Conference unifix::sailing

Here's your list, with a few additions, put in some kind of categories:
(I'm most interesting Modern Cruising and Multihulls; the others are 
interesting, but not important to me.)


TRADITIONAL CRUISING - (incl. CCA-type, now used for cruising mostly)

     Starling Burgess
     John Alden
     Phil Rhodes
     Laurent Giles
     Nat Herreshoff
     Olin Stephens
     Sam Crocker

MODERN CRUISING

     Bob Perry
     Gary Hoyt
     Bill Crealock
     Ron Holland (tending into racing) 

MODERN RACING

     German Frers
     Bruce Farr
     Bob Miller/Ben Lexcen (wasn't it Bob, not Bill?)
     Doug Peterson
     Gary Mull
     Bill Lee

MULTIHULL  (These are designers who do other than just the flat-out racers.)

     Dick Newick
     Mick Price
     John Shuttleworth
     Rudy Choy

    Don't forget Bill Tripp.  He did a lot of the work credited to Doug
    Peterson when he worked in that shop.  Now he has reached a
    creditablity all his own.
    
    Also the teams of Nelson/Marek, Graham & Schlageter.  What about
    Joubert Nivelt and Briand?  Lot's of hot boats to their name. 
    Brendon Dobroth can be skipped.  The Johnstones sell a boat or two
    also.
    
    The designers I've dealt with most are Dobroth and Bruce Farr. 
    Currently, the hottest One Tonners are Farr designed.  This applies
    to the Fifties, too.  Dobroth designed the new keel on Fat Tuesday
    as well as the rudder.  While FT was credited to Peterson, we found
    that most of the design work was done by Tripp.  Spoke to him on
    several occasions to get some technical questions answered.
    
    We are looking at some Farr designed boats to replace FT and were
    recently down in Annapolis in the Farr studio talking to designers
    getting their ideas on optimizing used One Tonners for IMS.  Farr
    designs are about the only ones that have the headroom, volume and
    ,surprisingly, interiors to meet the IMS rule.  The Farr people
    track the progress of all their designs and were incredibly helpful.
    
    I'm off the track.  What was the question again?
    
    Dave
    

   Anybody know much about Carl Ahlburg(sp)? I know he designed the
    old Cape Dory's and the Kittiwakes. I've had some experience on
    the Kittiwakes...they seen to be fine boats. Anybody else ever
    sailed one?

RE: .2,

>>>    Don't forget Bill Tripp.  

The more famous Bill Tripp died about ten years ago; he designed many very 
beautiful CCA-era boats, with the Hinckley Bermuda 40 probably the best
known today. 


RE: .3, 

Carl Alberg -- Noted for full-keeled cruisers of the post-CCA vintage,
many in the early fiberglass period.  


J.

    Let us not forget the architect that designed the original O'Day
    27, the only good O'Day ever designed and built.  (Put down the
    rocks!)  I believe his name is Alan Guerney.  The safest, most
    forgiving [and loving] sloop ever, and a h**of a racer! as well
    as a super family cruiser.  (Not too many found today..the owners
    now what they have.)

    I should never have started a list.  Sorry.  Of course there 
    are dozens and dozens of names we could mention.  I was thinking 
    more about discussing particular favorites and why.
    
    For me, Olin Stephens is a big favorite.  He captured
    my imagination with "Ranger" (yes, there was collaboration
    with Starling Burgess).  The power and beauty of that
    J boat were aboslutlely awe inspiring .  And I only
    saw pictures.  The long overhangs, the knuckle bow, the 
    aggresive sheer-line.  Olin's designs are simple, elegant,
    and powerful.  He brought displacement hulls a long way!  
    
    As some of you might recall, I feel that moving displacement 
    smoothly and quickly is every bit as challenging a problem as 
    obtaining absolute speed.  

    Got to get in a word for the Traditionalists! Pete Culler, called
    Capt'n Pete by his friends designed lots of small, traditional type
    boats. He worked in a for several years at Concordia Co, and designed
    the Concordia Sloop there. He published a couple books, and a comple
    catalog of his works has been published since he died.
    
    I met Pete and visited in his shop a few times. Ive built several
    of his designs. His eye for line and proportion was fine, his drafting
    was poor. I once asked him about some missing data on a drawing,
    his reply was something like 'if you know how to build boats you
    wont need that detail'. 
    
    Pete was a driving force in establishing the TSCA to lobby to get
    the Coast Guard to drop their crazy reulations on small boat design-
    by the Coast Guard test a grand banks dory was unsafe- a perfect
    cube raft got the best rating on the test. The rules were dropped. 

RE: .6, 

OK, just my favorites:

Bill Tripp -- Known for his lovely overhangs, low and well-proportioned 
    deckhouses and wide sidedecks, and his trademark wide transom (which
    gives such a spacious and comfortable cockpit.  Look at a B40 closely
    if you've any doubts.  He also performed a remarkable aesthetic feat
    with the LeCompte Medalist, when you consider all he accomplished in
    just 33'! 

Sam Crocker - Designer of the prettiest flushdeck cruisers around; most 
    people know him best through the Stone Horse.  He also pioneered (on 
    larger boats) opening the cockpit seating area up all the way back to the 
    transom, thereby giving 3-4' more in the cockpit (as in the Stone Horse) 
    or in the cabin (as in his 30' cutter series).  For coastal waters, 
    where fear of shipping a sea aboard into such an enormous or aft-placed 
    cockpit is less than at sea, they're great.  He deserves to be much 
    better know than he is; his son Sturgis still runs the family yard in 
    Manchester, MA.

Bob Perry  -- The first and lasting master of the modern fiberglass 
    cruiser.  His greatest contribution to the art has been the modern 
    "cruising" fin keel underbody, as exemplified in his Valiant designs, 
    among many.  Just ask Alan! (or his crew.)

Dick Newick - Having now sailed on several Newick designs (among other 
    cruising multihulls), I find there is something in almost all of Dick's 
    designs which quicken my blood.  No doubt he's got his idiocyncratic 
    design preferences (meaning quirks and shortcomings), but so much of what 
    he does is right, starting with his basic design philosophy that fast is 
    fun, and must be safe and easy to manage.  And his shapes are second to 
    none among all past and present multihull designers in the world. 

J.

    Anyone know of a designer Mcgreggor. I have a 34' cutter that is
    all Alden in construction. It is practically identical to the Alden
    36'Costal Cruiser. I have a sail plan and the design block shows
    a "24" which is the waterline length and the designer is Macgreggor
    and I htink the office is on Boyleston St. in Boston. It would be
    1940s to 1955 vintage. The plan however dooes not state Alden anwhere
    on it.
    
    Thanks
    
    Don

    
    A few designers that stick in my mind for a variety of reasons:
    
    THE LEAST EDUCATED DESIGNER - Ben Lexcen/Bob Miller.  As high school
    dropout he never mastered the math that many contemporaries rely heavily
    on.  Yet it was his insight that literally turned the world of twelve
    meter keels upside down with Australia's winged keel.  Also a one-
    of-a-kind personality in field of bland technocrats.
    
    THE SECOND LEAST EDUCATED DESIGNER - Olin Stephens.  He made it
    through high school at least.  Job prospects for 19 year old college
    dropouts during the depression weren't too promising so the old
    man gave him job drawing up a new boat.  With DORADE Stephens hit
    a home run with a breakthrough boat.  There were very few strikouts
    in the many years and boats that followed.
    
    A WELL EDUCATED DESIGNER - Nat Herreshoff.  He made through the
    same place Stephens dropped out of and acquired a reputation as
    a virtuoso engineer designing and fabricating innovative mechanical
    devices for sail and power vessels.  Yet his most succesful racing
    boats were designed using a pine block and jacknife at strange hours
    of the morning.
    
    THE BEST EDUCATED DESIGNER - Jerry Milgram.  Teaches boat design
    at the place the previous two went to.  Designer and owner of the
    ulgliest and, some say, the most underhanded racing boat ever built
    - CASCADE.  This is a cat ketch (two mains, no jib) with an IOR
    rating so low that, in certain conditions, only had to finish to win.
    Also the designer of ONDINE IV, an 80' IOR maxi which, two years
    after commisioning, was sold for less the the cost of its initial
    sail inventory.  Finally, a principal perpetrator of the IMS velocity
    prediction program which makes a J30 GIVE 10 seconds a mile to an
    S2 34 (in PHRF it's the other way around).
    
    PIONEER IN NEW TECHNOLOGY - Whatsisname (darn, it's on the tip of
    my finger).  Really into modeling and towing tank technology.  First
    to design an America's Cup challanger using towing tank data.  The
    resulting boat MARINER was an unusual looking blunt ended design
    remarkable for its slowness.  Ted Turner was asked to skipper. 
    When he looked at the hull he is quoted as saying "Christ, even
    s**t is pointed at both ends".
    
    BEST RECOVERY BY A DESIGNER - Whatsisname again.  In partnership
    with Dave Pedrick, Whatsisname redeemed himself in the design of
    STAR AND STRIPES which won the cup back from Australia.  Some one
    told him about using scaling factors in using tank data in the years
    that intervened.
    
    MOST SINGLE MINDED DESIGNER - John Marshall.  Not even a designer
    but the one who believed the weatherman who said it would blow like
    stink in January in Australia.  The STARS AND STRIPES design effort
    pivoted on this assumption.  There were some races in the eliminations
    that made this look like the wrong assumption but Marshall stuck
    to his guns.  Good thing he did.
    
    MOST TIGHTFISTED DESIGNER - Ted Hood.  Designs 'em himself, builds
    'em himself, and sails 'em himself.  Still using the same boat he
    built eons ago, ROBIN.  Still winning a lot of races with it too.
    ROBIN's heavy, elegant, but fast.  Not too many boats with that
    combination.
    
    MOST EFFICIENT DESIGNER - Bruce Kirby.  Sketched out the LASER during
    a lunch break on a paper napkin.  Then sat back to watch the $$$$
    roll in.
    
    MOST ENDURING DESIGNER - Olin Stephens again.  DORADE is still
    sailing.  COURAGEOUS is still used.  And my 30 year old interclub
    dinghy still floats.
    
    MOST LAID BACK DESIGNER - Hobie Alter.  Who else.  
    
    - gene

    
    I think what'shisname is Brit Chance. Mariner and the trial horse
    Valiant? were both given "fastback" stern section. They produced
    quarterwaves almost big enough for a surfboard to ride.
    
    One unconfirmed story from a friend who worked in the Newport yard
    that serviced the Mariner syndicate. Two straps were used on the
    hoist to haul the boat, forward and aft of the keel. Once when 
    Mariner was being lowered in, the rear strap slid off the highly
    sloped stern. The transom was said to have missed the seawall by
    inches as the boat dropped into the water with a BIG splash.
    
    Later, they had to cut Mariners stern off for a redesign. Hitting
    the wall might have saved some time and money!

    re my .9
    
    Charles G. MacGregor
    Naval Architect
    185 Devonshire St.
    Boston, Mass.
    
    

    
       For folks who enjoy this sort of thing, there's a book entitled
    "A Life in Boats, The Years Before the War" by Waldo Howland which
    is a personal and entertaining account of boats, boating, and the
    people who sailed and designed them around Buzzards Bay during the
    years 1900-1940.
    
       It's the sort of nostalgic look at the beautiful sailing ships
    of the past that makes you self-conscious about owning an auxilliary.
    
       - Jim
    

    WHAT ABOUT FIFE
    
    Because I have never seen a design or 'photo of a Fife boat
    which does not look great...and because I have one.  Built in 1911,
    and still in great condition.
    
    Regards,
    
    Peter

    RAY HUNT
    
    Although Ray Hunt is probably best known for his deep-v hulls ie. Black
    Watch, he did do great work with Concordia way back when. He was also
    responsible for the 210, 110 and the 510 racing classes. Although RH
    died in the late '60s (?) Ray Hunt Associates is still going in Boston
    with John Deknatel and Peter Boyce, who did the new Concordia 50.
    
    Glenn 

    I really can't believe that no one mentioned one of Canada's great
    natural resources, William Garden.  For imagination, romance and
    incredible cartoon-like drafting (meant in the most positive sense) he
    can't be beat.  Check out his 60' by 5' double-ended motor-rocket in
    the book William Garden; Yacht Designs.  I visited his studio up in
    Vancouver, B.C.  The man is completely dedicated to what he does.  Most
    impressive.
    
    RDB

    RE. .14
    
    What Fife design do you have?  I did some sailing on Cotton Blossom,
    ex. Halloween.  Great Fife design which used to be in Marblehead. 
    BEEEUTIFUL!!!