Every day’s a schoolday: after some early success with his two-man 18s in 1984-85 Bethwaite’s super-light designs (45kg…) were banned by the class so in 1986 he raced as forward hand with Rob Brown on that year’s JJ Giltinan champion, Entrad. Fast forward and in the mid-90s Bethwaite designed Looney Tunes for a Hong Kong client. Several of the new ideas tried on ‘Tunes’, including these solid racks, later went into the 49er. The wishbone rig was an idea to improve mainsail leech control
In the beginning…
July 2021, Alex (my youngest son, who six months earlier announced he was quitting his finance job to build boats with Dad) and I were driving south to Sydney. It was the height of Covid in Australia and we were busy building 49er/FX masts and sundry other things. Roads were pretty empty, so bit of philosophy time… ‘What are we going to do next if this thing (Covid) hangs around for much longer,’ and there was no answer! The conversa- tion carried on back home and over dinner my wife Deirdre said to me, ‘You need to do the boat you always wanted to do.’ (Silly girl) In 2004 I’d designed a sportsboat called
Vivace for Pierre Gal. It swept all before it here in Australia. That boat rapidly became known as a 79er, a few more were made, and then that was commercialised into a S8, of which about 15 were built. Cut a long story short, within a week
we shut down much of our production, negotiated an extension to the lease on the factory in Somersby and spent many long nights massaging Vivace into Don’t Panic. I’m a bit of a Douglas Adams nut, pan-
galactic-gargle-blasters, betel-juice and improbability-drives. So Don’t Panic was an immediate fit, especially as this boat was built a) for me, myself and Alex, and b) for five fat old bastards with a sailing problem plus a penchant for fine wine and good food and c) to indulge myself (see a) without having to answer to anyone else. Top to toe self-indulgent. In Australia the ASBA [Australian
Sports-Boat Association] set some pretty liberal rules, max LOA 8.5m, max beam 3.5m, no trapeze, max air draft 12.5m, has to pass ISO Stability and Buoyancy Com- pliance and for events like Airlie Beach you have to be Cat 5. Otherwise anything goes. ASBA is for ex-skiffies who struggle to
46 SEAHORSE
sail yachts (dullll) but are too old for skiffs! To use Michael (Burger) Kennedy’s words the 89er is, and I quote, ‘an old skiffie’s wet dream.’ In August 2021 we started building Don’t
Panic.Almost immediately it became known as the 89er. Then a few people got wind of it. One
was Rob Remilton in south Australia, he wanted pictures and was ringing me almost daily for updates; what I did not know was he was sharing everything I sent him… To curtail another long-winded story, it
got too much for Rob so he suggested the switch to Sailing Anarchywhere with about 1,000 contributors things soon got silly. I really don’t wish to bore you with intricate details so I will broad brush the story. i) I’m a bit green. Carbon is amazing stuff and in the right application offers hugely extended longevity which is a very impor- tant green attribute. We use it in the mast, boom and pole and I expect those will still be in use 20 years from now. But in the hull and foils I don’t consider it necessary. I did my research, initially settling on
flax. But then I revisited a previous adven- ture and researched basalt fibre. So the 89er hull is made from PET foam using basalt fibre as the sole reinforcement (other than glass). The proof is in the pudding and I cannot measure any hull deflection (so it’s <0.5mm) from 10kg to 500kg of shroud tension. And it’s presently the lightest ABSA sportsboat on the register. ii) The boat is designed to go upwind. 75-80% of any racing boat’s life is upwind (any boat that you sleep in a bed on solid ground each night) so it is massively optimised for upwind. iii) Likewise, the downwind decisions. This boat is too light and way too fast to ever carry an A1 spinnaker, but to effec- tively carry a ‘working A2’ it needs a huge pole – stupidly huge. So our A2 is 70% the size of those boats around us. And we go
faster and lower. Our A3 is smaller again and seriously quick. iv) The only wires on the boat are associ- ated with instrumentation, bilge pumps or propulsion. Very probably because we can’t measure
hull deflection – see i) – and because as skiffies we ‘seasoned’ our Dyneema shrouds (DM20 SK99) we can double forestay tension very simply. Just two turns (about 4mm) on standard Blue Wave shroud bottlescrews does the job. By using DM20 we also stripped almost
30% of the weight above deck with no negative side effects. To date the DM20 has been faultless. Sure, had a few mishaps initially. We
ripped out a few bolts and blocks. We blew a M5 soft shackle on a jib halyard in 30kt+ of wind. Three races we started and did not finish. As well as 34 other races we started against the best Australia has to offer; dramas during those races, but by margins ranging from 40 seconds to 10% of the race time we have 34 bullets from 34 finishes to date. And we won Airlie Beach Race Week with four wins and a third on the (different) CBH scoring system. Next up is Hamilton Island then Magnetic Island. And ‘Maggie’ really is an idyllic experience. Perfect for five fat old bastards to
indulge in fine food, great wine, perfect company… and have sailing as an excuse to be there. This is what this boat is about: hook it
up behind a family car, roster the plane flights so those who drive one way fly the other, everyone chips in. We stay in stunning venues and sail epic events. My wife won’t let me retire; she too is
a workaholic (probably because she is married to me). But Airlie and Maggie, it’s a tough way to spend some quality time with your mates. Julian Bethwaite, Mosman, Sydney
q
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 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
