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5th March 2008, 11:53 PM #1
Interesting rules of boat building - Australian History of wooden yacht/boat design
I just came across this.
http://home.clara.net/gmatkin/therules.htm
Some serious, some not
the best one has to be
" it is important to assume, I think, that at one time or another your boat will be completly sunmerged and / or capsised, and to be extra safe that it will be completly filled with water. So you need a boat capable of coping with these posibilities".
cheersAny thing with sharp teeth eats meat.
Most powertools have sharp teeth.
People are made of meat.
Abrasives can be just as dangerous as a blade.....and 10 times more painfull.
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6th March 2008, 04:14 PM #2
I've had that "list" for several years and I'm not sure who compiled it, but it appears to be "quips, quotes and common understanding".
I knew Howard Chapelle (several of his observations are on the list) as a young man. Designers of his era where beyond what we'd recognize as brilliant. These men knew design from a different, much more practical angle. They knew how to design an Open 70 (for example) but wouldn't ever dream of asking a crew to suffer it's bad manners or expose them to the higher likelihood of sudden, massive failure, these trends seem to produce. They did produce smaller, just as radical craft, but craft that wouldn't venture farther from shore, then the crew could swim back to. I've sailed a few of these "witches" and it's amazing more weren't killed or lost. This is a testament to the skills, the designers and crews mastered, much of which is long lost.
I wish my time with Howard (Chap as he was called) was longer and that I was more interested in absorbing his wealth of knowledge. I was more interested in getting laid and trying to get a Soling over 15 knots, then spending time with a guy, who's idea of a good time was wandering though a marina, discussing why one boat's run was better suited for it's tasks that another's. What fools we are when we're young.
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6th March 2008, 09:26 PM #3
Howdy PAR,
If you knew Howard Chapelle as a young man I am really impressed.
That would make you around 112 years old if you were sailing a Soling at that time!!! I'd love to get you in a set of hiking hobbles now and see how you go ol' fella!
OK - Now ... Howdy All,
Seriously ... I was just writing on the PDRacer group a few days ago as people were actually trying to use that list to design PDRacers.
This is what I wrote there.
Howdy Andrew, Gavin's collection of "The Rules" is meant to be read
like the poetry of T. S. Elliot.
If you try to read it logically it just doesn't work.
If you try to use it to plan your life - it is disaster.
But within the world of emotions and art ... it is sublime!
There is so much bad advice in that list. But the major flaw (which I
am sure Gavin understands clearly - I can see his sense of humour
working through the whole thing and he does make a number of
knowledgeable observations - about Chichester and his fourth boat -
for example) ...
...is that there are no rules.
Someone reading from a lay perspective ... will be tempted to think
that there are such things.
However I would divide the items into groups ...
TRUE, DOUBTFUL, FALSE, and IMPOSSIBLE TO TEST
I promise the true ones will be the smallest group by far - and that
is a hint and it is also an indication of what I think about what is
on that page.
Best wishes
Michael
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6th March 2008, 09:36 PM #4
And here in the quote below was my reply to myself on the same group.
See ... part of the problem with the list is if you know exactly what is being talked about many of the items start to make more sense. For example some of the comments are true of the types of boats that were being talked about, but fail to apply to the generalised case that "the rules" make them appear to fit.
(PAR - I am very jealous you got to meet Chapelle!!! I don't necessarily think that he was one of the best analysers - but as far as profoundly affecting what followed ... wow. He is one of the links between the past and modern times (whatever they are) for those who are not aware of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Chapelle
But to bring the focus in. "On what", you might ask. "On me" I would answer.
First of all - I think I was a bit grumpy a few days ago - apologies
if I seemed that way.
I have been mulling over a problem - if we look at Gavin's partly
"meant for entertainment" list of "The Rules" and I tell you that most
are rubbish ... where does that leave you all.
So I did wrong brothers and sisters!!!!
If I was going to suggest an alternative ... what would it be?
The best answers I can come up with are to look in the same places I
learned about tradtional rigs from.
You see ... the problem is that the net is full of misinformation ...
so I would generally move to pre-net sources.
For traditional type rigs I have learned most of what I know almost
unconsciously - by looking at old boat photos and plans from the masters.
Either of the Herreshoffs, Garden, Atkin, Wittholtz - you all probably
know the names and more. Look at their mast rakes, their spar lengths
etc.
Then there are the modern designers who are knowledgeable enough to
draw both sensible and efficient rigs. Bolger and Iain Oughtred have
both written articles and play with a number of different rigs in a
highly intelligent way that few can match.
Also traditional workboats are a good example - so look at those
photos too - or any historical drawings - Peabody Museum, Mystic
Seaport (have publications and online photos as do many major
libraries), Oyster sharpies, Pinky Schooners, Thames Barges, Falmouth
Quay punts, Arab Dhows, Chasee Marees.
The first group - the "greats" knew how to draw up rigs that
performed. The second, working boats usually represent hundreds of
years of evolution. There is a lot of efficiency built-in.
A major point I would like to make is that if anyone starts aaying
that one rig is significantly better than another ... they just don't
know their stuff.
The differences are much greater from correct and incorrect setup of
the sails on the spars when you rig the boat.
Another good test ... is if someone says a boomless rig is more
efficient for sailing at any time they are blissfully ignorant of how
to make sails work efficiently (there is a different TYPE of
efficiency for a boomless rig - ease of rigging and low labour and
cost - but performance or predictable handling ain't the benefits
If someone claims a breakthrough with some boat that looks a bit weird
or different ... it is probably just a weird or different boat that
will fade away within months or a year. If they don't get it out on a
racecourse there is no chance of them ever being disappointed with its
true performance.
Be particularly wary if the boat is on paper or is a model - neither
is like the real world unless the analysis is very careful and
knowlegeable.
Now if you want to improve the efficiency of your boats ... there is
only one place to look. Almost anything that departs from conventional
racing dinghy practice will be slower than almost everything else.
So if you want to know the depth of a centreboard, or rudder, or sail
area, or where the crew should sit, or how sails should be trimmed, or
how sails and masts work together - that is the area that is most
useful. Maybe not for every detail - but as an excellent starting
point - it is a good one.
For example ... how much sail for a puddle duck? A Laser which is a
bigger hull for one person to hold up with body weight carries 76
square feet (a bit more by the time the luff and foot round is included).
Another example - how deep to make the centreboard or leeboard? Most
racing boats will have centreboards a bit less or a bit more than 3ft
in the water. Some two person boats with a trapeze - a wire from the
top of the mast so the crew only touches the boat with the soles of
the feet will be somewhat deeper as they can provide a lot more
rightging moment.
You won't get any useful information from the modern boats about
alternatives - like gaff rigs or leeboards - but for a general run of
optimum sizings they again have a couple of hundred years of evolution
behind them.
For years yacht design followed quite a different course from dinghy
development - but in the past three decades almost all the yacht
design advances are things that dingies have been using for decades.
Keel yacht design was a considerable backwater because they keep
thinking up rating rules that give emphasis to some measuremets and
ignore others. The result is to win ... you have to know the rule
very well - rather than look for good outright performance.
Most modern designers in the area which we are interested in - small
wooden boats - are not the most knowlegeable lot and not the most
experienced lot either. It is a backwater. A nice backwater - it is
very good for one's soul to spend time in it.
but to gain knowledge it becomes important to have a look out in the
mainstream to see what parts are worth choosing and what parts are
just too expensive or complicated to be concerned with.
Keep the backwater attitude (sawdust and spray) but look outside to
gain knowlede. To flip it to a positive way ... if you take the
lessons from the areas I am suggesting above then you will be able to
design boats, sails and rigs better than 70% of the more popular
wooden boat designers.
But dont forget that a bigger difference is made when you rig the boat
to go sailing. But don't use this as an excuse to say that rig design
is not important. Two pluses are a bigger plus - always.
Best wishes
Michael Storer
Manfred Curry anyone? Lime Pickle?
Best wishes
MIK
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6th March 2008, 09:54 PM #5
Hi Soundman,
You got the tone just right!
It is not in Gavin's list, but one of my friends is building a beautiful 38ft trimaran by one of the Greats in that field.
The design dates from the 80's but it looks more modern than about 99% of multi designs that currently exist (Midge, PAR and some others will know which designer I am talking about now)
However, since it was drawn up the conventions about sails and rigs and other details have moved on to new ground. Not a lot, but enough to take some lessons from.
So when my friend phones the designer about simple ways to get more speed - like cut the mainsail outline differently without changing the masst the designer always gives the same reply.
"You ever been scared at sea, son?"
My friend is a former school mate - so we are both at the wrong end of our 40's.
It needs to be in the list too I think!!!
MIK
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7th March 2008, 04:32 PM #6
Man, I'm not that old yet. I still enjoy whipping the Hobie cat guy on our local lake, with my skiff (which pisses him off to no end and likely why I pick on him so much). Chappy (I was the only one to get away with calling Howard Chapelle this, that I know of, probably because of my age) did "decorate" many of the lines he picked up from old wrecks he was attempting to catalog for posterity. His logic was that the hull would have look as such, if it wasn't so badly hogged from lying on a beach for the last 10 years of its life (an example, that he mentioned once). I also believe he took liberties in many other regards during his documentation of American sailing craft. Much was "informed" speculation, but I suspect some was also pure conjecture. His observations were often clouded with "old school" concepts and ideas, based in a different time. He often knew the builders personally or was aware of them as a builder. Some of the older craft documented, he relied on friends and relatives "recollections" of the work, which was often insufficient. I found his ability to understand the convolutions of compromise, used in a particular design right on, but of course with his clearly biased view of specific details or as he would have called them "a contrivance".
You must remember when he was in his formative years, sailing was at it zenith. He rode a horse to school, was educated by someone who likely had leaches applied to them at some point for medical reasons, marine railways were powered by oxen or steam engines in the larger shops and rowing to the local store was a common occurrence. Huge fleets of sailing ship, including every imaginable shape and scale, plied the waters, filling every harbor, bay, river and waterfront. I've seen photos of this era and would have loved to skipper many of the prizes seen in those images, but I was born half a century too late. His childhood was a time when a young man wore his Sunday best to battle. I was drafted into the Army and went kicking and screaming.
Of the few real vessels, from these glory days of sail I have handled, most were just plain dangerous, difficult to handle without very large and well skilled crews and analyses of the structures and "numbers' would make the modern designer cringe with the thought of being farther from shore then you could swim back to. The first Pride of Baltimore was an excellent example of this. I was aboard her in the early 80's and found her to be outrageously over canvassed, no watertight or collision bulkheads, though she was large enough to be comfortable in a lump of sea, smaller models of her type would be a nasty, wet ride with a violent motion. She was a replica of a the topsail schooner Chasseur, which was built in the early 1800's (1812 I think). She was lost with the skipper and two other hands, after only nine years service. I knew both hands.
Shown here with a bone in her teeth is the replacement, called Pride of Baltimore II. By comparison, this vessel has half the sail area, twice the ballast and passes the USCG requirements for a modern, passenger for hire craft. She, not as sexy as the first Pride, but a lot safer. She retains the elements of the Baltimore clipper (or as Chapelle would call her, a Baltimore sharp ended pilot type of that era). This boat is a joy to sail, is easy on the helm and crew (it has a motor too, which the original didn't), has a nice motion and is easier to sail, especially fast, which she is.
About the list and my ramblings, most of it is now out of context and interesting discussion for historically inclined folks like me, but without understanding of why the designers of different eras did what they did, completely useless, for the most part. Placing the pointy end on the front of the boat is helpful, if not intuitive, but the ratios and other odd bits of trivia interesting only in a historical perspective, with an understanding of the designers skills or times.
For what it's worth Michael, I did eventually get that old Soling clocked a touch over 16 knots. I suspect the multihull designer you mentioned is living on that same mysterious, uncharted, unknown south Pacific atoll, that seemly most of the early multihull designers (and many sailors) disappeared to, usually too early in their lives.
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7th March 2008, 08:16 PM #7
Great bit of writing PAR - thanks hugely. It is the sort of thing that we miss out a bit in Australia.
Now I can say I know a bloke who knew ...
MIK
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7th March 2008, 09:22 PM #8
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8th March 2008, 12:46 PM #9
I've met a number of the greats over the years, but I can't say I was friends with any, other then old Chappy. I met L. Francis once, what an arrogant old fart (my young, possibly incorrect impression), but brilliant. White, Stevens, Owens and several others, mostly I was just grateful to shake their hand and look them in the eye. John Gardner had the most disarming smile and his gaze at a passing wake was intense. You could see the gears turning inside his head. His sense of humor was one of a kind, not a joke teller, but just a witty person, that caught you off guard often with the dryness and cleverness of it all.
You have your share of fine designers, down at the other end of the big puddle. Are they all recluses (like Bolger is here)?
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8th March 2008, 07:19 PM #10
Ive certainly noticed how many designers around the world you actually have to write to.
Oughtred would probably acknowledge himself as profoundly Australian influenced.
Probably the big name/s here would have to be
Bob Miller/Ben Lexcen who is one of the few that called himself a "designer". He was great in some ways - particularly in giving speeches - just fantastic - and his design work includes some of the great successes of Australian yacht design as well of some of the most significant failures.
Allan Payne for his 12 metres (he focussed on earning money from commercial shipping - I really like his eye with some quite modern hulltypes with the right amount of retro to look good on Sydney Harbour - his catamaran ferries for example - love them to bits).
At this point I am kinda struggling. The problem is that Australia has never really had people like Chapelle who went round and recorded boats and information. We have lost a huge amount and a huge amount more is in individual heads rather than out in the public realm.
For example there are a couple of people here (I mean on this particular forum) that have an enthusiasm for Pearling Luggers - of which there are only a few left in very poor condition. They have actually crawled underneath the things when they were up on the slip for other purposes and measured them off. Most have been lost without anyone really bothering to do this type of thing.
Another problem is the small size of the boat market here and that many people who designed also had "real" jobs so output was really limited.
There are also a lot of people who specialised in one narrow area - but were/are consummate. Michael Nash (NS14s, Cherubs, 12ft skiffs) Ken Beashell (skiffs) Iain Murray (skiffs and commercial ocean racing boats and America's cup boats - but more a centre of a team rather than a self designer), Bethwaites J and F and M (NS14s and skiffs and similar). These are modern names from the 70s mostly.
You know, we have lost so much and probably most well informed wooden boaters in OZ would know a lot more about the US designers and a bit about the Brits.
I would tend to say that NZ has always had a greater depth of designers than we have in Australia and many of the innovations have come from the friendly and not so friendly competition between our two great nations. I can reel of around a dozen significant designers in NZ, but Oz I am struggling.
In Multihulls we were pretty well represented. Hedley Nicol - not great designs but there at the beginning and one of the great undersung multi designers - the great Lock Crowther.
I am just feeling my way a bit writing this - it is that we don't have names like either of the Herreshoffs or Fife etc who designed a wide range of different craft from workboats to Millionaires "mine is bigger than yours" type vessels. There has never been a great deal of faith in Australian designers. They always orded Fifes or Luders or Sparkman and Stephens or Hartley or Farr.
Also there has never been a strong cruising tradition here - in the same way that Bolger or L F Herreshoff (after 1935 or 40) could spend most of their time designing cruising boats.
Also while I would frequently argue that our small wooden boat builders have been ahead of the world game making very light but very durable structures (along with the New Zealanders) our view of yacht construction has been very backward with wooden boats using the same building methods they were a hundred years previously and very few people trained as shipwrights or boatbuilders getting the chance to build many boats from laying the keel on up (apart for WW2 - and then most the designs were standardised ones from the USA or UK).
Australia only got into double diagonal really after WW2 when the best British boats had been using for 5 decades by then, and somehow we missed the various innovations of the Herreshoffs - composite diagonal bracing - elimination of the Timber keel in keelboats by landing the garboard on the lead ballast.
Some of this may be due to the lower incomes and the lack of extreme wealth too. This is all extra work that someone has to pay for.
I'd be really interested to see some response to this from the locals.
Michael
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9th March 2008, 04:16 AM #11
It's interesting you mention there's been no one like Chapelle, to catalog the different sailing craft. Howard found the same problem you have and just elected himself the keeper of boat lines. Even at the end of his life (when I knew him) he felt the job was far from over and hoped it would get picked up by someone. He was able to establish funding through several organizations, but often just feel on a hull, dieing on a beach or in someone's barn. He'd look her over, his wealth of knowledge likely recognizing it's distorted shapes, then he pull off her lines, if he needed to record that particular model. He tried to record several of the same model, though frequently found only one of the type in good enough condition to do so.
This may be a calling Michael. Maybe you could set up a consortium to fund an effort(s). I would suspect there are several maritime historical associations, likely single class related, that could be persuaded into tossing interest, if not money into an effort like this.
It's a life long job. I remember seeing Chappy lying under a broken old workboat, that was blocked up. He was on his back, with a 4 foot straight edge in his hand and he was looking at the stern sections of this boat, placing the straight edge at different angles to the centerline. I crawled under with him and asked what he was doing. His reply was he wanted to understand why this particular type was more economical to operate then other similar models of the type. He then lost me in a discussion of it's shallower hook and flatter run, coupled with the fine entry and deeper forefoot, but I was engaged and listened anyway, until I noticed the cute blonde in the yellow shorts, standing alone on the near by dock, who obviously needed my assistance. He knew he'd made a dent in the effort, but much more needed to be done (he figured). He like you, felt badly about many types being lost forever, with no examples remaining to record, but he had hope one would show up in a barn or under a tarp in a car port and that someone would recognize the type and call an organization to come and record the lines.
Okay OZ's, who among you is willing to step up, climb around old wrecks, filled with bees and snakes and record the lines, for little money and lots of hard work? You'll be famous, but you'll have to wait until you're dead most likely and a book or two before you go would be helpful.
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9th March 2008, 11:23 PM #12
Howdy PAR, not my calling, I am too busy surviving!!!
The person who has done the most to my knowledge is my favourite Australian designer - David Payne. He started off by recording boats and doing beautiful drawings of traditional types and in recent years he has pursued his design business a bit more part time but has worked a bit more full time at the "National" Maritime Museum in Sydney. I think the latest project is a registry of notable boats that are still around.
The genius of Chapelle is that there was a lot of folk knowledge about the different sailing types.
If you write about a sharpie - overall length 6 times the breadth of bottom. Bottom in profile straight for 1/3 the way back from the bow. ...
There is a great deal of useful info in Chapelle - so despite some defects it is astoundingly USEFUL. It is hard to be so clearly defined about anything other than a sharpie because such generalisations don't sit well with a more complex shape.
Also Chapelle was writing in the biggest marketplace in the world about their own boats. David Payne and the Sydney Wooden Boat Association put together a beautiful book of notable designs - but they are still selling copies very slowly years later.
MIK
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14th March 2008, 10:45 AM #13
Howdy All,
I wrote to David Payne who is both a designer (and friend) and works professionally in the National Maritime Museum to see what he would have to say about my ravings and the general thread of discussion.
The interesting thing is that much of the material in David's email doesn't get out very often. For example despite being highly interested in both boats I didn't know ENA and BOOMERANG were by the same designer - Walter Reeks.
Anyway ... have a read.
Originally Posted by David Payne - emailLast edited by Boatmik; 13th July 2009 at 11:30 AM.
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2nd June 2008, 02:40 PM #14Says it all...
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Michael, Glad you included David Payne, cos he's brought up the man I would have added - Walter Reeks, a severely neglected designer whose body of work is amazing in its breadth, utility and style, from Sydney Harbour ferries (and ferries all over Australia including WA for that matter), to steam yachts, powerboats and pearling luggers, and anything else he was asked to do.
I love the way he managed to turn out practical boats to fulfil a design function, yet have a inherent sense of "rightness" that gladdens a sailor's heart.
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2nd June 2008, 03:59 PM #15
Howdy Luggerite!
Thanks to you I now know that he designed boats in other areas! I should have guessed about that - but I sorta had the assumption he was Sydney only. Silly me!
Just for everyone else ... we are not talking little biccies here.
This is Ena - you can hire her for the day BTW
The restoration project was overseen by the wonderful late Nick Masterman.
Boomerang is part of the Sydney Heritage Fleet. I think she has a broken back so cannot be used for sailing anymore. But she motors around the Harbour from time to time.
Nothing ruins the lines of a sailing boat like putting a motor in the wrong place - I'd think that would be the reason for Boomerang to be so far down by the tail.
Reek ...
definitely big biccies!!!
Michael Storer
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