The New Scows

I just have to say it - it might be a good racing machine, but it looks soooo ugly...

 

Early days; the blunt bow could be refined aesthetically (joke) but still do the excellent job of keeping the bow up, yet not look so bloody ugly. A combination of maybe a dreadnought fullness changing to a finer topsides area. Just saying.

 

Just different: sharp bows probably looked ugly to traditional builders when they appeared back in the early days of clippers . . .

 

Thanx for the thread. great stuff. And thanx for the Seahorse info. A new magazine to read.

sal

 

New Scows

Great info including lines plans of two new "maxi" scows:
http://chevaliertaglang.blogspot.fr/#!/2012/08/wally-wally-cento-wally-class-scow-maxi_7.html (click on the right-hand picture)


click below to enlarge-

 

new trend?

do i see a trend here?

a few years/decades ago the ocean racers started to get more and more beamier with flatter bodies for a good reason - planing ability...
this came with a drawback - windward ability...
a beamy stern compined with a pointy bow and flat underwaterbody is just not the right shape for a close haul...

those boats needed to be kept upright for as much as possibly - say hello to waterballast and canting keels...

now canting keels if canted do not provide much lateral resistance - give daggerboards a warm welcome...
the last VO70s had the daggerboards pointing outwards to really gain lateral resistance - todays VO70s have them canted inwards in order to create lift... (even more righting moment, an even more upright boat, more sails)

and suddenly there were the scows...

even better planing ability downwind than the 'conventional' designs, better pointing than a very conservative racer might have, canting keels to actually heel the boat in order to gain speed (what a strange idea ) and since daggerboards are already there - why not use them...

sounds a little bit like evolution to me - make small changes to gain advantages, overcome the drawbacks with new developments, change to gain adv... circle closed!

 

Interesting, hard corner way to do the bow.

 

I think people should be careful about calling something a Wally if it is not endorsed by Wally.

 

Scows and flatties do pound pretty badly when sailed flat like on a run. The Scows and to some extent the flattie/sharpies are at their best when heeled. They pound very little in the heeled attitude and can handle fairly rough chop with aplomb. Going offshore in the subject big one...well I am not so sure about that capability.

The scow sweetness is when it is heeled. The waterlines become narrow and long and nicely configured with straight section centroid alignment so that it tracks stright where you point it.. They become pretty much like a catamaran flying a hull. The entry is no longer a blunt object but fine lined, with low entry angles. Scows are Jekyll and Hyde boats depending on how you sail them.

My all time favorite of dozens of small sailboats that have owned me, was an M-20. Best crewing experience was on an E, most captivating ride was on an A scow that went like a runaway train but was as smooth as silk.

 

I crewed on a 28' E scow back in about 1966-blast out fun experience!

 

I read that as you (s)crewed hahaha

 

I think the direct link to the scow is
http://chevaliertaglang.blogspot.com/2012/08/wally-wally-cento-wally-class-scow-maxi.html

 

From an experienced U.S. Moth sailor (both International and Classic):

Re: speed downwind vis-a-vis planing, wave making drag, wetted area.

The International Moth development cycle in the 1980s-'90s showed that planing becomes less and less important (scows were effectively out of the running by 1980.) In fact, planing was found to be less critical than reduction in wave-making. Hulls became narrower and more wave piercing, to the point that nose-diving had to be countered by a horizontal foil on the bottom of the rudder (not to increase lift but to pull the stern down = bow up as the boat nose-dived.) Obviously the speed to weather was a factor, but it's interesting to contemplate what a very narrow hull would do in our class [classic moth]. The Mistral is fast in part to the narrow waterline length. The narrow hull is sailable to weather only because of the Mistral's flare aft to 56". Wings, not allowed in our [classic moth] rules, are the more elegant solution....​

 

The scows were still extremely competitive in Australia for a few years later. The '84/'85 nats and the '85/'86 nats both wents to scows. Many people were betting on scows to win the '86/'87 worlds but a bunch of hard training kids lead by Steve Shimeld and Stray, aided by boat and rig development, lifted the ability of skiffs to handle the high winds and big waves of that offshore regatta.

The fact that scows were outmoded in Moths is of course a reflection of their particular parameters; hulls similar to those of current super-skinny Moths have been tried in Skiff classes without success because other dimensional issues affect the achievable and required performance so lessons from one development dinghy class often cannot be transferred to another.

Significantly, the demise of the scow as a competitive force in Moths in Australia lead the class to shrink dramatically and even now it is only about a quarter or less or the size it was when scows, which were cheap, fast and easy to sail, dominated. More proof that performance does not equal popularity and that user-friendliness is vital, which is why scows were banned in yacht classes many decades ago.

 

Thank you for that discussion, and upon reflection I think the point is a good one.
In classes where sail area is more open, wide/stable boats have done well.
Since sail area is fixed in Moths, sail area/wetted surface correlates inversely with waterline beam.
Stability comes largely from crew weight.