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Rhumb Lines: Putting Words into Practice February, 2010 If you think your boat is a bear to maintain, you might take some consolation in this months used-boat review of the Union 36. It is a fiberglass boat, but considering the amount of teak on deck and belowdecks, it might as well be made of wood. Not that there is anything very wrong with that. The 32-footer my wife Theresa and I cruised on for 11 years was very similara big, heavy double-enderand ours was made of wood. While our 1937 William Atkin Thistle design differed significantly from the Union 36 and the modern double-enders that Bob Perry would later unveil (the Tayana 37 and Valiant 40, among the better known), these boats can be broadly traced to a common ancestor: the North Sea rescue boats designed by the renowned Norwegian naval architect Colin Archer.
While Atkins Thistle is clearly a derivative of Archers work, Perrys boats diverge so sharply from this archetype that they deserve a different branch on the family tree. The longer waterlines, flatter hull sections, and increased volume in the canoe-shaped stern of Perrys boats reduced some of the more annoying characteristics we noticed in our boat, Toscaamong them a tendency to hobby horse and roll at anchor. Perrys changes also made the boat faster and more weatherly. Few cruising designs are so rich in maritime lore as the double-ender. Archers famous first rescue boat RS1 is a museum piece, as are the boats of famous solo circumnavigators Argentinian Vito Dumas (Lehg II) and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (Suhaili). The wave of home-built post WW-II cruisers inspired by John G. Hannas Tahiti and Carol ketches, Atkins Ingrid, and L. Francis Herreshoffs Marco Polo, further raised the double-enders legendary status. When the age of fiberglass finally took hold in the 1970s, William Crealocks Westsail 32, a thinly veiled copy of Atkins designs, rightly earned its place as the boat that launched 1,000 dreams. While the double-ended concept holds many advantages, there are significant tradeoffs, and it is wrong to assume that just because a boat has a pointy stern, it is inherently a safer cruising boat. When it comes to seaworthiness, quality of construction and maintenance record can be just as important as design lineage. Among the greatest disadvantages of many of these boats is light-air performance and weatherliness. During Toscas short hops in the Caribbean, these handicaps were striking, but once we set out west across the Pacific, we had no real complaints about the broader tacking angles and relatively sedate passages (average 112 miles per day). True, today we would opt for some more efficient and weatherly hull, but we still hold to the philosophy behind Colin Archers early designs: "Safety comes first."
Additional Editorials from Darrell Nicholson...
Rhumb Lines: Putting Words into Practice, January 2010
Rhumb Lines: In Distress? Theres No App for That, December 2009
Rhumb Lines: Six Things Worth Giving Thanks For, November, 2009
Rhumb Lines: The Teenage Solo Sailor Syndrome, October 2009
Rhumb Lines: Whos Lurking Behind Those Blog Posts?, September 2009
Rhumb Lines: Charley Morgan's Lovely Legacy, August 2009
Rhumb Lines: The Crime of Owning a Small Boat, July 2009
Rhumb Lines: Riffin on Foods that Need No Fridge, June 2009
Rhumb Lines: Hope, Boats, and the Promise of Spring, May 2009
Rhumb Lines: Measuring the Depth of a Passion, April 2009
Rhumb Lines: Digging the Daily Grind, March 2009
Rhumb Lines: Lessons from the Worlds Cruelest Tool, February 2009
Rhumb Lines: A Life Left Unresolved, January 2009
Rhumb Lines: Stinging Lessons
, December 2008
Rhumb Lines: The Merits of Madness, November 2008
Rhumb Lines: Farewell to Skip Allans S/V Wildflower, October 2008
Rhumb Lines: In the Interest of Science, September 2008
Rhumb Lines: The Hull-Keel Connection, August 2008
Rhumb Lines: Trying to Reason With . . . July 2008
Rhumb Lines: The Art of Defying Gravity, June 2008
Rhumb Lines: The Greener Perspective, May 2008
Rhumb Lines: Happily Aground Again, April 2008
Rhumb Lines: The Do-It-Yourself Dilemma, March 2008
Rhumb Lines: Living the 30-Foot Dream, February 2008
Rhumb Lines: Anchoring Rights Revisited , January 2008
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