NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS 

Moths, Mercury and Marauder.

Update 16th Jan 2011. A new series of photos documenting the construction of Marauder 1005 have been uploaded to the pages created for this boat.

Nick Smith busy at work building Marauder 1005. A whole series of photographs have now been uploaded detailing the work that went into the boat that would become the best and most successful boat even seen in the class.

Yet more pictures coming in to the site - a big thank you to Dave Whittock and to Mike Ewart. As well as being a keen Marauder sailor, David used to sail another of the interesting West Country classes, the Mercury. Look for more information on the Mercury in the coming months.

A Mercury photographed at Bristol Avon Sailing Club circa 1968! The boat went on to win the Avon Paddle later that day.

Ewart meanwhile has been able to provide someinteresting pictures of tunnel scow moths, including one taken of a fast US boat. It is worth remembering that the International Moth went from the superwide scows to the narow skiffs in one 'generation'. Again, there will be more pictures in this series to come.

Nicknamed the 'kitchen door' the tunnel scow moth was all conquering until the arrival of the new low displacement, narrow hulled boats.

Brigantine, a US tunnel scow moth at speed showing how just a little heel allowed the hull to 'unstick'! Fireball designer Peter Milne was another how was involved in the development of the scow moth. History will show however that this was a developmental cul-de-sac...... watch out for more on this story.

Mirror 143/Marauder fans - another picture uploaded on the Mirror 14 Story page..go to..

http://bearfacemedia.co.uk/WebSitePageEditor/default.aspx?fileUrl=TheBellMirror14.aspx

Tony Rutherford Pictures:

Work is in hand to try to locate more of the pictures taken by Hayling Islander Tony Rutherford. A keen photographer and Hayling Island Sailing Club member, Tony's photographs doucument some of the great sailing that took place in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Amongst the boats that featured in Tony's portfolio are some of the iconic dinghies of the day.... International 14s and 10m2 canoes, such as the picture shown below of the World Championship winning Shrike, coming back up the Hayling Channel at full speed.

Luckily, many of Tony's photographer are still in safe hands, it is hoped that early in 2011 some of these can be scanned and shown in public again

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HADRON - colliding forces create a new singlehander.

For people outside of the Merlin Rocket class, the name of keith Callaghan may not be familar. This is a shame, as Keith has for a long time been one of dinghy sailing's innovators, with designs in the 12, Merlins, 14s, not to mention an interesting 'sportsboat'.

In the world of single handers, Keit is probably best know for the Harrier, the boat that was known as the 'single handed Merlin'. A clever compromise between sitting out power and stability, for a while the Harrier looked to be gaining the middle ground in the single handed world, but already the shortcomings of the class were becoming apparent.  Basically, the GRP construction had resulted in a boat that was overweight, whilst the rig lacked sophistication and power. Come the Laser and the deathknell of the Harrier sounded!

A young Lawrie Smith sails his fathers Harrier, showing off the Merlin derived hull form.

For a few years in the 1990s the class enjoyed something of a renaissance up on the Humber, where the sailors beefed up the transom (always a weak area in the boat) and stepped a Phantom rig. Now known as a Harrier+ the boat was a marked improvement on the original, yet the fundamental problems remained.

Despite being underpowered in its original format, the Harrier was still a single hander that could carry weight. Given that the Phantom is not CVRDA legal, we can but hope that soon we will see m ore Harriers at classic dinghy events.

Fast forward now to 2010. With a presentation coming up at Hayling Island Sailing on the failures of the skiff 'revolution' I contacted Keith about the Harrier with a question; If he were to redraw the Harrier to make the most of 21st century thinking, how would it look.  This struck a chord with the designer, as he had been thinking along similar lines for some time.

At the heart of the debate is the thought that the  modern boatbuilding scene have done wonders for youth, but at the other end of the age demographics, boats are becoming unfriendly for the silver sailor.

some of the criteria being considered were...

A higher boom - to allow easier tacking

A deep enough cockpit to allow for sailors to be comfortable - no kneeling on the floor!

the boat must float with the centreboard level with the water to allow easy recovery following a capsize

Weight is crucial - it must be easily moved about on shore.

Centreboard not dagger board - easy to use for the older sailor

The sail must be easily hoistable and droppable - afloat if needs be.

The boat must have vice free handling

The hull has to be easily driven so that the rig does not have to be overlarge

The boat had to perform well on handicap at club level racing

Yet, at the same time, the call was still for a performance dinghy; this is not the sailing equivalent of a zimmer frame. 

Work on the design, now know as the Hadron, has progressed with the first boat expected to hit the water late spring 2011.

An interesting development of the Hadron might be to rig the boat with an optional asymmetric spinnaker

The clean lines of Hadron show that like the Harrier, the hull should be powerful, with plenty of flair in the hull from the narrow waterline.

Keith's thinking with Hadron is very much influenced by the requirements in the Merlin Rocket class - where Keith is one of the few designers trying to challenge the dominance of the Winder built boats. The idea behind hadron is that it can be made  as a '4 plank' contstruction - making for east home construction.

A great deal of work has gone into the Hadron to create an interior that is ergonomically aligned to the needs of the sailor.

As work gets underway on the two prototype Hadrons Bearfacemedia will be on hand to document the construction process. Hadron will then move to it's own pages, maybe even it's own website!

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The Bearfacemedia Interview Series is now well underway. The aim of the series is simple: Get to the 'greats', the people behind the innovations, the boats and the sailing that have made the sport of dinghy racing such a fantastic place to be, set up a video recorder and a high quality voice recorder - then get them talking!

I can but say a big thank you to all those who have already either been interviewed, or are on the programme to be so in the near future. It is not easy to be 'under lights' and then forced to talk about the past - pushed even, to delve down into the bad days as well as the good.

A big thank you to the recent interviewees, who include Rosemary Banks (widow of sailmaker and 4 times PoW Winner Bruce Banks), Jack Chippendale, Mike Mcnamara and Nick Truman.

Despite his boat building career starting before the war, Jack Chippendale remains actively involved in many aspects of marine construction. Amongst his current projects are an investigation into more ecologially sound techniques of boat building (just do not mention glass sheathed strip planking). A charming host who is well equipped with an inexhaustible supply of stories from the golden years of dinghy racing, Jack has to be one of the all time 'greats'! He is working towards his biography, a work that we will await with great interest.

67 years young and an inspiration to us all, 'Mike Mac' is still working hard at sailing making. When he is not in the loft, he is still a major force to be reckoned with out on the open meeting and championship circuit. In his interview, I asked mike to 'define' his life; his answer was perfect...he has spent his time just trying to drive his boats through the water faster. In the picture, Mike is busy checking the paper pattern for the sail that will grace dinghy designer Keith Callaghan's new 'Hadron' singlehander, a boat that Bearfacemedia has been involved with since day 1.

Mirror 14/Marauder News

A further big thank you must go to Carolynn and Nick Smith, who have kindly sent in a very detailed overview of how their mutiple championship winnig Marauder '1005' came about. Nick and Carolynn promise that there will be some pictures soon to help illustrate their subject. Go to the Mirror 14 Story from the menu on the left hand side and look for '1005'.

More 'Lost Classes' news.

Hot on the heels of the news that Classic Dinghy regular Rupert Whelan has purchased a wooden Minisail, is the news that another of these snappy little singlehanders has turned up, again in pristine condition. It must not be forgotten that before the days of the Laserand Topper, that the Minisail, in both it's wooden and GRP guises, was very much THE sporty lightweight singlehander. Indeed, the Sprint version even sported a sliding seat.

But this is not the only news regarding lost classes, for 2011 will see several more joining in on the classic dinghy circuit. What boats will these be.... well...watch this space!

Unit 7 - Again!

This facinating picture of the well know sailor and yachting writer David Pelly sailing in  Richard Creagh-Osbourne's  'Unit 7' at Lymington, came to light recently courtesy of David Thomas, It shows David sailing in the second Unit built, though it is marked as number 7, as R C-O always liked to have the 'lucky' number somewhere on the sail. The picture was probably taken late in 1965/early 1966.

 You can learn a great deal from studying some of these older pictures........... not the least in the sitting out aid that Richard thought was to be the future. The idea of racing a dinghy single handed from a trapeze was considered to be unseamanlike.....

What is very noticeable is that as the helm moves his weight outboard, it boat will be trimed by the transom until such time as the  pole is more fully extended which would then bring the weight further forward.This is just the opposite to how you want things to be - in marginal conditions, as you move your weight outside of the gunwale, it needs to be forward! (not to mention how much all those fittings and supports weighed in the boat!!

Check out as well the extension of the centreboard capping that runs all the way from the back of the plate to the transom - that must have made tacking the boat a REAL pleasure!

Yet this was by no means the most bizzarre of the hiking aids considered for the 1965 IYRU dinghy Trials. Watch this space for an even bigger 'horror show'

Unit 7 later converted to a traditional sliding seat and the mast moved aft.... I'm investigating to see if I can find andy more details on this!!

The story of the Unit is one of the great 'what ifs' in dinghy development. Although not as 'pretty' as the Contender (which was to come later) the hull shape of the Unit was way ahead of normal dinghy design of the time. Had David Thomas, along with boatbuilder Jack Chippendale, continued the development of the boat, in particular with regard to hull weight and had they drafted in a top helm for the second and third series of Trials, then the selection of the Contender might just never have happened.

Having fairly extensive experience of both boats (the Unit and Contender) I am still struck at just how good the David Thomas boat is, 40+ years after it was first launched.Going to windward the boat feels very good, whilst offwind the hull shape gives speed and the sensation of stability, without the feeling tat you can get in the Contender sometimes that the back of the hull is sliding away from you. What one cannot do of course is to compare the boats as like for like.... the Contender of today is a well sorted, sophisticated flyer that just has the aded bonus of being one of the best looking boats out on the water (no surprise there as the hull is a direct rip off from the FD). But if you could time warp it bacck to the time of the trials and then compare a Contender from that era with the Unit, well, I can see that there would be very little in it.

Luckily Unit 7 is now in yet another pair of  sympathic hands and we look forward to seeing it on the Classic Dinghy Circuit in 2011.

DH

Hooked On, the book of the Contender, is now in stock.

Go to

dougal@bearfacemedia.co.uk

to place your order.

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New series...One size does not fit all.

This new series will actually comprise a pair of blogs. The first will follow the work needed to bring the all wood Contender AUS 278 'jester' up to a specification that will make it an acceptable boat to take to the 2011 Worlds at Weymouth.

Is that a Contender? Ace builder Ian Ridge asked the question when he saw AUS 278 upside down on the tressels in the Metre Shed at Swanwick. Yes, both the hull form and the Rocker line are flat but the boat measures and has a certificate. At least it is 'all' wood - no hint of a questionable foam core here.

Amongst the many problems identified with AUS is a cockpit floor in very bad condition. It appears that at some point the floor may have been routed out to make an insert space for progrip. No problems there, or there wouldn't have been had the ply then been properly sealed. It wasn't, with the obvious result that the ply started to delaminate..

How this was dealt with, plus detailed reports on the other work undertaken on the boat will all feature in a series of articles starting soon.+++++++++++++++++++++++++

The second will focus on a new approach to the Classic Dinghy scene. Again, in blog form, the focus will be on 'what boat is best' for handicap sailing in the Classic Series. A single hander, Finn, OK or 'A N Other' or a more typical 2 hander - but what? Pegasus maybe, a Seafire....Merlin Rocket.... or maybe a real classic, a Fairey Boat. As the plan takes shape, follow the work needed to gain success at on teh Classic Circuit! 

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 Classic Dinghy Racing will now have a new section where news, a diary of events, reports, pictures and a whole host of useful information. Just click on the link titled 'Classic Dinghy Events' and follow the menu to the required page.

Classic dinghies waiting to go afloat at Netley during the 2008 Nationals. The famous Hornet 'Shoestring' is in the foreground.

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Bearfacemedia is home from Brisbane!

For once, the hype that proceeds any big event actually ended up being something less than that the reality. The RQYS (Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron) ran an excellent event and the conditions promised on the event website (sunshine and regular sea breezes) made for perfect racing conditions. Most of all, the event was, as the Beach Boys used to sing

"Fun, fun, fun"

It matters not how quick you're sailing when you are having as much fun as this. Suellen Hurling, who enjoyed the success that comes from running such a well managed event, took some time out to capture some great photos. Here the strip planked AUS 278 looks to be behaving beautifully.... but with a set of rig and foils cobbled together for the event the result was slow with a capital S.

AUS 278 may have been slow, but the problems were clearly more an issue of rig and foils (not to mention some poor sailing) rather than a fundamental issue with the hull itself. As is to be expected from a hull with minimal rocker, the boat appeared to prefer the flatter water, though in these conditions the lack of a working kicker and clew control probably had a huge impact on overall performance (a quick look at the picture above shows the leech falling away)

Watch out for ongoing reports on the work to update and improve AUS 278 as preparations start for the Europeans that will be held at La Rochelle in July.

(both photos Courtesy Suellen Hurling/RQYS)

AUS 278 showing off the attractive woodwork that makes up the hull construction, a build technique that seems incredibly strong. The word is that when the bare hull was first laid up it was light, with extra stiffening going in to the decks to bring the weight up to nominal.

What the picture does not show is that the hull is right on the tolerances along the rocker line and is also very flat in the aft sections. Interestingly, the hull seemed fuller in the bow sections which could account for the fact that in the washing machine conditions in Moreton Bay that the boat seemed less inclined than other Contenders to dig the bow in.

Read the blogs from the event that have been posted on this site, just go to 'Brisbane Worlds' and follow the event from there.

During the work required to complete 'Hooked on' (the story of the Contender) this picture came to light. It shows the author sailing at Weston in K254, the first boat out from the new Tony Smith mould. The rig is a proctor Alpha, complete with high set forward diamonds and a 'Gale-Smith' sail. Light and very stiff, the boat proved an immediate success but suffered a major structural failure at the 1978 Europeans at Lake Garda and was eventually written off.