Sawse - Stir it Up!

There existed many a historical design, which deserved to be constructed today, and many of which would form the basis of new designs. We are sadly mistaken if we believe that 20th Century boat design is a steady evolution from primitive older boats to modern sophisticated boats. Sure there have been some real concrete developments on many fronts; unfortunately though, too many external factors have also intruded like the inclusion of turbulence in modern times. Two World Wars ate up many pleasure boats and ended or transformed many a boatmen. The great depression and other economic upheavals made boating expensive if not impossible for the rest. Good economic times initially introduced thousands of new people to the sport but also ended up diluting the knowledge pool. The large-scale production of fiberglass and mass marketing nearly spelled the end for traditional boat design and construction. The wooden revival and now the impact of computers has been changing the status of boat design as we know it.

People have their prejudices with regards to boats and all the prejudices thrive on a lack of understanding of history. Traditionalists would benefit from an understanding of just how much earlier designers were limited by the available technology of the time. We might not frown so much on modern design, when considering the fact that designers in the past did do their best to create lightweight designs that were also sturdy and stable. They would have snapped up our carbon fiber and Kevlar and our glue and would have known exactly what to do with them. Modernists might do well to scrutinize the incredible multiplicity of types which once existed; the way boats were specialized for particular bays and specific owners. One of the saddest things about modern boat design is the near death of small, elegant cruising boats. We may have nearly succumbed to the idea that bigger is better and the idea that smaller is worse.

Bigger boats have hidden costs, not to mention their complexity. There are obvious costs of purchase price and maintenance, which tend to cut into sailing time as the owner has to work more hours to pay for the benefits that come with larger boats. Nowadays larger boats come equipped with complex systems and gear, which may require attention to operate which tends to distract one from their surroundings. What all this means is that the size and complex nature of larger boats that are built for cruising keeps us off the water and keeps us on the dry land. This tends to make a person focus on the boat rather than the beautiful scenery he may be sailing through. To some degree, it creates insulation between you and your surroundings and that’s like the last thing you actually had in mind, when purchasing the larger expensive boat. A few contemporary designers are doing a lot to keep the concept of small boats alive. We don’t have to go back too far to find the works of L.Francis Herreshoff and William and John Atkin, who crafted a great, many small cruising boats of many types. With regard to beauty and character of our boats, we are seeing some of the best and finest boats ever built.

Unfortunately, the revolution is confined to the wooden boat sector. This is partly due to the fact that we never fully adjusted to the notion of light displacement, which is currently most common outside wooden boat circles.

Light displacement pioneers like Cyrus Hamlin, Laurent Giles and Ben Seaborn started to put forth what would later be thought of as the standard definition for light displacement boat theme design. These designers went for hulls that were well crafted and with overall lean design, and having both ends short, while sporting slender curves which can be reversed or that can run in a strait line. When a ruling by the IOR was handed down, as racing boats, they were finished. Although the new rule pretty much spelled the demise of light weight displacement boats, in recent years the search for design that looks good and is functional has started up again.

Recently, aesthetically speaking, some pleasing boat designs have come about. For example, designs by Rod Johnstone who is designing graceful clean structures to skate across the waters surface. While new and interesting design progresses, still some mainstream design would appear to be rather unattractive. Why design a boat that looks like a razor blade or massive vacuum cleaner? A boat should not simply be thought of as a bunch of features to be incorporated into a design template. The design process, the marketing, and the reasons for the purchase of a particular boat by a consumer, should also be taken into account before production begins. There’s nothing wrong with the list of features, as people do like them as well. But when you design a boat, whatever the list of features, you also create a whole distinct personality, if you will. And that should take as much work in the design process as simply fitting in the latest gadgets did. Ignore this work and the personality is still created. At best, the design would be bland at worst it would resemble Frankenstein, with the various boat parts not relating to each other.

One new design has raised quite a few eyebrows; it’s the Seair 200 flying inflatable boat. Like most inflatables, the Seair can be used as a conventional tender for your yacht or cruiser. Whenever you feel the urge to go from tow to go, you’ll just bolt on the wing and the Seair takes you places where no boat has gone before, up to altitudes of 10,000 ft. The Seair features a 33t snap hang glider-style with weight shifts for climbs and turns. The yaw control is absent and a conventional three-axis control controls the stick arrangement of a fixed wing design. Since the bar movements produce movements in the opposite direction of control stick, an experienced pilot would have to do some unlearning at first. While not exactly faster than a speeding bullet, and not packing more power than a locomotive, the Seair still qualifies as “Superboat”.