Amaryllis

From SA.( Apparently "borrowed" from Brian Eilands excellent site: http://www.runningtideyachts.com/multihull/Amaryllis.html ) Great reading-take the time!---(some results have been omitted because the text is the interesting part):

A YACHTING WONDER.
SUDDEN DEVELOPMENT OF THE FASTEST CRAFT IN THE WORLD. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE REVEILLE, SUSIE B., AMARYLLIS AND VICTORIA WIN THE SECOND CENTENNIAL REGATTA.

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.
From an early hour yesterday morning the little vessels that were to compete for the honors of the day began to arrive at the rendezvous, near the New York Yacht Club House on Staten Island, and each ferry-boat that arrived brought large numbers of people from the city to witness the race, which evidently attracted quite as much, if not more, interest than the one of the previous day between the large vessels. The gentlemen who comprise the sub-committee, and who have arranged all the details of this very successful affair, were early in attendance at the club-house. They are John M. Sawyer, Brooklyn Yacht Club, Chairman; O. E. Cromwell and M. Roosevelt Schuyler, Seawanhaka Yacht Club, and Sidney W. Knowles, Atlantic Yacht Club.
The bay in front of the club-house was all alive with craft of every description, and them all none attracted more attention than the schooner-yacht Magic, the winner of more annual regattas than any other schooner of the New York Yacht Club. She has been restored as near as possible to her old appearance when she raced for the Queen's Cup, in 1871, and has been put in perfect order. It is said that should the owner of the Comet desire a match with the Magic he can be accommodated at any time and for any amount he may desire. Next to the Magic, the yacht Playful was the most noticed. She has been altered to a schooner, and looks as if she might be a most comfortable yacht to cruise in. As the time drew near for the start of the yachts several excursion steamers arrived from the city literally packed with passengers to witness the race. A small stake-boat was anchored just off from the club-house, and it was arranged that the start should be from a line drawn between this boat and the club house. Outside of this stake-boat was the yacht of Vice Commodore Kane, of the New York Yacht Club, dressed off with long lines of bunting, extending from trucks to sails, and here the starting gun was fired.

THE COURSE.

From this starting line the course was to and around a buoy off Coney Island point; thence to a stake-boat off Bay Ridge Dock; thence to a stake-boat off Robbin's Reef Light house and back to place of departure; this course to be sailed over twice, a distance of about twenty miles. There were in all thirty-five entries, and of these thirty-two were prompt at the starting line as follows:

The allowance of time for all classes was 2m. to the foot of length.

THE START.

All things being in readiness at 12h. 12m. the gun was fired for the vessels to prepare, and 5m. later a second gun gave the first and fourth classes permission to start, and after another interval of 5m. The third gun sent off the other classes. There was no maneuvering [sic] for position, as in the start of the previous day, but each got over the line as soon as possible and began the race. The Cynthia was the first off, followed by the Maud, H. W. Beecher, Florence, Fidget, Foulton, Mary Emma, Reveille, Favorita, Nanita, Victoria, Knight Templar, Pluck and Luck, H. H. Holmes, Clara S. Victoria went to the wrong side of the stake-boat and had to make another crossing as also did the Knight Templar. Then came the Au Revoir, Susie S., Inspector with a reef in her mainsail and an apology for a jib; after he came the Tough, Addie Taylor, Cricket, Sophia Emma, William T. Lee, Leroy, Greenpoint, Amaryllis (the life-raft), Almira, and the Journeyman brought up the rear.

THE RACE.

The wind was a whole-sail breeze from west, the tide first quarter ebb, and off they all flew with sheets well off. The Nondescript gave the spectators a slight taste of her speed in a wonderful burst just as she crossed the line and then up to the time of passing the forts she took things easily, apparently losing the wind, and she, with the Journeyman, Almira, Greenpoint, Tough, Cricket and Leroy were all bunched together close under the bluff and almost becalmed. As the others went racing off toward the mark they made a picture which had never been excelled for beauty in any previous race in New York Bay. That of the start for the Queen's Cup may have equaled it, but nothing could exceed it. A flock of scared birds just rising to their wings would come neared to it in appearance. They were all so bunched together that it was impossible to rate them accurately, but the fast ones, the Susie S., the Pluck and Luck, the Cynthia, the W. R. Brown, and others of that class, began at once to press towards the head of the line. Below the Narrows the wind slackened, and the progress of the fleet was comparatively slow. The cluster that had been becalmed under the forts drifted out with the tide and went on after the rest, but with a long space between them. The life raft appeared to be doing about as well as the others, but was not as yet doing anything very wonderful in the way of speed. This rear clustering of boats, however, caught the freshening breeze first, and at the first mark had closed up so much that the whole fleet turned with but small intervals of time between them. The following are the times of turning which will show the relative position of the fleet:

CONEY ISLAND BUOY.
Name. H M. S.
H. W. Beecher 12:50:0
Cynthia 12:51:0
Pluck and Luck 12:53:0
Susie S. 12:54:0
Favorita 12:55:15
Victoria 12:55:17
Fidget 12:55:18
W. R. Brown 12:56:0
Clara S. 12:57:0
Rebecca 12:57:1
Toulton 12:57:30
R. H. Holmes 12:58:0
Wm. T. Lee 12:58:5
Mary Emma 12:58:10
Kate 12:58:15
Leroy 12:58:45
Addie Taylor 12:59:5
Journeyman 1:0:0
Cricket 1:0:0
Almira 1:0:30
Au Revoir 1:0:36
Amaryllis 1:0:45
Greenpoint 1:0:50
Inspector 1:1:0
Tough 1:2:30

The others were not timed at this point. The fleet now had the wind about abeam, and the line began to draw out as the boats took position according to speed. The Susie S. hauled up out of the ruck and kept farther off shore than the rest, which gave her stronger tide to overcome, but as the leaders drew up toward the Fort the wind headed them and then the weatherly position of the Susie more than compensated for all she had lost by the head tide, and she went through between Fort Lafayette and the shore heading the fleet. The Cynthia came next, the H. W. Beecher third. The Pluck and Luck went outside of the fort. The Catamaran had been gradually working up through the fleet but failed to weather the Fort Hamilton dock and had to tack. At about 1.45 o'clock the wind breezed and the little yachts, overpowered by their racing canvas, had to beg along, requiring constant care to prevent them from capsizing. Just here the Amaryllis began to develop the wonderful speed that she possesses, and she fairly flew along the Long Island shore, passing yacht after yacht as if they were anchored, so that at the next mark, off Bay Ridge, only eleven of the fleet were ahead of her. These were:

BAY RIDGE STAKE-BOAT.
Name. H M. S.
Susie S. 1:43:00
Cynthia 1:44:30
Pluck and Luck 1:45:00
W. R. Brown 1:46:00
Wm. T. Lee 1:46:30
H. W. Beecher 1:46:35
Victoria 1:50:00
Leroy 1:50:40
Kt. Templar 1:51:05
Cricket 1:51:36
Reveille 1:52:04
Amaryllis 1:53:30

The course of the yachts was now sharp upon a wind over to the stake-boat off Robbin's Reef, and they had wind enough and some to spare, the only one that went along at all comfortably being the cigar boat. She, with a crew of only two men and no sand bags to take care of, went over easily under small suit of sails, disposing off three more of the fleet as she went across. The following are the positions of the fleet at this buoy:

ROBBIN'S REEF BUOY.
Name. H M. S.
Susie S. 1:58:00
Cynthia 1:59:20
Pluck and Luck 1:59:50
W. R. Brown 2:00:30
Wm. T. Lee 2:01:30
H. W. Beecher 2:02:00
Victoria 2:05:00
Greenpoint 2:06:00
Amaryllis 2:06:40
Cricket 2:08:30
Knight Templar 2:08:35
Reveille 2:09:00
Leroy 2:10:00
Florence 2:10:20
Journeyman 2:10:42
Favorita 2:11:03

It will be observed that as the wind freshened the big ones began to come to the front. The Reveille, admirably handled by Frank Bates, had been quietly disposing of the little ones ahead of her, and at this mark looked the sure winner of her class. Perhaps the most amusing incident of the race was to see the Nondescript attempt to get by the Greenpoint off the old Quarantine dock. Three times she tried to go by to windward, but the boat could lie nearer the wind than she could, and would force her up in the wind and shake her sails, and she would drop astern. Baffled in the attempt to go by on this side, at last, as a dernier resort, she kept off to go through his lee. No one who saw the attempt believed she would succeed, but just at this time there came a sharp flaw, too much for the Greenpoint, and with the surplus, the cigar-boat came two or three of her porpoise-like jumps, and was off after the yacht ahead, going through the lee of the Greenpoint as if the latter had been at anchor, and when she arrived at the home line on the first round she had but seven yachts of the whole fleet ahead of her. The following are the times of turning this mark:

TIME ON THE FIRST ROUND.
Name. H M. S.
Susie S. 2:13:45
Cynthia 2:14:40
Pluck and Luck 2:15:00
W. R. Brown 2:15:15
Wm. T. Lee 2:16:10
H. W. Beecher 2:17:01
Victoria 2:19:50
Amaryllis 2:20:10
Greenpoint 2:20:15
Cricket 2:23:15
Knight Templar 2:24:05
Reveille 2:24:44
Leroy 2:24:50
Journeyman 2:25:45
Florence 2:25:46
Favorita 2:27:10
Clara S. 2:27:45
Mary Emma 2:27:59
Rebecca 2:28:18
H. H. Holmes 2:29:52
Addie Taylor 2:31:28
Fidget 2:32:15
Almira 2:32:20
Foulton 2:34:10
Sophia Emma 2:34:45
Au Revoir 2:35:02

On this round the boats had all that they could stagger under, and some few of them met with slight accident in the way of parting halliards, splitting sails, &c., but, to the surprise of every one, there were no capsizes as they sped across the bay, half buried in foam. The Catamaran kept jumping along, her motion resembling that of a porpoise when frightened more than anything else, and by the time she reached the next buoy there were only four yachts ahead of her. The turning of this mark in the stiff breeze was a very difficult affair, and the Greenpoint had to make three separate attempts before she got her boom over. She finally accomplished it in safety, but the Victoria, which was under working sails, managed here to get by here and turn first. The following times were taken at this mark:

CONEY ISLAND MARK - SECOND ROUND.
Name. H M. S.
Susie S. 2:35:30
Cynthia 2:38:10
W. R. Brown 2:39:30
Pluck and Luck 2:39:45
Amaryllis 2:40:00
Wm. T. Lee 2:40:15
H. W. Beecher 2:41:00
Victoria 2:43:30
Greenpoint 2:44:45

By the time the Catamaran got up abreast of Fort Hamilton dock she had only one yacht, the Susie S., ahead of her. She does not lie very close to the wind, and had to tack three times ere she could clear the dock, the Susie meanwhile, going all the way without tacking. Notwithstanding these tacks in the ebb tide she was gaining all the time on the boat ahead of her and about half-way between the fort and Owl's Head she went for the Susie in earnest, and in an incredibly short space of time she went by her. Her great speed here was near bringing her to grief, for she ran her nose under, and was near pitchpoling over. For a half minute she stood right on end, all the forward part of her submerged, and the Susie got by her again, but she slowly righted, and again starting off she soon put the Susie behind her, and became the head boat in the fleet. The Pluck and Luck on this reach broke her gaff, but pluckily kept on to the end of the race. The two leaders turned the Robbins Reef mark as follows:

ROBBINS REEF.
Name. H M. S.
Amaryllis 3:34:30
Susie S. 3:36:40

After this buoy was turned the sloop-yacht Annie, one of the fastest in the previous day's race, thought that she would give this monstrosity a turn. The wind was abeam, and just as much as the yacht wanted. The Captain of the Amaryllis had evidently only been playing with the small fry; he now went for the big yacht with a will, and in a few minutes the big yacht was left hopelessly behind, Captain Joe Ellsworth, who was at the wheel of the yacht, shouting frantically to the sea monster to "Hold up and give me a line." As the new experiment dashed over the line a winner she was saluted by guns from the yachts that were lying at anchor, and the excursion steamers screeched their loudest in honor of her victory. The following table gives the result of the races by classes. The fourth class carried nothing but working sails, and, as will be seen from the record, made most excellent time. The contest between the Victoria and the Cynthia in this class was very close, the former only winning by eight seconds, and next to these the H. W. Beecher did the best of any.

Thus it will be seen that in the first class the Reveille wins, beating the Favorita 12 minutes and 1 second. In the second class the Susie S. is ahead, beating the W. R. Brown 3 minutes and 26 seconds. In the third class Mr. Herishoff's [sic] experiment is ahead, beating the Pluck and Luck 20 minutes and 2 seconds. In the fourth class the Victoria leads the Cynthia 8 seconds.

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. If she is ruled out, the prize comes to the Puck and Luck.

Source: Anon. (R. F. Coffin?). "A Yachting Wonder. Sudden Development of the Fastest Craft in the World. The Reveille, Susie B., Amaryllis and Victoria Win the Second Centennial Regatta." The World, June 24, 1876, p. 2.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------A REVOLUTIONARY YACHT.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The defeated yachtsmen in yesterday's race are entitled to sincere commiseration. It is a well-established fact among Americans of a yachting turn of mind, that the American yacht embodies in her model all the fairy tales of science and the long results of time. It is supposed to be almost the perfect model for speed under canvas, and it is supposed that any improvement on it will be merely an extension of it. Yet yesterday all the yachts of this approved model were beaten ridiculously by a vessel of outlandish model and rig. She is literally 'outlandish,' for according to the description of her the nearest approach to her afloat is the famous 'flying proa' of the Ladrone Islands, of the speed of which wonderful stories are told. Nobody protested against entering her for the race yesterday, for the reason probably that everybody expected to beat her, but everybody seems to have objected to being beaten by her. Next time we advise our yachtsmen to ponder the words of MILTON, And think twice ere they venture to "Sport with Amaryllis in the shade."

In form the entry seems to have been perfectly fair, since the yachts were taxed only according to length, and were permitted as much extension in all other directions as their owners chose. But in fact, it is clearly unfair to race boats of radically different models, and built for entirely different purposes, against each other. The model of the Amaryllis evidently would not do for a sea going vessel, and nothing in the way of the practical 'improvement of naval architecture ' which yachts and yacht clubs are supposed to promote, can come out of a flying proa. But on the other hand, none of the boats engaged in the race with her are supposed to be good for much except to engage in such races. The tendency of yacht-racing is everywhere to-produce 'racing machines;' in ENGLAND by narrowing, deepening and ballasting yachts out of all reason, and here by making broad and shallow 'skimming-dishes.' In either case the result is not a good type of sea-going vessel. So the owners of racing-machines have really no reason to complain that somebody should invent a racing-machine to beat them. This the inventor of the Amaryllis has done. It behooves the owners of the large schooners, however, to take counsel together lest somebody should build an Amaryllis a hundred feet long and convert their crafts into useless lumber. It is a matter quite as important as keeping the America's Cup, and may demand quite as ingenious and elaborate devices as were put in force against Mr. ASHBURY.Source: Anon. (Editorial). "A Revolutionary Yacht." The World, June 24, 1876, p. 4.

 

http://www.runningtideyachts.com/multihull/Amaryllis.html

 

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Thanks Fanie-I corrected the first post to give proper credit to Brian-I found it on Sailing Anarchy.

 

Sorry Dough, the intent was not to find fault !
I was looking for a picture of the wonder boat, then realised it was 500 years old already

Amazing how some ideas and perceptions gets stuck in some. It seems the resistance was quite a bit when muti's started going round. I remember a few threads discussing the happenings when I just joined the BD forum.
A bit like still using the original cellphones and won't talk to someone with one of these new thingies

 

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Fanie, I didn't take it as "finding fault" at all. I just wanted Brian to get the proper credit for this amazing article.
The reactions of some of those guys is not so far removed from stuff I heard a lot in the 60's when multies came up-not so much any more. Herreshoff was an incredible guy......

click on image:

 

Maybe its time to rethink our history

The Amaryllis tale is one of the foundation stones of multihull lore. It is brought out in the book "Multihulls Offshore" and the New York yacht club is said to have helped kill multis off by promptly banning them. (Us Aussies were brought up on hating the NYYC so we get right on board)

The funny thing is that we can see from the article that this press piece was positive about Amaryllis. Sure she was banned from racing with the monos but as it says in the article she couldn't tack like them or point as high so she wasn't able to race with them all around the course. In fact several other cats were produced and raced on their own but then they died.

Multihull dogma is that Amaryllis is the first case of the "typical" shallow mono thinking that still hurts multis. My point is that it is the first case where a multi's speed failed to impress the community at large. If Amaryllis was a fab boat - she certainly was not cheap - why wouldn't sailors keep on racing her kind in their own clubs. Why was it that early cat associations died? If they were good why didn't cat racing flourish?

My thinking is that speed will never win over the majority of sailors and it didn't 140 years ago either. I would rather multihullers look at the setbacks in the history of multis (and I lived through some) and realise why it was that they got such a reputation. In most cases it was entirely justified - a few cases in point.

-1966 the multis don't beat the monos to Hobart as many said they would. On the way back to Sydney the most modern tri capsizes and kills its four crew.
-late 1960s - about 22 people die in 18 months in tris in the Pacific
-1981 - In the Gladstone race many monos had their races ruined when badly prepared multis needed assistance turning the night into "Guy Fawkes night" due to the number of flares.
-recent times - with a huge drop in race fleets around the country (Australia) sailors complain of the Tornado being dropped from the Olympics. It is very hard to find a cat club to race at weekly compared to the 70s and 80s.

So what do I think about Amaryllis? It was amazing but way too expensive for most people. Most of the yachts and dinghies today are the result of workboats and multi purpose designs. Amaryllis certainly doesn't fit into this category. Read the Amaryllis story for how it shows that speed on its own will never win over the majority of the public and not as a showcase of bigotry and ignorance on the part of mono sailors.

cheers

Phil Thompson

 

Amaryllis had no centre or daggerboards ... hence she would have had poor windward performance. Nat should have known better but I guess he thought the sort of elliptical, rounded V hulls would have done the job. If he'd put boards in, Amaryllis would have trounced the fleet by a much greater margin because her windward performance would have been transformed.
Yes, the press was sympathetic and balanced in viewpoint (usually the media is liberal in approach, that is, unless they're bought puppets by wealthy companies) but the established yachties were angry and don't sound very balanced at all - nothing has changed.
Catsketcher Phil, Amaryllis was a complex yacht and therefore perhaps not cheap - but so were all those large skimming dishes like Susie S and Pluck and Luck, plus all the other race competition; none of them would be cheap. Guessing, I'd say the Herreschoff cat would have been similarly priced to sandbagger Susie S, probably cheaper. I mean, it was just a lot of sticks and string, whereas the sandbagger carried a number of crew plus had to be built strong enough to carry the weight of sandbags on the weather rail, plus having great beam for the boat's overall length - plus also carrying a huge, expensive sail area.
And speed rules ... as it always has.

 

Not any more ! I've just won $155,600,000.00(One Hundred and Fifty Five Million
Six Hundred Thousand USD) - again ! Not sure where I'll put all the dollars... LOL, maybe in a china bank, I'll have about half the US eh

 

Ah Hah!

==========
Cool! Amaryllis Two! Or, ah, on the other hand, I could send you my bank routing number....(!)

 

"the established yachties were angry and don't sound very balanced at all - nothing has changed".

What evidence is there that most or all of the "established yachties" were that angry? Sure, some of them may have been angry, but to some extent that's understandable since it appears that Amaryllis was racing against boats of the workboat type. As authorities like Ben Fuller (former curator of Mystic Seaport Museum) points out, the sandbaggers Amaryllis was racing were very much working boats, either in design or before, after or during their racing career.

So while Amaryllis was fantastic, it was in some ways a bit like dropping a Formula One car into the biggest race for souped-up tradesman's vans or saloon cars.

Several of the "established yachties" wrote that they had no problem at all with cats, as long as they raced in separate classes, just like schooners raced apart from cutters and sloops, just like cabin boats raced apart from non-cabin boats. At the time, races were divided up so that similar boats raced similar boats. Allowing a cat into an event for workboat types didn't fit that model.

The cats were allowed to race on a pretty much equal basis with every other class. There is little, if any, factual evidence of discrimination apart from the fact that Amaryllis was DSQ'd from racing against workboat types (but was given a special prize) in this one race. Sometimes they got less prizemoney per entrant, but sometimes they got more IIRC.

The "established yachties" didn't seem to be anti-cat because people like club commodores bought cats,and even the NYYC allowed a cabin cat into its races. The "establishment" didn't ban cats or stop them from attending many regattas, as one would expect them to if they were "angry" or "unbalanced".

Speed doesn't seem to rule when it comes to attracting people to sailing or to a particular type of boat; if it did, the most popular boats would be the fastest boats.

 

I'm not going to answer your rose tinted, Pollyanna viewpoint CT249 - except to say that if you check out Howard Chapelle's History of American Sailing Ships, you'll see a section on the sandbaggers and line drawings of Susie S, Pluck and Luck, Comet and others; yes, their origins were work boats ... but these highly specialized versions were not work boats but flat out racers, and expensive ones at that, carrying clouds of sail no workboat would ever set. The sandbaggers were not originals like the NZ mullet boat, which truly retain their working boat shape and figures; skimming dish sandbaggers were extreme developments. Supposedly you could say Herreshoff's Amaryllis was also derived from "work boats" ... the Polynesian double hull canoe ... but it is a specious comment not dealing with reality.

 

minorities love the nasty bigot

Gary I have to stay in disagreement with you about yachties in general and I reckon the multihull crowd do have a problem - not many people race multis. Instead of saying "Maybe its us or our boats" we put the blame on nasty mono sailors.

I teach kids for a living. I do like it. I love to see kids learn how the world works and see how they can get on in it. Sometimes I do see certain minorities (I work in a disadvantaged area) with an amazing mindset. Instead of going "Wow I can go to uni for free, get positively discriminated for in public service jobs and get scholarships just because of my background - isn't that great of today's generation" I get the opposite. Amazing amounts of anger and blame directed at me personally because of things I have never done and were never done to the people I teach. The anger and the blamery is actually handed down like a torch from generation to generation. I see this as terribly sad and debilitating. Good kids getting a sense of grievance for things that they have never suffered and that present day people are doing their utmost to remedy. It ruins their future.

I see similarities in the story of Amaryllis. I see it as some history where a multihuller went faster than a mono - and although people were interested they didn't vote with their feet. I also see it as a tale where multis failed to win over the majority -as they still do today. Now I can either be like the minority groups that perpetuate disadvantage by instilling grievance, anger and a warped sense of the present day or I can say "Multis if good enough will win admirers because of what they are" or "Aren't I lucky I get to sail these nice boats even if not many others want to".

As I will tell people often - I think monos are great racers because they are tough, manouvrable, don't have sudden spurts of speed, are tricky to sail well, require a deft hand and have huge numbers. CT and I have raced multis and are back in monos for reasons we think are reasonable - racing 70 Tasars - fun. Racing one other Tornado - pretty tame. We have done both.

Like all historians we will no doubt keep on mulling this one over for a while. I think that cats are making themselves felt in the cruising world where strangely enough speed really matters (cruising speed at least) and combined with lovely manners downwind cats are really breeding like ferals on our east coast, only the cruisers mind you.

Here is another reason CT probably prefers racing monos and he won't tell you this. He sailed on a record holding cat in an inshore race where they cleated the sheets for about 15 minutes because no one was around. I haven't been on a similar style mono and ever seen a cleated kite sheet. Now Chris and I both love the cut and thrust of close racing - so this is a big turn off.

Back to you

Phil

 

Catsketcher Phil, I started sailing/racing multihulls after going through the usual monhull learning process (mullet boats, F15's, YW Diamonds, LD Vim and others); have even designed the odd monohull and have great interest in the light mono planing hull forms. Now I don't know about you aussies, but kiwis are a passionate lot and quick to anger and to fire acidic comments (so different than you aussies?)... and cross them up with smart *** replies, and this can turn to hatred. Now I don't care what extremists' think or say but ask any of the multihull designers, kiwi or aussie, who went through that 60-70-80's period ... and they'll tell you some stories of animosity, as will the light displacement mono designers too.
And more recently, just read the frothing vitriol on SA and elsewhere coming from the thwarted monohull sailors relating to the AC change to modern designs .... to get what I say about nothing changing.
Your point about minorities taking the angry martyred position does not apply to kiwi multihull sailors ... who are just going about doing what they enjoy. And by the way, seems to be a considerable number of hard core monohull sailors suddenly discovering, belatedly, what tremendous fun it is to be aboard a fast multi (meaning of course, the hot, new AC 45's here in Auckland). Maybe times are changing. But in the Amaryllis case; this boat was many decades, even a century, ahead of its time ... and it was too much for the majority (but not a few enlightened ones) to accept.

 

Lots to agree on

I reckon if I ever get to the Hauraki gulf again we could spin away a few hours and I would dearly love to have a look over Flash Harry and return the favour on a cat over here. We obviously have heaps in common.

I reckon the hotheads in many debates pull possible consensus from the jaws of reason. Flames etc don't help. I remember getting ignored and stonewalled, my mono friends asking "Why you and a trimaran?" I was at the end of of the bad stuff but still got some of the flack. From my perspective all I ever wanted was for my choices to be recognised as valid and reasonable. I therefore have to return the favour to my mono friends.

Sailing anarchists all seem to hate each other and so I rarely go there. The internet is sadly able to generate heat sometimes with little clarity. I knew some of the light displacement thing here. We saw some of the first 1104s. My brother Chris (CT249) sailed on one of the best offshore. We even had Newspaper Taxi in our family for a few years (she was a sad sight by then). I am so glad that most of us have moved on.

A cruiser's view is different form a racers. Picture an idyllic Queensland beach 8 years ago. 3 mono sailors are looking at all the cats off the beach.
"Cats are getting more popular"
"Yeah - I reckon you would have to build one instead of a mono if you wanted good resale"
I remember that day as a bit of a watershed

cheers

Phil

 

why is nobody praising amaryllis active suspension?
to complicated perhaps but thats what i think made it an outstanding design
makes me think of wharram advocating lose tied up beams and Antrim's wam-v
wonder if that waterwalker has amarylles resemblys