Left: the latest Riptide 30, launched last winter. Fast and easily driven, easy to handle, seaworthy and with a simple gravity-driven water ballast system. Top left: Bieker’s personal favourite, the Shilshole 27. Stitch-and-glue build, lifting keel and rudder for shoal waters, easily trailed and with exceptional performance. A compact design that features a carbon rig plus other key components factory supplied in carbon. Bieker’s numerous powered designs all revolve around the common theme of efficiency. His 18ft skiff (top) has a top speed of 23kt powered by a 20hp outboard with a fuel burn of less than 1-gal/hr. His elegant Shearwater design (above) similarly cruises at between 13 and 16kt with a 60hp outboard burning around 1.6-2gal/hr. Shearwater weighs in at just 1,021kg ready to go…
catamaran] and… the third one’s pretty tough… but I would say the little 27- footer [Shilshole 27]. I particularly like the construction of it; CNC computer-cut plywood. Pleasant to build, lightweight. And pleasant to be inside.’ All three are ‘technically racer-cruisers’,
he points out. ‘I think we’ve lost some- thing… all these one-trick-pony sorts of boats. I’ve come to realise, though, that there are a fair number of people who just aren’t interested in the cruising side. ‘So adding those details is simply
cumbersome and expensive; they’re better off with a stripped-down shell. But I think they’re missing something when they don’t spend any time sailing their boats for fun.’
Brava Italia For the 2024 Cup Paul’s working part- time with Luna Rossa. ‘It’s been pretty fun. It’s a good group, and I like the way they work. On an Anglo team everybody comes into the office and plants in front of the computer, just churning through work. That’s part of the way Luna Rossa oper- ates as well, but they go out to the café and have a coffee, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and that involves a 0.5 or 1km walk; you’re usually walking and talking to different people each time. ‘Then you sit down, have coffee.
There’s chit-chat, but usually some things come up and you get a little bit of free association. If nothing else, you learn more about what the other guys are working on;
make connections that you might not have done just working side by side, not really interacting. There’s a nice camaraderie.’ Paul travels to Italy every few months or
so. ‘Mostly, I work remotely. A lot of the work is just designing things, without a lot of interaction. But the interesting thing is that once you understand how another person works, we can interact with people in Europe or New Zealand and it’s a bit like you’re in the same office.’
A little recognition, dress codes, and what might be next Paul lives with his wife and two sons in a small town an hour and a half north of Seattle. His kids are now ‘in their low 20s, and it’s actually been good having them home. We’ve got a little 27ft sailboat that we do evening races on in the summer, and some long-distance racing and cruising.’ That’s the Shilshole 27, one of his three favourite designs. When Cruising Club of America named
him the recipient of their Diana Russell Medal last year, ‘in recognition of innova- tion in sailing design’, he says it ‘just kind of came out of the blue’. He accepted the award at the New York YC in Manhattan, which he’d visited only once before. ‘Right after we won the Cup I wanted to see the model room. But I didn’t have the right clothes on and they turned me away. This time I learned my lesson! No dungarees. ‘It was fun to get a sense of the history; pretty nice. And also pretty intense.’
Paul’s been a member of the CCA for
about 10 years, and he says he’d like to help with their work on racing and safety rules. But ‘the big thing I’ve been thinking about lately is trying to get some kind of a youth development class’ going in the US. ‘The model for me is the Cherub, down in Australia and New Zealand. ‘The Bruce Farr generation of designers
and sailors came out of that scene, where they were involved with development boats. And that’s where I learned the basics; I wouldn’t have been able to do what I’ve done in boats without the 14 class. I look at the sailing scene now and it’s really all about purchasing that one- design Opti or that one-design 29er. There’s something that’s lost, at least for the percentage of the community who are interested in the technical side.’ The workflow has changed dramati-
cally since his early days. ‘We have more technical tools to help direct the work now; help you avoid mistakes. But it’s still an art. And in the end, if the dog doesn’t hunt it’s not considered successful.’ Bieker boats can definitely hunt, and I
could listen to their designer all day… but he needs to get back to innovating, and I need to digest the four-course meal of our conversation. As we sign off I can better appreciate the very memorable reverence of those veteran Int14 sailors – even if I can’t quite keep up with such a high-level, free-thinking thought process. Too boring? Not a chance.
q SEAHORSE 65
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
