Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
Fun (aka value for money)
From early on I have been fascinated by boats but over time actually more so by planning and building boats than by racing them. In 1960s Holland the marinas were still
small… as were the boats. The Dutch boatshow, the HISWA, I would visit a few days in a row. I still recall the buzz of the RAI building, the trade
show and conference centre in Amsterdam, nowadays better known for hosting the Marine Equipment Trade Show (METS) that prompts an annual marine manufacturers’ pilgrimage from all over the planet. The RAI opened its doors at its current location in 1961 and the HISWA boatshow was first held there in 1963. I ended up project managing new builds of one-off racing yachts
as well as luxury performance yachts. Already by the mid-1990s it had become clear to me that neither I nor many others with the same passion were going to keep butter on our bread producing one-off racers for private owners. Hence the luxury interest developed and once inside that market my interest was accelerated by the endless possibilities and still is. It is a market with no limits, both in a positive as well as negative sense. Some boats justify their own chapter in Erasmus’s 1509 work In Praise of Folly… We can all come up with reasons why building one-off racing
yachts for private use has continued to dwindle. The easiest one being cost, but cost is hardly ever the reason. Cost is mainly an obstacle if there is an imbalance with quality.
Having said that, an IOR or IMS 50ft racer in the mid-90s would have set you back about 25 per cent of what a TP52 costs to get on the water these days. In turn a typical IOR One-Tonner was then about half the cost of the 50ft boat, something like £300,000 plus tax, ready for a first sail and for spending the same amount each year to participate in the illustrious trophies of that era.
28 SEAHORSE Mind you, in Lymington in the UK, then a hub of custom boat
building, in the early-90s you could still buy a decent plot with a three-bedroom house on it for £100,000, which today you have to multiply by five or six times… at least. I know, that is still the same house but the same One-Tonner is now up for grabs at maybe £40,000. Still looking great, still great to sail, but at best desirable now only as a classic. I must admit I recently seriously considered buying the Royal
Huisman Frers 43 Bierkaai, one of my first new-build projects and a boat I had the pleasure to run and race on in 1983, when I saw her all shiny and repainted in her original livery advertised for the price of a Ford Mondeo. I decided not to risk my loving memories. Somehow motivation to build new and tinker with racing boats
is absent. Building new is generally seen as a hassle, where a few decades back I am convinced quite a few owners were actually interested more in the planning and building than in the actual sailing. Consequently, as far as pure racing boats are concerned, whether building or planning them, it has become an art that few still master. And where there is a desire it is even harder to find good teachers. We can of course point at the rating systems and their inherent
instability. But in a way we are then also pointing at ourselves, for supporting the fragmentation of rules instead of focusing on improv- ing one or two of them for worldwide use. A rating rule is after all just a tool, not a goal. I know, quite a few like to talk rules more than actually go out and sail. Another reason is today’s lack of world-class events, as in official
or unofficial world championships for high-level fully crewed handicap racing, like the Admiral’s Cup or the Ton Cups of the 1970s and ’80s. The ORC or mixed IRC-ORC world championships, possibly wisely, are in no rush nor in any position to climb the ambition ladder
BUZZ PHOTOS/ALAMY
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