Absolutely. Having spent many years coaching sailors in sunny places, strong winds don't seem half as bad.
The point about old IOR based boats downwind was demonstrated to mr outside my window on Saturday. I had the binoculars focussed on such a craft heading towards me on port tack, symmetric kite up. He chose that moment to gybe, and then do the thing that the type is renowned for. The main banged over, the kite filled on the new gybe, the boat spun, laid over, and remained there for about 40 seconds. If I hadn’t been worrying for any foredeck crew I might have been amused. That boat was once an AWB. Now it’s a dog with bad manners IMHO. You’d never give it a glance, even though it’s a ‘classic’. Not even classics are necessarily any good these days.
Boats now considered "classic" were never designed as such. David Sadler and Jeremy Rogers wanted a boat bigger than a Folkboat/Contessa 26 that would sail and rate well as those were characteristics their market wanted. The 32 was state of the art at the time following the S&S lead on design of the underwater bits and the rating rules with the huge genoa and tiny trim tab main. Hit the spot because there was nothing like it plus it gave entry into a strong social scene of like minded owners. Bit like the Stella and Twister had done on the east coast 10 years previously and the Sigma 33 later. Not to mention the Beneteau Firsts, Elans, Jeanneau Sunfasts and J boats in more recent times.
The pedant in me feels obliged to point out that would have been at Southampton Solent University (or Southampton College of Technology as it probably still was when he went there).
A C32 still does the business though, a little cramped they may be compared to more modern designs. As do some other now classic designs. That is what makes those boats classics, you’d think. Some people seem to think anything older is a classc, a bit l8ke the classic car scene. Sometimes we need to separate historical interest from actual usability, particularly with boats, where you literally stake your life on the soundness of the design and structure in a way you don’t with cars. Is that IOR derived monster a worthwhile classic, or an old dog that should have gone to the crusher when it’s racing days were over?
It still does the business for what it was designed for. It holds its place now because of the numbers and support structures. No way is it comparable to modern boats because most are designed to a different brief. I mentioned some modern boats designed to a similar cruiser/racer brief that have achieved the same high level of acceptance and will at some time in the future be considered "classic".
Very true. Well known that in 40kts of wind an AWB's keel will fall off, it's rudder be snapped like matchsticks and everyone on board will drown.
Any sailor who's seen 40kts in a AWB's never lived to tell the tail.
Aaah, East Park terrrace as many of us remember, although we ( as engineers) were annexed across the road. A few decades (Cough) later I went to Solent University for a ASTO conference, a little differrent to what I remembered.
That's a little unfair since a twin keel boat often takes the ground continually and fins don't on purpose. When they do it once, they often need repair. Bit of an apple and orange comparison
The problem with your use of the BCYC as a controlling body defining what is a classic is that it's just a private club. Note the entries to their regatta include many boats which are not club members. Perhaps use eligibility to Cowes classic week as a better yardstick?
Yes in that they are more relaxed about what they consider "classic" and also recognise "spirit of tradition" but the principle remains the same. Those bodies whether they be clubs, organisers of regattas, auctioneers who use these terms to define what they are attracting to their activities control what they accept as meeting those terms.
Owner(s) have cared about it enough for it to have survived, as it's contemporaries have depreciated into a skip. There could be a variety of reasons for this, as described in this thread- an appealing compromise of seaworthiness, build quality & accommodation? A racing fleet? A cult following? A single oddball owner? Luck?
) do they say, as they often do to me in Brittany, "Un très joli bateau, monsieur".
