BP28: Revisiting a 50-yo design brief

[TwoLegged]

My statement was ironic and I was gently poking fun @TwoLegged , showing to a North American crowd a European design/product as an example to follow is not often a recipe for success. I suspect that some in the US are still laughing at 1970s cars designed by Citroen while here in Europe they are collectible!

I enjoyed the joke.

Mind you, Citroens were under-appreciated even in Europe.  A relative had Citroen CXs from when they first came out until after production ended, and they were massively superior to everything else.    Sadly, most buyers were too conservative to choose one, and their maker never again made anything remotely as wonderful

But back on topic.  I fear that Pano may be right that Americans aren't ready for powerful modern hulls, but I winder why that is.  As I noted before, 1970s American boat designers were hugely innovative, probably more so than Yurpeens.   Bill Lapworth reinventing the offshore production boat, Doug Peterson upending IOR, the Moore 24 turning yer club boat into a planing rocket, Bill Lee going planing offshore, and then the J/24 taking the world by storm.

I have a hunch that this shift may be more socio-economic than aesthetic.  My hypothesis goes like this: The USA's spurt of 1960s/1970s boatbuilding seems to have been bigger than in most of Europe, leaving a bigger pool of used boats.  Meanwhile the economic changes which began in the 1980s have been more pronounced in the USA than in the EU, so the pool of Americans who have the cash to buy a new boat and the time to use it is way smaller than in Europe (Europeans get roughly twice as much leave).  So the market for new boats in the USA is dominated by older buyers, who have the cash to buy and the time to use a boat ... and they make more conservative choices than the younger buyers of new boats in Europe.  I'd be interested to see any relevant data

 

[Bob Perry]

The audio world and the sailing world have a lot in common, lots of parallels. Audiophiles argue tubes (valves for the Euros here) vs solid state. I have both systems. The sailors argue monohull vs multihull. If you prefer tubes you debate what tubes, NOS (New Old Stock) or new tubes. I have both but now I am listening to new Russian Sovtec tubes. Sailors who prefer multihulls argue catamaran vs trimaran. I could go on: choice of rig, split or single mast, choice of cartridge, moving magnet vs moving coil. If the sailor chooses a sloop rig you can argue cutter vs fractional. If the audiophile chooses a moving coil they will argue about low output vs high output. Both are antique pursuits. Sailing is not a modern mode of transportation. Analog is not a modern way to listen to music. People who can't tell the difference in boats or sound are just not educated enough to know the difference. Or maybe the sailor doesn't care. He's happy in his Rawson 30. If you get sea sick every time you go out none of the differences will make it fun. If you have hearing deficiencies, many do and don't know it. you'll never hear the difference so why bother. In the end they are both just silly hobbies that don't stand up to objective scrutiny. But for some people they are a lot of fun and may improve one's quality of life.

 

[Bob Perry]

" Have i missed something in Bob's huge and wonderful design archive?"

Yes you have. I'll leave it to you to figure out the boats.

 

[Sail4beer]

Thats going to take a while!

 

[Jim in Halifax]

There is no recorded sound like pure analog sound. It's my hobby. But you have to have the hearing to tell the difference.

Just another way to have fun.

View attachment 467411

Bob, that is a lovely cartridge and the heavy orange vinyl looks yummy, but I would modestly suggest that you need to graduate to reel-to-reel tape on a good machine - say a Studer A810 2-track - to really up your analogue audio game.

 

[TwoLegged]

" Have i missed something in Bob's huge and wonderful design archive?"

Yes you have. I'll leave it to you to figure out the boats.

Sigh.

That translates roughly as "I could give you an answer in seconds, but I prefer to be obnoxious by making you go hunt so that I can make snarky comments if you don't find the exact example that I intended"  

 

[Crash]

Well to be fair Leggs, you are the one who openly doubted his professional judgement and experience…

 

[Sail4beer]

BP also works on projects that are not entirely his from the drawing board and has designed elements for them. At least that’s what I think from his past posts. 
 

Also, I don’t have any problem with Bob speaking his mind the way he wants. He has done the miles and has a huge following, so if the boat needed twin rudders, it would have twin rudders. You were challenging him and he gave you a challenge in return. He doesn’t have a “kiss ass” mode.

 

[Jim in Halifax]

Sigh.

That translates roughly as "I could give you an answer in seconds, but I prefer to be obnoxious by making you go hunt so that I can make snarky comments if you don't find the exact example that I intended"  

The maestro is just doing it for your education and edification Legs. Get to work!

 

[DDW]

Sailing is not a modern mode of transportation. Analog is not a modern way to listen to music. People who can't tell the difference in boats or sound are just not educated enough to know the difference. Or maybe the sailor doesn't care. He's happy in his Rawson 30. If you get sea sick every time you go out none of the differences will make it fun. If you have hearing deficiencies, many do and don't know it. you'll never hear the difference so why bother. In the end they are both just silly hobbies that don't stand up to objective scrutiny. But for some people they are a lot of fun and may improve one's quality of life.

This takes relativism farther than many are willing to go. Some things in sound and sailing are subjective, some are objective. Is a Pogo 30 a faster boat than an I32? This we can objectively test. It a Pogo 30 a better boat than an I32? This is subjective, and the result depends on the criteria of the judge. Can a good analog recording be reliably discriminated from a good digital recording? This be can be objectively tested (and has been disproven). Do the analog distortions audible on a vinyl record make it a better listening experience? That is subjective, the answer will depend on the preferences of the listener. 

 

[TwoLegged]

The maestro is just doing it for your education and edification Legs. Get to work!

Nah, I don't play that game.  Once people start that sort of shit, I'm out.  Which may be what he wanted. 

I much prefer the other Bob Perry, the nice one from WLYDO days who enjoyed discussions and debate, and who wrote of how he learnt from it all.  That Bob didn't play this sort of game.

 

[Bob Perry]

"This be can be objectively tested (and has been disproven)." Probably by one of your "panels of experts". Our world seems to be full of "panels of experts" willing to take whichever side benefits them. I agree it is very subjective. Like the difference in the sound of a Telecaster and a PRS. But a person with good hearing, trained to know the difference will pick out the difference in a heart beat with or without a blind fold. Maybe your panels are panels of audiofools not audiophiles.

I'll give you an example: Many years ago while my band was on the road, my upstairs "room mate" bought some new hi-fi speakers. He worked for Boeing. He was an electrical engineer and his specialty was antennae design. He was so proud of his new speakers. I listened to he new speakers. They sounded good and they got me in the mood to upgrade my own speakers. I did. I bought some JBL 100's. This is probably 1967. You can still buy them today. I played my new speakers for him and he was blown away. I asked him how he chose his speakers., He said he studied all the data and chose by the graphed frequency response curves or something to that effect. He was feeling a bit sheepish at that point. He asked me how I chose the JBL 100's. I said "Iistened to them."

If you don't have trained ears all you can do is rely on numbers. Trained ears work better.

 

[Bob Perry]

Oh Leggs, stop projecting. You sound defeated. Buck up! I have never been "the nice Bob Perry".

I can think of three of my boats off the top of my head that would qualify for twin rudders but did not get them: INBOX, the boat designed to fit in a container with no taper aft. The Roy Dunbar 32'er, the one Derek Bottles is rebuilding now, with almost no taper aft. The "geezer daysailer" very broad aft. Maybe throw the FT10 in too. I got around having twin rudders by having one deep rudder. Did it work? Nobody has complained.

I got this email this morning:

"[SIZE=.8125rem]Charlie Reynolds[/SIZE]



[SIZE=.9375rem]Today I was out in 23-26 knots with a long fetch with big waves, and I was reminded how well FT10 #71 handled conditions like that (impecably), and better than the 30,000lb 46' "ocean racer" that I was on... Great boats"[/SIZE]

 

[Crash]

Nah, I don't play that game.  Once people start that sort of shit, I'm out.  Which may be what he wanted. 

I much prefer the other Bob Perry, the nice one from WLYDO days who enjoyed discussions and debate, and who wrote of how he learnt from it all.  That Bob didn't play this sort of game.

Again, to be fair, he didn't start that shit, YOU DID. 

When I said:  "I'm not going to try to tell someone who has designed as many great boats as Bob Perry has, that he "needs" 2 rudders.  I'm pretty sure Bob is perfectly capable of making those decisions and tradeoffs without any input from Peter Morrison.  If the boat "needed" 2 rudders, he'd have put 2 rudders on it. "

You said: "I am not so sure about that." 

You then went on to say "AFAIK, no monohull built to a Perry design has had such a wide beam aft, and no Perry-designed monohull has had two rudders.  Have i missed something in Bob's huge and wonderful design archive?"

Whether Bob has or hasn't yet designed a monohull with a transom so broad it needs two rudders doesn't mean he doesn't know when such a boat would need them.  The fact that he has done such work, and you happen to be unaware is not an excuse for casting doubt on his professional ability, which is what you did.

You could try apologizing, and saying you didn't mean it to come out the way it did.  And asking if he has designed such boats, rather than saying "AFAIK he hasn't" which was presumptive.

OBTW, when I said "Not sure why you think it needs 2, other than "its the cool current rage on boats pretending to look like a "2021 Mini 650/Classe40/IMOCA60 type of boat" though I didn't mean to be snarky, I can see now that I was, and I apologize for that.  It was undeserved.

 

[Elegua]

There seems a bit of irony there when someone says, "It isn't innovation if it isn't "X". And then follows up with, "Your social, economic system doesn't allow you to appreciate my amazing ideas of "innovation". 

Did I miss anything? 

One should avoid the "banking" model of education, if possible.

 

[TwoLegged]

You could try apologizing, and saying you didn't mean it to come out the way it did.  And asking if he has designed such boats, rather than saying "AFAIK he hasn't" which was presumptive.

You somehow managed to miss my next sentence, which made it clear that I was not being presumptive.  I have bolded it here:

I am not so sure about that.  AFAIK, no monohull built to a Perry design has had such a wide beam aft, and no Perry-designed monohull has had two rudders.  Have i missed something in Bob's huge and wonderful design archive?

And thanks for this  

OBTW, when I said "Not sure why you think it needs 2, other than "its the cool current rage on boats pretending to look like a "2021 Mini 650/Classe40/IMOCA60 type of boat" though I didn't mean to be snarky, I can see now that I was, and I apologize for that.  It was undeserved.

 

[TwoLegged]

There seems a bit of irony there when someone says, "It isn't innovation if it isn't "X". And then follows up with, "Your social, economic system doesn't allow you to appreciate my amazing ideas of "innovation". 

Did I miss anything? 

You only missed the entire point of what I wrote.  Other than that, you did fine.

They aren't my ideas.  They are the new norm, used by most of the leading European designers.

The sailing boat explosion of the 60s and 70s came in an era of rapidly growing mass affluence.  It's odd that someone would try to take offence at the observation that the economy is very different now, and hence the market for a big capital investment in a leisure item has changed ... but some people like offence-taking.

 

[Sail4beer]

I like the design and I’m sure that rudder has sufficient bite to hold it through a deep heeling angle. I think the expanding cockpit coamings are good for access around the tiller. The aft swept spreaders, no backstay and fathead are nice modern looking upgrades. 

 

[SloopJonB]

He asked me how I chose the JBL 100's. I said "Iistened to them."

That's how I selected the components of the system I have had since 1977.

I took a recording that was heavy on the high frequency end - anybody can reproduce good bass frequencies - and I went from store to store listening to combinations I thought looked good. Listening to the same record on each gave everything a common baseline.

The sales reps must have regarded me as a real pain in the ass but it really worked. I ended up with Marantz amp & tuner, Technics turntable (should have got another Thorens but...) a Stanton cartridge and huge Altec 14 speakers.

State of the art then and cost about 2 months pay but it was worth the trouble. Best sound of any stereo I ever heard.

Now I can't hear worth shit so its sound quality is but a memory.

 

[IStream]

That's how I selected the components of the system I have had since 1977.

I took a recording that was heavy on the high frequency end - anybody can reproduce good bass frequencies - and I went from store to store listening to combinations I thought looked good. Listening to the same record on each gave everything a common baseline.

The sales reps must have regarded me as a real pain in the ass but it really worked. I ended up with Marantz amp & tuner, Technics turntable (should have got another Thorens but...) a Stanton cartridge and huge Altec 14 speakers.

State of the art then and cost about 2 months pay but it was worth the trouble. Best sound of any stereo I ever heard.

Now I can't hear worth shit so its sound quality is but a memory.

Same deal here. I bought some Kef 101 monitors back in 1986 and they still sound spectacular. About 15 years ago, I upgraded my electronics to a used Naim preamp, power supply, and amp and that cured me of any electronic 2-foot-itis. I'd probably have to drop $4K or more today to do better.

About 5 years ago the kids started complaining about my "dinosaur stereo" that couldn't connect to anything so I hooked the Naim gear up to a $30 Google Chromecast Audio and now the kids can play Spotify from their iPhones over wifi. And they can't believe how good it sounds compared to their crappy little bluetooth speekers and laptops. Dad for the win.