Sailing video project

CT,

I think we are having a semantic disagreement here. To me a one design class is one in which all of the boats are as close to identacle as possible allowing for differences in deck hardware layout. While a development class (including box rules) has some limitation on design but is primarily an open forum for new ideas.

Under my definition, I would say that the extreme 40 is certainly a one design class, but the boats were build to push the envelope of what grand prix sailors and boats can do. As compared to the Open 70 class where there is a lot of engineering that goes into each boat to maximize their speed under the given design rules ( aproxamatly 6,000 hours of design work per boat).

And I agree with you that some of the best and most interesting tech is slow to trickily down to club racers. But it does happen. 20 years ago for instance I couldn't name a single mas manufactured boat with carbon spars, now even cruising boats use them. 20 years ago production keels all looked the same, modified deep fins, today there are cruising boats with bulbs.

True lead ballast is still the norm, and probably will be for a long time, in part because for a monohull it is perfectly suitable for the task. And foiling while awesome is a complexed business that is only slowly being adopted by other race classes. In time I am sure it will be adopted by larger and larger boats and slowly make it's way into the mainstream. Even non-metal standing rigging, first developed for the highest end racers is now being slowly adopted by cruisers and club racers as the pries come down and reliability goes up.

This project though isn't about the slow aboption speed of this tech, it is about what is out there and what can be done, not why it isn't being done more. In part the hope is to help inform sailors about what is out there ( one boat owner I know had to be talked out of ordering new wire halyards because he didn't know about vectran, dynema, or spectra). And hopefully speed along the technological adoption of those things that are mature enough to have a good feel for how they will work in every day usage.

 

It's not really meant to be about semantics, more about whether the conventional wisdom is correct. But I got the Open 70 reference totally wrong - before I wrote that I was talking MOD 70s to a mate and I always think of VO70s as Volvo 70s.

But the main thing is wondering - is it really the case that the open development classes create more major innovations? Consider your Volvo Open 70. It's got a foam sandwich hull, pioneered in an "establishment" one design class in 1955. It's got a carbon hull, pioneered apparently (for reinforcement) in an "establishment" one design class in 1970. It's got a carbon fibre mast, pioneered in "establishment" OD and rating classes around 1978. It's got a separated rudder and keel. pioneered in "establishment" classes in the late 1800s and moved offshore in an "establishment" class in the '50s. It's got film laminar sails, which seem to have been developed mainly in "establishment" classes. The list goes on. Sure, some of the stuff (canting keel, assy) came from open development classes, but whether the development classes created more of our sport than the "mainstream" and OD classes seems to be a moot point.

And many of the fastest-growing classes are introducing new forms of technology like poly construction, pioneered largely in the OD Windsurfer and the "establishment" strict one design Topper but now also used in the booming Feva class as well as the plastic pop-outs used in hire/resort fleets, like Vagoes, Hobie Waves etc. Given the many thousands of these boats, and their important in bringing people into the sport, arguably they are actually much more important than lots of carbon wundercraft, and arguably they use more major engineering.

You could also very easily say that the greatest changes of all in the sport have come from the I-12 (first international OD), OD Star (first real world championships in yachts), cheap homebuilt OD boats like the Snipe, Vaurien* and Jack Holt designs (opening up the sport to people who could not afford it as well as bringing many kids and women into a sport largely dominated by adult men to that time), OD Flying Dutchman and 505 (bringing the high-performance planing boat to many parts of the world), OD Sunfish (bringing the US the concept of the beach toy boat), slow GRP yachts like Catalinas, and OD Opti, Laser, Hobie, and Windsurfer (creating the basis for many modern fleets and bringing new styles to the sport).

And is tech actually adopted slowly? There were carbon "mainstream" boats at almost the same time as carbon reached wide use in Formula 1, for example. The bicycles in the Tour de France are pretty much like Finn dinghy in speed/development terms in many ways, but that's not exactly killing cycling. Sailing boats have developed pretty quickly, compared to roughly comparable sporting equipment like aero racing, surfing, canoes, cars for amateur racing, bicycles etc, haven't they?

Lots of people bag out sailors for supposedly being "conventional" and slow to accept developments, but none of them actually prove their case by (say) showing a sport of similar size where there are widespread innovations that involve making obsolete equipment that costs thousands of bucks. If there aren't other sports where lots of people are prepared to throw away a year's salary or so at a time to go faster, maybe sailors actually aren't really anti innovation? Interesting to see how few go-fast innovations have actually created fleets that are larger than their predecessors. The Volvo 70 fleets are tiny compared to the IOR fleets in the RTW race, for example.

I'm not having a go at anyone, just pondering the fact that arguably the mainstream and/or OD classes have had at least as much impact on the sport as the more open classes, and whether the sport is actually as slow at taking up innovations as is often said.

The conventional wisdom is that open development classes create more major innovations, that faster is better for the sport as a whole, and that the sport is conservative (and for that, read it as too conservative). Arguably, if you look at it from a less conventional point of view, the "mainstream" is where a lot of the development is happening, the emphasis on extra speed is harming the sport, and the sport is actually at least as innovative as other major sports when one considers the huge financial impact of obsolescence and the fact that really, ultimate performance is rarely of widespread interest in sports.

I'm not knocking the concept, just throwing ideas around.

 

Design Innovation

==================
CT, you mention many developments but it seems that most of them relate to construction materials.
If you look at the list above it seems that what is being requested are elements of technological superiority resulting in superior speed, performance and/or new ways to sail.
More along the lines of design innovation than innovation in materials alone. Of course, the new materials aid and abet the development of new designs and new ways of sailing.
The Moth foiler could not have happened in a class that wasn't a development class unless it happened outside the class-like the RS 600FF. Similarly, the development and proven use of curved lifting foils in the ORMA tri's could not have happened in a one design class.
A more up to date example is the use of curved lifting foils for the first time in history on monohull keelboats-Open 60's to be exact. It only happened because it was technologically superior system ,proven for years in multies, and because the "open" 60 rules allowed it. The VOR70, on the other hand, is pretty far from being a developmental design testbed because the rules prevent using such foils and many other possible design innovations.
It seems to me that the real design innovations in sailing like the Moth foiler, R Class foiler ,kite foilers, sailboard foilers, RS600FF, Mirabaud, the Tomahawk, Hydroptere, Hydroptere.ch, the use of curved foils(A Class cats, C Class Cats, Open 60's ), canting keels, CBTF, DSS and many others happened in Open Classes or outside any class structure whatsoever.
What strikes me about Stumble's project is the potential it has to really spark the imagination of the viewer by illustrating some of the striking advances in sailboat design over the last 15-20 years. And the profound effect those advances may have on multihull and monohull design from dinghies on up.
--

 

CT,

I honestly couldn't say that most developments happen in development classes, but I certainly wouldn't say they occur in OD classes. My guess is that most of the major advances come from owners who have the financial resources to spend whatever it takes to chase absolute speed record. As part of their quest, they often take some crazy back yard builders ideas and finally get them to work, then the large development classes refine the ideas, then the technology slowly becomes mainstream. This seems to be the cycle for things like canting keel, carbon fiber, water ballast, torpedo keeels, ect. Though I certainly wouldn't say that there are not exceptions.

That being the case, the reality is that I can't film backyard inventors with weird ideas. They don't have proof of concept, I can't get good footage, and I would imagine many are hesitant to show off their inventions without lots of patent work first.

I think Doug's last sentence was very close to being what we are going after. We want to show people that sailing isn't just a boring, slow, rich mans sport, but instead can compete with the most extreme of sports any time any where. Further that while it is true that an insane amount of money is required to sail the fastest boats on the planet, for just a few thousand dollars, or about the price of a dirt bike, there are options out there like the moth.

The current vision for the opening scean for instance is an clasic schooner in open water as the narrator says "in the age of discovery sailers plyed the world in boats designed both for speed and comfort, and beholden to the wind alone for propulsion", followed by an older boat ( likely a Flying Scott) laboriously making it to windward, and "in the age of gass engines those same sailors languished in the doldrums of slow, ackward, and difficult boats to sail, restricted by the realities of heavy weight, poorly understood hydrodynamics, and unsuitable materials." then a cut scean with upbeat inspiring music, while watching video of the Black Pearl ( the Open 70, that set a monohull speed record of 40kn) blast reaching through the southern ocean with spinnakers up and screaming down waves "but today sailors have harnesed the forces of nature in ways never before imagined, boats able to maintain speeds so fast that for the first 10,000 years of sailing they were though impossible, boats able to routinely outcall the wind (cut scean to moth flying in light air), and take solo sailors around the world alone at speeds unimaginable to Magellin (cut to Mini transats leaving in a fleet).

"This is the story of the development of boats that are driving the innovation of world sailing, the boats built today that were unimaginable just ages short years ago, and the sailors that have made these boats accessible to the average person ( cut scean to a 65 years old woman sailing off on a moth)



Just as a note, I hope the scenes and working will be polished before it's done, this was just from a quick production meeting we had.

 

========
Sounds tremendous and looks tremendous!
Can't wait to see it-how would we be able to order a copy?

 

Doug,

The producer that involved me has about 20 documentaries under his belt, and a number of featured films. I on the other hand an a film novice.

He assures me that distribution is the easy part. Video stores are certainly a possibility, though you have to pay for lots of copies to sit on the shelves. We are also considering sailing stores, online stores, and net flicks.

Assuming this does take off I will be sure to update our progress as it develops. And certainly appreciate the feedback. Sometimes it is good to hear detractors, just to keep your head out of the clouds.

 

There's a difference between detractors and discussions. I don't mean to be attacking anyone, just having a reasoned discussion that takes a different viewpoint.

But it seems from your post 19 that this is a project designed to show that conventional boats - that is, the ones that Joe and Joanna Average can actually buy and sail - are boring and outdated. It would be interesting to know if any other sport attacked itself in that way... windsurfing did and it really screwed that part of the sport, so one could ask why one risked doing the same damage to sailing?

Maybe it's more interesting to see developments like this in a wider context - one in which they are suited for some people in some situations, whereas other developments suit other people in other situations. Why not celebrate diversity rather than narrow things down? Why bag out the classes that people actually sail?

Just about every top designer I've spoken to has noted that earlier designers were not dealing with "poorly understood hydrodynamics." Guys like Uffa understood high-aspect planing surfaces. Linton Hope's seaplane hull and float designs were used by Roy Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire, for his world-champion Schneider Cup racing planes. Sixties Aussie Moth rigs created by WW2 radar pioneer and radioastronomer Taffy Bowen are basically like 2011 rigs, with loaded battens, fat heads and wide luff pocket. These guys just didn't have the materials which were later designed mainly in OD and "mainstream" classes like IOR boats.

Repeatedly, top designers speak with great respect about earlier designers and say that they were only held back by materials, not by a lack of knowledge.

Gordon Douglass, for example, wasn't ignorant when he designed the Flying Scot. Douglass's 1930s canoes and his '40s could probably come close to beating a foiler Moth today in winds under 5 or 6 knots, which is pretty common in most places in the world. In the 1920s or 30s he had been using a wing-style mast fairing in his International Canoe. The Thistle was designed in 1945 to use the leading-edge industrial process of hot moulding, created about 1941. That meant that the Thistle was using the same tech as one of the leading military aircraft of 2 years before, the DH Mosquito. In other words, it was much newer tech than if a modern boat was built using stuff from a Stealth Fighter. Many of Uffa Fox's boats were built the same way by Fairey, a military aircraft manufacturer...Richard Fairey was a J Class owner just like Tom Sopwith of Sopwith Camel fame, just another indication that the sailors of earlier times were in no way conservative or lacking in understanding of hydrodynamics. When the Scot was designed, fibreglass structures were about a decade old, fresh from leading-edge military use (such as the "lanterns" covering radars in escort ships).

Arguably the Thistle and Flying Scot were more leading edge than the boats you mentioned. Not only did they use mostly newer technology, but they were designed to open up the sport to women and new sailors, as part of the huge post WW2 change in sailing. That change came about because people like Douglass and Holt looked at the dominant classes like I-14s and Nat 12s (in the UK) and noted that they only appealed to a narrow band of affluent expert young men. Douglass, Holt etc created boats that suited new sailors, poorer sailors, kids and women; Douglass designed the FS largely specifically for women, which is why it has no hiking straps.

They, and other people like the Sunfish creators, opened up the sport to those on middle incomes, those who had never been able to sail, and they did it brilliantly - for example 450 NEW sailing clubs were formed in the UK between 1950 and 1959 - and almost all of them were formed around slow-ish ODs. Without the enormous growth in the sport triggered by Holt boats, Douglass boats, Lasers, Js, Hobies, Beneteaus etc, we wouldn't have a sport big enough for most of the high-performance developments.

Arguably, creating such massive social change in the sport is a lot more important than just playing with shapes and higher tech to make boats go quicker so they get back where they started sooner. And the significant thing is that the growth did NOT occur from increasing performance, but from increasing accessibility. That theme has been a regular one in sailing since the 1800s - technology used to increase accessibility improves participation, technology used to increase speed doesn't, and often reduces it.

When you say "we want to show people that sailing isn't just a boring, slow, rich mans sport, but instead can compete with the most extreme of sports any time any where" doesn't it beg two questions? One is, do people REALLY think of sailing as boring and slow? When Peter Johnstone paid big bucks to do a major consumer survey, he found that people DID NOT think sailing was boring and slow - they thought it was too hard, too inaccessible and too complex. That's what put them off the sport, so there are problems with portraying sailing classes that are hard to sail, almost completely inaccessible, and complex to own. I don't know about 65 year old women sailing Moths, but I do know that the local ex-49er sailor and a 65 year old mid-fleeter are finding their Moths very hard to sail in the fluky conditions you get near most sailing clubs....and exactly how many "average people" get to sail a Volvo 70, Extreme 40 or

Second, why promote the extreme side at the expense of the accessible side, given that extreme sports aren't very big. Most people prefer less extreme sports just like most sailors prefer less extreme classes. The Volvo Open 70 looks great, but the simple fact is that it is less popular than the older IOR RTW racers. There seems to be only about half a dozen sailing clubs in the whole world where you get regular strong fleets (ie 15+ each week) of skiff types or really high-performance monos, apart from the Aussie skiff clubs which are in a rather different league as some of them pay each boat about $300 US each week just for sailing.*

Fast boats are great, but why slag off slower ones? So I suppose I am a detractor, in that it seems a bit odd for a video supposed to promote the sport to attack classes like the Flying Scot that make up the backbone of the sport.

Finally, to use a Flying Scot or similar class going upwind as an example of an older boat and contrast it with a Volvo 70 screaming downhill is an unfair comparison. It's like contrasting a 1940s station wagon stuck in traffic with a modern F1 car at full bore. The FS was never designed to be a speed machine. A closer comparison would be a VO 70 compared to (say) Ragtime....how many non-sailors would look at the Youtube vision of Ragtime doing 20+ in the Hobart and say that was boring???? How many non-sailors would look at a Polynesian canoe or proa or 505 or Manureva or Rogue Wave or a vintage 18 in a breeze, or even this 1971 Fastnet winning S&S leadmine, and say "how boring!!" but then get excited about a Volvo 70?

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r110/Evo006/margrint3.jpg

(Great Richard Bennett pic - we were a few miles back in a similar boat at similar oace.)

Re the impact of development classes - obviously they are very significant, but whether they are the major breeding ground for innovation remains a moot point. The first sailing foilers were craft like Monitor, Mayfly and Icarus, weren't they? They weren't designed to a development class. Dave Kieper's Williwaw was an amazing machine that garnered significant publicity well before any development class foiling was widely known, and perhaps before any development class foilers existed. The first production foilers were the Rave and Hobie Trifoiler, which were OD classes.

Development classes don't seem to have significant impact in foiler development until the Moth came along, so why no one's playing down their role in developing foilers, why give them the lion's share of the credit? I understand the point about accessing vision, but Dave Kieper's videos of Williawaw foiling, while not exactly pro quality, are mind-boggling considering the era and the technology he had to use.

Similarly, foiling Moths are all (or damn close to all) carbon skinny skiff types, which (as dual world champ Steve Shimeld says) largely rely on 'exotic' sandwich construction to be practical, as do most of the craft in the shooting list. “It all came about because of the availability of carbon within reach of people” says Shimeld. And that carbon and foam construction and carbon spars had been pioneered in ODs like O-Jolles (like a Finn), Contenders, FDs and 505s and IOR boats.

'Scuse the essay.

*That's a bit of a guess, but where in the world would you find a class of (say) 15 monohull boats of Int 14 speed or faster racing regularly? Hayling Island would be one; Rutland (I think) has a good Moth fleet. There's two I-14 fleets in Australia of that size, I don't know of any North America although Toronto may come close. Dunno of any in Europe, where skiffs and Moths seem to race mainly on circuits. Then there's the few Aussie Skiff clubs, where big fleets are normally supported enormously (six figures US per season) by the clubs.

So despite all the publicity given to quick boats, the vast majority of sailorschoose to sail Beneteaus and Lasers and FSs and Sunbursts and Int 12s and Fevas. So either 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of sailors are ******, or the slower boats are NOT shitheaps that "laboriously make it to windward" and "languish in the doldrums of slow, ackward, and difficult boats to sail, restricted by the realities of heavy weight, poorly understood hydrodynamics, and unsuitable materials."

Unless you think the vast majority of sailors are *&^%$#@ - and that's one hell of a claim that needs on hell of a lot of proof - you've got to assume that they sail what they sail because it gives them more enjoyment than sailing other classes, which means that such boats actually work damn well.

 

Really got you going, eh CT? And you were drinking for the last couple of paragraphs? I agree with you ... and also Doug's view too.
Stumble admits he's new to film making and the initial broad concept re Puma and the older designs, is too easy and not correct, as you say, but you get the idea. You mention the open minded thinking of Uffa, Douglass, Holt, Keiper and others - and definitely Stumble's team need to focus on these and similar innovative types, more so than on just the easily seductive high technology, so that means a long process of gumshoe work finding the equivalent thinkers of today (sorry Stumble, there is no escape from that) - but back to Holt and co, I believe their original motivation was to experiment, have fun and lastly, if the design worked out, consider it available for the general sailing populace; they didn't do it thinking of sales and popularity first... so they were backyard crazies from the start ... and I guaran-fargo-trucking-tee, they were considered more than somewhat strange to the majority of the sitting members in the yacht club. So there's your film Stumbles. I'd start with some back issues of AYRS.

 

CC up until your last post I thought we were having a pleasant discussion about the merits and value of showcasing different boats, and classes. Now I am not so sure.

I used the Flying Scott as an example simply because despite it's impressive fleet of boats, in large part driven by yacht clubs selecting them for sailing camps, they were specifically designed to be cruisers that could race. They have a OD class and design intended to limit the potential speed of the boats. The designer intentionally chose to design a boat that was slow to make it simple and easy to sail. All of that at a price that is actually more expensive than Many much faster and better build boats available now.

As for insulting others... I did no such think, and actually fall in that group of people who you say must be wrong. I grew up racing J-35's and Lightnings, PHRF racing other boats of all types, spent a lot of time on non-maximized race boats, and currently own an Olson 30. That being said, the first time I went and raced on an Andrews 70 the difference was amazing. Yes the loads are higher, but everything worked cleaner, faster, and with less trouble due to well though out deck equipment.

Do think people are wrong for making different decisions than me? He'll no, and I never would when it comes to boats. But there is a difference in telling people what is available, and insulting them. And yes some of these boats are accessible to the average sailor, the Melgus 30 can be had for around 100k, a Moth for 6-8, Cone of silence was for sale for 40 (I think), I know of a R/P custom 32 with a rating of -15 up for sale for 25k. Is this pocket change? No not really, but compared to a Flying Scott at 23,000 for a race ready boat, that because of poor design has oil canning problems after 3-4 years of raving well it isn't that much.

No where in this project are we planning to insult, or denigrate people who choose to sail other boats, this is supposed to be a celebration of what is out there not an indictment of those people who choose not to use it.

As for the boat selection, if you would get off your high horse and read what wrote back in post 1, you would see that I was asking for suggestions of other boats that should be included. I started with the Moth because i am familure with them not because I am swearing they should be on the film. But instead of making a suggestion, and pointing me towards another class you decide instead to attack my decision to include it. Well at this point we haven't included or excluded anything. I am an attorney who sails as much as I can, not an expert in the development of sailing technology history. Which is exactly why I asked for suggestion.

Remind me not to ask that of you again.

 

=======================
1) Interesting way to put it, CT. "Foiling" has been around for many ,many years.
But to understand what that means it helps to know something about it. Up until 1999-2000 every foiler that could be classified as "successful" used multiple foils and even then ,in many cases were not as fast as other race boats the same length. Multiple foils would generally mean two main foils and one or two rudder foils. That's a lot of foils. The Rave and Hobie trifoiler were successful in many peoples eyes because they had high top end speed. And they had that speed because Dr. Sam Bradfield and Greg Ketterman found a way to have the foils develop all the righting moment for the boats using dual independent altitude control systems.
The drawback was that they did not perform well in light air-the kind of wind a lot of people find most of the time at their sailing venues.
Then along came the Moth: the first successful sailing foiler in history to use just two foils-not the three or four or more of "foiling" history up til then. But that's not the whole story: a technique was developed that allowed the Moth to develop 30-40% more RM for "free" (veal heel ). Bradfield and Ketterman had figured out how to use foils to develop lift and righting moment-in fact-the righting moment could exceed the structural strength of the boats so the Rave had a "Do not Exceed" warning in the cockpit!
But here comes the little Moth that , because of it's two foil system, can increase RM just thru a technique of sailing that only applies to bi-foilers-an amazing discovery. The little foiler has shown incredible performance around a course against similar and much larger non-foiling multihulls and monohulls.
And it will take off in 6-7 knots of wind! And the bi-foiler system + altitude control pioneered by John Ilett has shown truly revolutionary performance compared to any boats that came before it in light and heavy air. This stuff has been pointed out many times but somehow, in discussions of "foiling" the details seem to get forgotten. This bi-foiler technology is just 12 years old! And it is a technology with the potential to change sailing in many more ways than it has already done. But there is more:
2) You, CT, decry the words "...poorly understood hydrodynamics" but that was exactly the problem up until 1999-that is EXACTLY why bi-foiler sailboats hadn't been developed over the long history of "foiling". How do I know that? Because I was told in 1998 by one of the worlds greatest hydrofoil pioneers-and someone I greatly admire-that a two foil hydrofoil with a foil on the daggerboard and one on the rudder would not work!!!
And that's not all: curved lifting foils were used on trimarans in the 80's and 90's to reduce wetted surface and increase speed. Yet it wasn't until until about two-three years ago that they were used on an OPEN 60 monohull. Why? "Poorly understood hydrodynamics" and preconceived notions of what was possible- relying more on voodoo design notions than science, in my opinion.
-------------
The pioneers that went ahead and tried some of this stuff instead of relying on notions passed down for years are the real unsung heroes of modern high performance sailboat design. A video like Stumble proposes offers the opportunity to show a much wider audience, than heretofore, what is being accomplished by innovators in modern sailboat design-most people don't have a clue about the fact that a 66lb sailboat is the fastest sailboat under 20' beating multies and mono's. Or that they have to use jet ski's for umpires in AC 45 racing and that there is real concern about how to umpire the new 72' AC boats due to speeds above 40 knots on San Francisco Bay.
Most people have no clue what a wing sail is, what DSS is, what many of the new technologies are and how they are being applied.
I don't see any attempt, in any way whatsoever, to slag off the many traditional forms of sailing. I see this video as a way to entertain and inspire people in ways they would never imagine. This video seems to me to be about
the joy of sailing fast boats and the exuberance found by the people who do it-it is a celebration of sailing, an illustration of modern development and a
way to foreshadow incredible new developments in sailboat design that have the potential to create new ways to sail.
I think the video is a tremendous effort with great potential to help people that otherwise might never know what is going on with gifted innovators who love to sail and want to share their experience.

======================
NOTE to CT: Maybe if you could resize the picture you attached it would make it a lot easier to read this thread. For some reason, a picture that large pushes the boundaries way out making it a pain to read. At least that's what I think is causing the problem... Thanks.

 

Sorry, Stumble, but your first post did if anyone has suggestions, comments, or problems with this list" and therefore it seemed to be reasonable to point out some issues.

The passages you used do seem to be denigrating some boats. It's hard to see terms like "slow, ackward, and difficult boats to sail, restricted by the realities of heavy weight, poorly understood hydrodynamics, and unsuitable materials" as compliments. It could also be said surely that saying a boat suffers from those defects could be seen to be a reflection on those who choose them.

I never said that people who choose to sail FSs etc are wrong - my point was that surely it's reasonable to respect sailors by assuming that they are NOT commonly wrong when it comes to choosing the class that they sail, and that boats that are enduringly popular are likely to be very well suited for their purpose. Sure, an Andrews 70 is doubtless fun to sail - I've enjoyed playing with Moths, Bethwaite 18 Foot Skiffs, the top Reichel/Pugh maxi of the day, Open and Volvo 60s, the latest Farrs with AC winning crews etc - but not everyone can own or buy such craft so why denigrate or ignore the boats that the average sailor CAN realistically use?

Forgive my passion, but I have seen the damage that denigrating popular craft can do to a section of a sport, particularly in windsurfing where videos used to do the same sort of contrasting between 'slow boring old light wind boards' and 'fast exciting modern high wind boards'. The sport suffered massive damage because of the denigration of the light wind boards, which were actually better suited to the average sailor than the trendy stuff. Now everyone from Robby Naish to the head of the biggest manufacturer has recognised the error, but it's almost impossible to regain lost ground. Why risk falling into the same trap with boats?

I have a similar background to yours in some ways (apart from spending a decade in the sailing industry as well) and I'm doing my PhD on the impact of technology on participation levels in dinghy sailing. I've done an enormous amount of research, including interviews with most of the top designers and a lot of study of the history of the sport. This research underlines a fact widely recognised among academics and others in the sports history and administration fields, which is that concentrating on the elitist element (not just cost but also many other aspects of accessibility) can significantly harm participation levels. So while I do get het up about this stuff, there is arguably a good reason in that I am trying to do some small part to preserve a sport that we all love.

 

Agree with a lot of that, but the evidence I can find from the contemporary sources (and many of those involved wrote about it at the time) indicates that Holt and Moore DID set out pretty early on to change the sailing world.

Beecher Moore wrote a lot about what they were trying to achieve with their boats, and it does seem from that stuff that they were specifically trying to create boats that would be available for the general sailing populace, or rather create a new and larger general sailing populace by opening up the sport to those who could not previously get in.

Yes, there was definitely considerable opposition to the Holt/Moore boats and their kin, and Beecher wasn't afraid to hit back in print. Significantly, much of the opposition came from those who felt that Holt's boats were too low tech, too slow, and one designs; "real" boats were expensive development-class types without corners. One article by Moore was devoted to the premise that the traditional UK development classes were the biggest waste of effort ever seen, because after several decades they still hadn't been able to attract as many new sailors as the Holt/Moore/etc boats did in their first few years. As Beecher pointed out, if you want to really make sailing grow, you don't do it by trying to get people into faster, less accessible boats - you do it by getting them into cheaper, more accessible, safer boats.

 

To what extent was that expert's failure to foresee monofoilers due to a lack of expertise in hydrodynamics (the branch of science concerned with forces acting on or exerted by fluids (esp. liquids), and to what extent was it an understandable failure to understand how Mothies could balance boats that were inherently unstable?

Surely there is a difference between understanding a science and understanding what leading exponents in a certain small area of the sport can do as far as balance goes? It's a bit like saying that a materials engineer working in bicycle tires has a "poor understanding" of tire design, unless he's familiar with how Tom LaMarche can pull off a nose manual. There's plenty of aerodynamic experts in sail design who probably don't know what a goiter is, but that doesn't mean they don't know their science.

To what extent was the decision not to use foils on Open 60s a failure of hydrodynamics? Maybe they just had other areas they wanted to use the available time and effort budget on?

BTW you mention light winds - in non-foiling conditions the Moths are far from being quicker than all boats under 20'. Incredible performers when on the foil, definitely.

I'll try to resize the pic, it seems OK on my computer.

 

CT, if we're concentrating on Jack Holt/Beecher Moore, talking about the Yachting World Keelboat/Diamond, Hornet and the like ... those boats were meant to be very fast, for their time, and they were - and in the Diamond's case, that design was a very light boat, 30 foot and a ton weight or thereabouts, something that is quite hard to achieve today even using high tech materials. But this boat was simple and not expensive to build, and it was fast offwind because it planed (and few boats from that early 1960's period could do that) so it was radical, and IMO, that is the important point of this thread - okay not so great to windward but eased sheets and the Diamond's offwind speed excitement had to be the major element of the design ... making it attractive as the workers' fast boat ... so Stumble's team are on the correct course with today's proposed video.

 

Oh, Jack could certainly design a fast boat - that's how he got his start.

But the Holt boats that hit the water in vast numbers were not the fast ones, but the slower ones.

F'rinstance, compare the more popular Holt boats to the established UK National classes such as the National 12 and Firefly. Holt's 14 foot long GP14 was rated at 3% slower than the 2' shorter and older Nat 12 and Firefly, which didn't carry kites unlike the GP14. The later Enterprise was 2' longer than the Nat 12 and Firefly but rated at the same speed. The Solo was rated 5% slower than the roughly-similar OK. Holt's very popular Heron and Mirror were, of course, much slower than the older UK National classes of similar length - about 25% slower in fact. The Cadet was rated as no faster than other kid's boats like the West Wight Scow.

So there's no doubt that Jack's popular boats were not very fast compared to middle-of-the-road boats like Fireflies and OKs - but they were enormously popular and important.

There have been about 2,180 of the fast and very advanced (for its day) Hornets built in almost 60 years. In a shorter time period, 70,000 + Mirrors have been built. There are 23,000+ Enterprises, some 11,000 GP14s, and some 4,000 Solos which remain one of the strongest adult classes in the UK. The 100+ or so Diamonds and 3,000 or so fast boats can't compare to the 120,000 or whatever slow/medium speed boats Jack designed.

So yes, Jack could certainly design a fast boat - but overwhelmingly, by a factor of something approaching 40 to 1, the sailors of the world ignore his fast boats and choose his slow or medium-speed ones. So surely that says something about what is really important in attracting, and keeping, people in this sport.

But hell yeah, it'd be good if boats like the Diamond received their due recognition. Much of what I'm saying (and it seems you'd agree) is that a video that highlights the really quick modern boats can (and IMHO should) be crafted in a way that it doesn't have to show older and/or slower boats like the FS or Diamond or Sunburst or NZ37 or Laser or Ent as "awkward", "slow" or designed without knowledge of hydrodynamics. It can respect the older boats and the mainstream or OD classes that actually created the technological foundation for the modern high-speed boats.]