Barnacle Bill magazine

 A subscription wont break your bank and youll get exceptional value for money. There is a good team of contributors and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable editor so its going to be a good read.  Its on topic for us small boat fans, this deserves support.  ( Plus its cheap while this deal is running).

50% off Digital Subscription for 2016!
12 issues for £12
Offer valid until midnight 24th December 2015

http://barnacle-bill-magazine.myshopify.com/…/barnacle-bill…

On the metaphorical road again heading for more small boat sailing adventures

The brotherhood of the travelling boots.

Its occurred to me that the hikers boots that I’m wearing have been to seven different countries so far, they’re good friends the two of them, get along well even though they’re almost twins. One of course is a lefty and the other a righty but even so they seem able to co operate and generally arrive wherever it is that they’re going at about the same time.

I’m on my way again, this time to Chile,  will arrive in Santiago in about 18 hours.

Right now I’m sitting in Auckland International airport, within a few metres of the Percival Gull aircraft that Jean Batten flew from England to New Zealand in 1936, setting a number of aviation records on the way.  That flight took 11 days and 45 minutes to cover a bit more than 14000 miles. 

I’m going to be travelling in an aircraft that barely resembles that tiny single engined spruce and canvas plane.  In fact it would be no real problem to fit the “Gull” into the cargo hold of the big Boeing that I’ll be imprisoned within for the 13 ½ hour flight across the Southern Pacific Ocean. We’ll be travelling at around 590 nautical miles per hour, how different it is from Jean in her little light plane t125 mph.  I bet she didn’t complain about the cabin service in her tiny cockpit .

Jean Battens Percival Gull airplane, as I write this Im sitting about 2metres away from the wingtip on the left of the picture, its a graceful little thing, but a real reminder of how much aviation has progressed since then, remember too that Jean Batten was with us until 1982, so most of this amazing progress has happened within the space of a long lifetime.

This trip I’m making is by the way the longest uninterrupted stretch of ocean that there is north of the five great capes about twice the distance that it is across the North Atlantic from USA to UK.

Which brings me to why I’m travelling.  I’m to meet up with friend and co teacher Howard Rice, and we’re going to be setting up for the big voyage of exploration that he is undertaking next southern summer.

That voyage, in a modified SCAMP, all of 11 ft 11 in long ( 3.575M ) will leave from Punta Arenas in the Straights of Magellan, carry him out through the channels and straights into the Pacific where he’ll turn left, and head south toward Cape Horn.

That latter is not necessarily the objective of the voyage, but rounding “The Horn” is a possibility.  The real purpose of the voyage is to explore the least populated and most rugged coastline on the planet,  riven with steep sided fjords, many with glaciers at their heads, backed by mountains, many un named as yet, and battered by the incessant gale force winds of the Roaring 40s this is an extraordinary place, and one which Howard will be exploring, and documenting.

There will be cameras on the boat, as well as within his support crew back at Punta Arenas, there is already some video “in the can” and the intention is to make a comprehensive video of the voyage, a video which will be available to anyone wishing to see the grandeur of the wildest place on the planet from the viewpoint of a small boat sailor.

There is more on the boat and the voyage in Howards Facebook page here

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=howard%20rices

Yes it costs by the way, and if you’d like to support this, check out the directors website here. http://www.below40south.com.  There is also a lot of information on the voyage there.

  Any donations would be very gratefully received, we’re covered for the actual filming but the production costs will be significant and even a small amount would help to get what will be one of the great small boat adventures out where people can share it.

So I’m sitting here in Auckland airport with several hours to wait until the big silver bird roars down the runway and turns out eastward over the sea.

Its not boring, I’m in a quiet corner upstairs, this is one of the better airports that I travel through, and I’m alongside a glass wall where I can watch the people flow like a gently stirred anthill.  It’s the arrivals area just below me, and there are friends, parents, siblings and visitors arriving, it’s heart warming watching the enthusiasm and emotion with which they are being welcomed.

But I’m going the other way, I’ll be among that crowd downstairs in 20 days.

Bill Tripps fast and beautiful boats

Hinkley Bermuda 40

In the last two decades of the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rating rule, William H. Tripp Jr. designed  fast, beautiful and innovative sailing yachts. He became known for winning and weatherly centrerboard yawls like the Block Island 40, the Bermuda 40 and the Mercer 44. Many sailors and yacht designers consider them some of the most beautiful boats ever built in fiberglass. They continue to captivate sailors and command high prices in the used boat market today.

Mercer 44

"The Mercer 44, arguably one of the best-looking stock boats ever built," wrote Seattle yacht designer Bob Perry. "You can still find Mercer 44s cruising and racing today. They are a marvel of balanced proportions and look as good today as they did in 1959."

Tripp was a self-taught designer who came up through the ranks working for other designers, including Sparkman & Stevens and Phil Rhodes.

He was a prolific designer. In addition to providing custom racing and cruising designs for many clients he designed production boats for Seafarer, Hinckley, Pearson, Columbia and others. An early advocate of fiberglass, he became known for flush-deck race boats with his distinctive gun-turret dog houses.

As a teenager in the 1960s, Bob Perry considered Tripp to be his favorite designer, along with Phillip Rhodes.

"Tripp’s boats had a very distinctive look, with proud sweeping spoon bows, bold sheer springs, long concave counters terminating in almost vertical transoms, and sexy and svelte cabin trunks," Perry wrote in the Nov./Dec. 2011 issue of Good Old Boat Magazine. "You would never mistake a Tripp design for an S&S design. They just seemed to my young eye to have a strength and boldness, kind of an in your face quality. Plus, his boats were consistent race winners."

Pearson Invicta 37

Burgoo, the Tripp-designed Pearson 37-footer, won the Bermuda race in 1964. At that time it was the smallest fiberglass boat to ever win the race.

"[I]t had all the Tripp trademark design features and it was a very sexy-looking little boat," Perry wrote. "In fact, and I could be wrong, this may be the first Tripp design to have the “gun turret” cabin trunk."

"Bill was the first to put portlights in the topsides as well as opening ports in cockpit sides to improve air circulation and communication below," said Ted Jones, who worked with Tripp before becoming a boating magazine editor. "He popularized flush decks on small boats (Galaxy, Medalist, Invicta, Mercer 44), and set high standards in hull and rigging scantlings that have been proven over time. He designed boats to stay together under the most difficult circumstances. I cannot recall one of his designs ever being dismasted or suffering structural damage at sea."

By the mid-1960s, Columbia, Americas leading builder of fiberglass yachts at the time, approached Tripp to design a fifty footer. He produced the first of the Columbia bubble-topped high-sided boats that are still easily recognizable. In the next six years, he produced thirteen Columbias, including the Columbia 26 MkII, Columbia 34, Columbia 39, Columbia 43, Columbia 45, Columbia 50, and the Columbia 57. The boats are vintage Tripp, but with fin keels and spade rudders.

The C-50 attracted a strong following that still has an active owners association.

Columbia 50

"The Columbia 50 was a big elegant-looking boat with the same bubble house and long flush deck (of many other Tripp designs)," Perry wrote. "It was a very good-looking boat and it was fast. Seattle’s racing scene was dominated for years by a Columbia 50 called Six Pack while the smallest class was dominated by a Columbia 26 called Miller’s High Life."

In 1969, Columbia was the worlds largest fiberglass sailboat manufacturer and Tripp designed a 57 footer named Concerto, which became the largest production fiberglass boat. It displayed several of Tripps trademark features: an unusually-long and effective waterline, high-aspect ratio sail plan, dual-surface steering system with a keel-mounted trim tab as well as a balanced spade rudder aft. Speed was derived partially from an absolute minimum of wetted surface area, and from the high prismatic coefficient hull design.

In 1971, the racing community adopted the International Offshore Rule (IOR), effectively making every CCA yacht obsolete. Tripp fought hard against the change, but designed a 52-foot IOR boat for Columbia and was looking forward to developing more of his ideas on the new rule. A few months later, a drunk driver lost control of his car, hurtled over the divider on the Connecticut Turnpike and smashed into Tripps Jaguar, killing him instantly. He was 51.

While we usually focus on just one design, I wanted to look closer at a designer first, then at one of his designs in more depth. Stay tuned.