Old Quarter Tonners -Magic Bus

Salkbj!
The Jezequel designs had long aft overangs, similar to Bullit. But didn't match Bullit downwind in windy conditions. This was the only condition Bullit really shine. At the end of the races when the waves usually got longer Son of a Gun looked better and better, while the Jezequels looked the opposite. Even the Farr design Nenufarr start to show some speed in the long waves. The Jez's designs had inherent speed in choppy seas upwind in light conditions. It didn't seem to matter that much who helmed them To my knowledge Jezequel didn't make many succesful IOR QT after his top boats in -77 and -79. Perhaps Jezequel gained much downwind by the long aft overhangs, that were penalised in -81. But as you say they are still competetive in ICR. Regarding Son of a Gun the aft overhang was impressive as well, probably was cut later. The rule change badly effected these overhang and some designers changed concept. Compare Fontana-Maletto-Navone miniton Gullisara (2 times world Champion) with a totally different treatment of the aft sections to there prior World Champions in miniton.
Regards,
Booster

 

Alain Jezequel

I knew very well Alain Jezequel and I had the fortune to have him on board in a IOR Italian Champioship in Capri (may be 1989....); I spoke with him many times about his quarter tonners of that period. In general for him the most imporant think was to have the bigger and most powerfull boat possible for the rating with a secundary importance for the lines (I mean for hydrodinamics); so her QTs were very lightly build (the Jez 116's hull - no deck, just hull - weighted kg 90 only as Alain said to me) and had a step near the rudder quite similar to Mariner's one (Chance's 12M)... of course in the right proportions.... so Jez 116s were light but not exactly stiff and that's the reason why probably lost power in strong wind....
Alain applied the same concepts on 2 Three Quarter Tonners (Ave Maria was one of them) but with deeply poor results: clean lines in that size were more important than for the smaller sisters ... and Alain admitted the mistake!
Ciao,
Timoniere

 

Quarter Ton Cup 1979

 

Alain Jezequel

The "step" doesn't look to bad. Otherwise, with the exception of above-water hull-lines, I find the canoe body quite attractive (for IRC purposes).

 

Good evening to all. What a pleasure it is to read these old articles. Gary I'm only half way through the Light Brigade but bringing back some great memories. For some reason that old photo of Police Car finishing the '79 Fastnet still sticks in my memory from 30+ years ago. Took me a while to work out the French translation of San Remo '79 Salkbj. Great stuff. I think that picture of the boat surfing is an Extra Paulette. If you find 2 kevlar 116's give me a yell - they could be a handy weapon to take on the Solent with those lines. Timoniere you might know does the Jez 27 rate QT ? Is there a difference between the 27 and the 116 or could the Jez 27 be just the same with the aft overhang taken away post '81 to rate ? Any idea how many 116's were built ?
For now !
Bullitman

 

Gary you are famous - extract from UK QT site..........
News from NZ
James Blackburn reports from New Zealand that whilst trying to find some history on his QT
Swamp Dog and her sistership Amalgam recently, he came across this book called Light Brigade
written by Gary Baigent on the history of Yacht Design in NZ. Looks like an interesting read and you can
download it. The bits about the QT's start on page 58. Good early stuff on Whiting, Farr
and an old picture of Odd Job!

 

Salkbj&Bullitman et al!
The Jez's designs look nice. Especially, the canoe-body as you say, salkbj. The comparatively high freeboards resembles Whiting especially Smackwater Jack, as well as, the routhless treatment of IOR (see Kotzebue's statememnt regarding Newspaper Taxi). But Jez's designs does not have the "depth-volume" in the bow as Whithings designs, see Laurie Davidson's statment regarding Whitings designs in Gary B's book The light Brigade.
Regards,
Booster

 

Jez again

Hi to all,
regarding Jezequel, several boats were built in the late '70 early '80 from his designs.... His best performances were on Quarter Tonners while he had poor success on bigger boats. In QT he made different designs; for example the Jez 27 is elder than Jez 116 and, I can say, a "cruising" version of "Charlie Papa I" (she had a centerboard)....
Several Jez 116s were built directly by Alain Jezequel in a small shipyard while similar designs were built by other.... I'm not sure but Paola V was by Galetti (a famous FJ and FD builder on Garda Lake).
Then, regarding the "steps" near the rudder Alain made various experiments in which dimensions of the step/bustle were quite different till to reach in some cases the shape of a "watermellon's slice"...
In general Alain's shapes worked in these small hulls where other components are more important for speed as crew's weight, sail plan, construction but absolutely not in the bigger ones as the cleaness of lines give more contribution to general performances. I remember a Half Tonner (Pomito)Three Quarter Tonner (Ave Maria) and a One Tonner (...may be Dor an Dour?) from him that sailed normally far from good results.
Personally I didn't like so much Alain's boats but..... his QTs worked.. and worked well: that's all!

 

Quarter-tonner Psyco

Gary B et al!

Via Peter Norlin I got in contact with Håkan Lindqvist. Lindqvist was co-designer of Robber with Peter Ståhle. Psyco was designed by Ståhle with (the late) Peter Lindeberg as inspirer. I have phoned Ståhle several times but failed to get in contact with him. "Men skam den som ger sig", Swedish saying meaning: Keep trying, otherwise shame on oneself.

Regards,
Booster

 

Timoniere, is Alain Jez still designing / still on this earth ? It is quite amazing when in the past I have looked for some information from the designers of that era that I would get a reply from these guys. Even Ron Holland replied to certain questions I had about one of his designs, also Vismara and Ceccarelli. I guess old IOR boats still have a place in their hearts. It would be good to see if Jez would throw some light himself on his thoughts on the bustle etc, and how he constructed his successful Qt's.
Also, I would be interested in all your thoughts on the Vismara 'Vitamine'. Scroll down on the following url.
http://www.histoiredeshalfs.com/Quarter Tonner/Q Vismara.htm
Best to all !
Bullitman

 

QT Psyco again

Gary B et al!
I have got in contact with Peter Ståhle the dsgner of QT Psyco, 8m long and 4 m wide. The boat had 3 steering wheels. The outer to be able to sit and steer to windward, the middle for downwind. Ståhle has no photo of it. He has drawings, and if he gets time he will contact me. The displacement of Psyco was orignally slightly under 1 ton. It had a wooden keel and all ballast was internal (lead bars) about 500 kg. The boat was fast in this condition. Designers such as Olle Enderlein said that this was the future in yacht-design. After the self-righting ability was questioned 500 kg extra lead has to be addes internally. And the boat was no longer fast. I will contact the mags for photos.
Regards,
Booster

 

Attached is a page from SAIL magazine in 1974, showing a sketch of Psyko's pull down test. She failed.

Note the test in the middle column regarding the Peterson boat. It is a shame Lowell North was not able to take El Principio to the worlds after winning the NAs. The sistership that came 2nd in the NAs was Tickled Pink.

If you want to see some photos of this ancient QT, the first Peterson QT design, go to this thread: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/peterson-25-a-30829.html

 

Paul, you Peterson Utopian believer. we were discussing extremist designs like Psycho and Warbird, boat designs (successful failures) that led eventually to the modern fast sportsboats ... and you start again on heavy displacement (well moderate verging heavy) designs - which the bloody kiwis in the following years, made dead and obsolete. Just joking cobra (hate those silly faces). I realize that pretty near all Peterson's boats were fast, beautiful (to North American eyes) and successful - and the ones that weren't missed out because of antipodean or French cheating - that too is a joke, mate. That Jack Knights report I also have somewhere - Frank Rosenow did beautiful art work. He came out to NZ once and I invited him and his beautiful girlfriend out for a boat test on the Farr 1220. He did some nice watercolours then too - and gave me a couple.

 

I started out with good intentions, to show the sketch of Psyko, and then couldn't help myself.

Recently I was talking to someone about the cool old lightweight flyers. He reminded me I had to re-check history.

In '74 (the year we are discussing) the heavy Norlin Accent beat the lightweights, and Knights, North, and many others believed the Peterson to be the fastest QT in the world at the time.

In '75 Farr did win the Worlds.

In '76 the Whiting won, but it was not a walkover. In fact, if there had been a very small shift on the last beat of the distance race the old Holland pintail would have been the champ. The boat that came 3rd was a very heavy Mull, followed by a midweight Peterson, before the next lightweight (FUN).

In '77 the midweight, narrow stern Holland won.

In '78 a midweight, narrow stern Peterson/Holland type (Yamaha) won.

In '79 and '80 Bullit(s) won. They sure didn't have wide sterns, at least not at the end of their LOA. I don't know their DSPL, but it seems they were long, with a LOT of sail. That tells me they could not have been lightweights. Under the rule you had to make trade offs.

Starting with the year we are talking about the moderate boats of Peterson and Holland dominated the IOR scene for the next 10 years. Admiral's Cup, SORC, Big Boat Series, etc were almost exclusively taken by the moderate boats.

I would love to believe the lightweight, wide sterned boats were the dominant breed. Somehow I can't spin the results to make it so.

 

Yes, yes, Paul, you are correct about the Quarters, what about the other Ton classes? Also the lightweights were always outnumbered by the moderate/heavies, and disdainfully down nosed ... until they won - then the moaning and whingeing began. I mean it was Hollywood scenario stuff because the lightweights won spectacularly, like going fast, planing and surfing. I know the moderates were better in the light but hey, how boring.