If Cornish Crabbers built a schooner...

Dan

You should put John G Alden and his Yacht Designs by Carrick & Henderson ISBN 0-87742-089-0 on your Christmas list and you can drool away to your hearts content.
 
dancrane said:
Thanks Andy, but I wish you hadn't mentioned Peter Duck, my copy's in France.

Rights of Man was the ship in Billy Budd. Are you sure you don't mean the schooner Bill of Rights? That's what Google suggested instead. Quite a lot bigger than the schooners I was thinking of.

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Dan,

the schooner ' Rights Of Man ' I fancied is about 50' from memory and quite chunky - lovely in a tough, ' Down Channel ' sort of way.

Of course for real boat porn it's hard to beat ' The Proper Yacht ' by Arthur Beiser...:encouragement:
 
Thank you gentlemen, I reckon some of those recommended books were mentioned in my schooner thread five years ago...and I said then that I'd look them up...

...this year I'll make myself a Christmas list, then next year I can recommend them myself.

That staysail schooner is nice too. I wonder how much her design reflected practicality and ease of sail-handling? Or was her designer just as rose-tintedly retrospective as me?
 
dancrane said:
...I'd want one, more than anything else in this world.

I wonder what dimensions she'd be? And what compromises the increased size might require (or what possibilities it might permit) in the styling and sail handling.

I'd like to imagine their schooner would be perhaps 60ft LOA, 48ft on deck, 37ft on the waterline, 12ft 6in beam...perhaps 5ft draft with the board up, and 10ft down?

Given that bigger boats seem to be more profitable to build than little ones these days (not that that's a good thing), I wonder if the gentlemen in charge at CC ever contemplated a majestic flagship for their characterful line-up.

I expect I've suggested this before; apologies if I bore.
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Not what you are interested in Dan but they do the Mystery 35 which is pretty splendid.
 
Tranona said:
A boat that would suit you is Aunt Sara Of Cohasset, built in Boston in 1929 to designs by Sam Crocker. A 35' clipper bow gaff schooner. Good description in Maurice Griffiths book Little Ships and Shoal waters. MG loved traditional style boats, but was very conscious of their shortcomings as yachts. He sailed this boat on a visit to the US in 1936 and describes his experience, and those of the owner.

Much as he admired the look and the concept he admitted he would not build it in the UK because "we have to do too much beating to windward around the English coasts for a rig like this". The owner was pleased he had specified a powerful engine!

Rigs and hull shapes of working boats evolve to suit local conditions and the shallow hulled, wide beamed schooner rigged boats were popular in NE seaboard of N America, mainly for fishing because most of the journeys to and from the fishing grounds were reaches either way and the coastal waters are littered with reefs and shallow inlets. The hull form has very good carrying capacity for fishing off shore, but fishing is carried out with small dorys rather than from the parent boat. Very good description and analysis of schooner types in the book on John Alden.

In the UK the main influences on working boat design were fishing boats and pilot boats which required good windward performance, on the west coast deep draft and east shallow. You can clearly see the different requirements in local hulls and rigs.

The philosophy behind the Irens designs is to retain the basic East Coast (US) hull form but marry it to an updated schooner rig taking advantage of modern materials and sail handling. Will never be a big enough market to justify making GRP moulds and the hull form lends itself to modern wood epoxy construction as in the build I referred to earlier. For a custom build this is similar cost to GRP and has the advantage (apart from the aesthetics) that it can be built in places where labour costs are low.
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The view that schooners were OK for American waters but not able to go to windward and hence not suitable for U.K. waters was widely held about racing yachts also a few years ago ........ until a (now) well known American schooner trounced the pride of UK racing yachts and we have never won our trophy back since then .....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(yacht)
 
dunedin said:
The view that schooners were OK for American waters but not able to go to windward and hence not suitable for U.K. waters was widely held about racing yachts also a few years ago ........ until a (now) well known American schooner trounced the pride of UK racing yachts and we have never won our trophy back since then .....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(yacht)
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That was nearly 200 years ago! I was only reflecting on the clear differences between working craft on either side of the Atlantic, which were developed empirically to suit conditions. It is clear that schooners were much more suited to conditions in which they were used and for the reasons I suggested.

After the incident you referred to, schooner rigs did not catch on for performance sailing until the 19020's when John Alden developed them from the fishing schooner types - and then they only reigned for less than 20 years and never caught on this side of the pond.

Not to say that with modern gear a schooner cannot be a good windward performer - see the Irens designs and the boat I referred to in post#25 as examples. However, good performance with other rigs can be achieved at much lower cost and complexity, so little incentive other than aesthetic to go the schooner route.
 
dunedin said:
The view that schooners were OK for American waters but not able to go to windward and hence not suitable for U.K. waters was widely held about racing yachts also a few years ago ........ until a (now) well known American schooner trounced the pride of UK racing yachts and we have never won our trophy back since then .....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(yacht)
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I seem to remember that America cut a mark and did not sail the correct course. But it was a bit outre to call them out at the time.... So we lost the cup.. After that, the problem of setting the rules so that a yacht had to sail to the races on her own bottom, somewhat hampered the challangers.

Aside. I was invited to a wedding of my wife's family at the NYYC. Quite looked forward to seeing who's head they had in the glass case for losing the cup (Connor's). But a fiasco with the Lisbon Embassy meant my passport didn't have the machine code and it was too late when I found out.
 
I have spent a pleasant evening crouched in the sitting height only accomodation of a lovely rendition of a scaled down Nantucket schooner. Elegant schooners tend to be fairly fine ended, so for LOA you don't get much accomodation. Have a look in current edition of Watercraft (No. 109 Sept/ Oct 2016). Paul Gartside's plans for a lovely looking 30' gaff schooner, but with less accomodation than you might find in a 22 foot Westerly.

Gartside does quote Robert Louis Stevenson: "The only noble thing a man can do with money is to build a schooner." Maybe you should put all practicalities aside and just follow that advice?
 
Romeo said:
Robert Louis Stevenson: "The only noble thing a man can do with money is to build a schooner."
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Nice. Although I seem to remember a schooner named Red Earl in Stevenson's evocative tale, The Pavilion on the Links...oddly enough, owned by a thoroughly ignoble fellow.

I realise there's likely to be cramped accommodation inside any small yacht designed on the lines of a big one. For years I've wondered whether schooner rig might be possible to retro-fit to a more accommodating modern hull...

...the difficulty would be selecting one which didn't resemble an ugly pair of shoes under a very elegant suit of clothes. So I thought Cornish Crabbers might have as good a chance as any. :encouragement:
 
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Tranona said:
Much as he admired the look and the concept he admitted he would not build it in the UK because "we have to do too much beating to windward around the English coasts for a rig like this". The owner was pleased he had specified a powerful engine!
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And he was right. I have sailed in a couple of schooners and I wouldn't want one. They are fine, and can be very powerful, on a reach, but they are not nearly as handy or as versatile as a decent ketch. They can be very glamorous to look at and some are quite beautiful. But I'm inclined to prefer the aesthetic impact of a well designed ketch as well. The rig is more balanced, not only practically, but visually as well.

Schooner? I don't mind looking at them, but owning one? No thanks.
 
I reckon that's pretty wise. I'm almost persuaded.

I wonder if Cornish Crabbers ever looked at building a ketch? :rolleyes:
 
Certainly very pretty...I wonder why I can't eradicate a deep liking for rigs which hardly have a place in the 21st century yachtsman's mind.

Most likely as said above, they're more enjoyable to admire from a short distance, than to own and operate.
 
If those rigs appeal then go for one.
I shall never sell my beautiful Gaff Cutter. She often outruns many a Bermudian boat :)
 
dancrane said:
Certainly very pretty...I wonder why I can't eradicate a deep liking for rigs which hardly have a place in the 21st century yachtsman's mind.

Most likely as said above, they're more enjoyable to admire from a short distance, than to own and operate.
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I often wonder the same myself. I've always loved ketches - there seems something very seamanlike - especially cutter headed. If you think about it logically though - sailing is a pretty illogical past time that really only made sense in the past. Therefore why not embrace the whole nostalgic air to it by going for a very old rig & hull design.
 
FWB said:
If those rigs appeal then go for one.
I shall never sell my beautiful Gaff Cutter. She often outruns many a Bermudian boat :)
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It sometimes seems to me that a well proportioned gaff cutter is the prettiest of all the small fore and aft rigged boats. :)
 
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