawayVolcano]

I also found Tom to be very helpful. When I bought Volcano she was a wreck, dilapidated and with heap of water sloshing around in her. Over the 5 years since I got her I am changing a few thigs to make her suitable for cruising here in the tropics.

One thing that fascinated me is that she feels so much like keel boat ro sail, but with nicer handling. If I had the money to restore her and race her I am sure i could have a lot of fun. I generally plan for 5 knots cruise but frequently end up covering around 15 nautical miles in a couple of hours.

She's definitely no longer a fast boat, but average speeds of around 6 to 7 knots in 20 knots of breeze is pleasant enough and she seems to keep up with a lot of bigger boats ever with her dated design.

What I like most of all though is the way she heels over to a certain angle (actually, until the side decks are horizontal) and then instead of heeling further with gusts, she just points a bit higher unti the gust eases. Makes it really nice when the wind gets up to 30 knots and one has not reefed the main.

I don't know if this is a feature of real quarter tonners, but if it is, i can see why they are so popular with people who have sailed them.

I do a lot of single handing in big seas and 20 knots to over 30 knots, and have only managed to scare myself once.

Love the design, seaworthiness and size of this type of boat.

 

[phum]

Blazer 23 was and still is a great boat (bang for the buck as they say)
Ross. The only Seaway I saw that was rated and sailed as a Quarter Tonner (in Geelong I think) was a fixed keeler with all internal ballast, extremely tender, pretty good in a chop though. Don't think the trailer sailers would rate but are much nicer to sail.
ps. You updated my PC. years ago, still in the business?
PSS. sorry to all for the personal off thread.
Peter