Yacht Designers Talk Shop
A Century of Changes Discussed at Forum

By AARON PORTER - CASTINE - Some of the finest minds and reputations from the rarefied world of yacht design exchanged reminiscences, ideas and observations at Delano Auditorium last week.

The assemblage of a dozen luminaries was centered around 96-year-old Olin Stephens, an undisputed giant of modern yacht design and one of the founders of the storied Sparkman & Stephens yacht design firm.

The symposium was organized as part of the 75th anniversary of the firm's founding, and was sandwiched between the Sparkman & Stephens Cup race from the Cape Cod Canal to Castine, and a day of match racing featuring Sparkman & Stephens designs off Castine Harbor.

Wednesday's symposium took the action off the water just briefly, leaving the celebration in the hands of builders and designers, not sailors, for one evening.

In addition to Stephens, the all-star line up of designers included German Frers, Bruce Johnson, Bruce King, Bill Langam, Roger Marshall, Greg Matzat, Chuck Paine, Doug Peterson, Bob Stephens, David Pedrick and Craig Walters.

It was indicative of the quality of designers holding forth on stage to see some of Maine's finest builders, the likes of Tom Morris, Ralph Stanley and Taylor Allen, all sitting appreciatively in the audience.

Appropriate to the celebration of Sparkman & Stephens's 75th year, changes in yacht design, construction and use were a recurring theme during the wide-ranging discussions.

"I'm a little bit dubious about progress, but I'm certain about change," Stephens said in his first response of the evening.

His design career started in the late 1920s, and carried on through the evolution of building from wood to fiberglass to the mix of composites used today. He also worked through the change from designers working at drafting boards with reams of longhand calculations, to the advent of design software that eliminates the need for sharp pencils and performs many calculations automatically. Similarly, the demands of racing, the expectations of owners and abilities of builders have changed around Stephens during his career.

Inevitably, what once was new now is old. However, Stephen's finds value in the new and the once new as he looks back.

Dorade, his first racing yawl design, is a far from modem design in 2004. However, Stephens appreciated the very thorough rebuild completed in 1997 at the Cantiere Navale dell'Argentario in Italy.

She's "almost exactly what she was when she was brand new," he said.

He recalled sailing on the meticulously restored Dorade again as "coming back to something I had appreciated so much."

Her classic design is something others appreciated as well.

Doug Peterson, a designer of many boats, including winning America's Cup contenders, was asked about Dorade by moderator Knight Coolidge

"It appeared to me that what Olin was trying to do was to bring a more competitive boat to ocean racing," Peterson said.

As heavy as Dorade is by modern standards, she was light at the time Stephens recalled his childhood watching builders at the Nevins Yard constructing racing sailboats with light scantlings in the Herreshoff tradition.

Stephens applied that style of building to offshore racing designs to produce winners such as Dorade and Stormy Weather. He said that was his breakthrough in producing boats to compete with heavily built John Alden designs, which dominated ocean racing at the time.

Since then, other designs have heralded great changes in yacht design. Among them, according to Stephens, is Peterson's Ganbare. a small yacht that introduced the U-shaped bow section. Peterson said the importance of that boat to him was the proof that someone new could design something interesting.

The power of "change" Stephens identified early in the discussions kept resurfacing as a driving force for designers.

"Outside of times when you see rule changes, boats tend to look all the same," said yacht designer Craig Walters.

Asked what designs he admires from today's designers Stephens said, "I'm afraid to say it's hard to tell one from the other."

Another change that many associate with Maine designers, was brought up at the symposium. That is the proliferation of traditional appearing new designs such as Joel white's W-class boats, often racing in a division referred to as Spirit of Tradition.

"What I'm finding in our client base is people who view high performance as optional," said Brooklin designer Bob Stephens. He said Maine sailors tend to be a bit isolated from the international racing circuit. That isolation, he said, is a factor in allowing seakindliness, seaworthiness and aesthetics to play greater roles in design.

He was joined by Camden designer Chuck Paine who insisted good engineering and computers were essential to yacht design, but he also embraced the hollow bows and shapely transoms of Hereshoff tradition.

Olin Stephens showed his appreciation of that tradition, praising Herreshoff's New York Yacht Club 30 as "absolutely ideal," as a sirnple, fast-racing machine. However, Stephens said he turns elsewhere for aesthetic inspiration or guidance.

"I personally look to Herreshoff for construction guidance, and to Fife or Watson for appearance," he said.

A discussion of changes to design rules led to some insider perspective on the realities of modern ocean racing.

Argentine designer German Frers suggested there needs to be a new way of looking at rules that takes into account the professional level formerly amateur ocean racing has attained. He suggested two sets of rides, one for a "grand prix" circuit of professional racers, and another for the amateurs who still want to participate in ocean racing.

"As long as we try and do a rule for everybody, we are heading to the wrong end," he said.

Bill Langam, a former chief designer at Sparkman & Stephens, concurred.

"We have designed and built boats where people sit up on the weather rail for the entire Fastnet race," he said, noting the extreme that was unheard of when he was first involved in ocean racing.

Construction materials were also touched upon as an area of nearly constant change.

Maine designer Bruce King, who embraced cold-molded wood construction early on, explained that for his latest boat, Scheherazade, he's added more materials to the mix. He said a need to reduce weight prompted him to build the yacht with a cored carbon deck and deck house. He said carbon and wood work well together in epoxy construction, and cautioned that contact between metal substrates and wood should be avoided in wood epoxy construction.

On the design office front, Lanngam lamented the change that has replaced drafting tables with computers.

"There is a certain discipline in drawing a lines plan and knowing how that works," he said. Langam added that he has observed that it is difficult for new designers to be organized if they have only worked on computers.

Sparkman & Stephens's Chief Naval Architect Greg Matzat said schools need to better teach the basics along with computer design.

He also noted that early on, computers reduced the need for three-dimensional hull models of new designs. Now, he said, the computer programs are being used to have models made quickly and efficiently. A bit of a step back with the aid of the computer

Paine said he uses substantial computer databases in establishing some design parameters for any boat he is working on.

Before that, "you worked mostly on intuition," Frers recalled. It was difficult to measure the effects of a design detail or change. He said there were changes, such as the U-shaped bow that he was afraid to try, but should have.

In the face of so much change, Frers, who worked directly for Stephens, found lasting value in the lessons he learned in the Sparkman & Stephens office in the 1960s.

"I thought I was going to S&S, and Olin was going to tell me what to do," he recalled. That didn't happen. Olin was a listener who let the young designer do his own work, Frers said.

"I guess I learned the trade" Frers said. "The trade is something important to consider and not forget."

Underneath the glamour and magic of large yacht design and construction, "the things done to call attention and satisfy egos," as Frers put it, is a more basic lesson he doesn't forget and that doesn't change: "The sea is something to be respected."
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Thursday, August 12, 2004 edition of the The Ellsworth American and is used here with permission."