Yacht design aficionados and lovers of all things classic owe a debt of gratitude to the community of Italian owners and shipyards who over the years have rescued and restored so many important racing yachts. The beautiful Outlaw, seen here, is at least as good today as when she slipped down the rails at Souters in 1963. Illingworth & Primrose’s preferred cold-moulded construction was immaculately executed by the famous Cowes yard – note the elegant coachroof with a very modern pursuit of minimum aero drag
He encouraged and assisted in the found- ing of the hugely influential Glénans Sail- ing School when he was asked to design a yacht specifically for the school in 1958. Working together on the Glénans project inspired Philippe Harlé to later become a highly successful yacht designer himself. Many of Illingworth & Primrose’s early
clients were French. Illingworth loved the country and spoke fluent French. One of their early designs was commissioned by French yachtsman Henri Rouault as a smaller development of the 36ft Belmore which had been one of their very first designs. The Maïca class and her deriva- tives were to become startlingly successful – both on racecourses around the world and commercially. A Maïca class yacht won the RORC
Championship in 1962 and another fin- ished second in class in the 1962 Bermuda Race. They became one of the first produc- tion offshore racing boats. The French yard CMN, in Cherbourg, built 38 of them in timber over a very short period of time, while over 100 glass-fibre counter- sterned versions were built in Italy. There were also successful development
versions of the Maïca class – most notably Green Highlander, built by Souters but adopting the much lighter cold-moulded construction developed for the Illingworth Blue Charms. But while John Illingworth influenced the early days of the development of
42 SEAHORSE
offshore racing as a sailor, an owner with a highly developed eye for design, a navi - gator, a strategist and a race organiser, his biggest influence was to come when he teamed up with Angus Primrose to develop his ideas of what would make an offshore winner into a complete design package. This partnership lasted only some eight
years before splitting into two different design organisations. But they were eight very creative years and in 1963 – mid-term so to speak – they produced a ‘big boat’ of historic importance in the form of the 48ft light-displacement Outlaw. She was described, at the time of her
launch and subsequently in the 1963 season, as the most radical and successful yacht of her size. In the early 1960s a 48-footer was a big boat and a size that was dominated by the traditional thinking of the time. Outlaw blew a big hole in those traditions with her short bow over- hang, extreme reverse sheer, big beam and light, for the time, displacement. With her tall, high-aspect ratio cutter rig
(once again) she was to become the epit- ome of what Illingworth & Primrose stood for – an ocean racer that was an upwind machine. That machine-like quality of Outlaw was further reflected in the cold- moulded construction, interior and deck layout, each hallmarks of the all-encom- passing I & P philosophy of yacht design. Ironically it was the relentless pursuit of certain design characteristics to push the
limits of upwind speed that was instru- mental in a major loss of popularity for I & P only eight years after it began. Like Sparkman & Stephens across the
pond in America, Illingworth & Primrose generally stayed well away from the concept of separate rudders. They believed that a second leading edge underwater would create additional drag that would impair upwind performance and that it was not the most seamanlike solution for an ocean-racing boat. The same notion held sway in many parts of the ocean- racing world until the mid-1960s when a certain Dick Carter became the first designer to win the Fastnet Race with a separate-rudder boat. Dutch designer Ricus van de Stadt had
come close to achieving this in the mid- 1950s with Zeevalk (issue 484), but a second overall in the great race was not enough to start a design revolution. But Carter’s Rabbit design of 1965 did, and this was to lead to the complete abandon- ment of keel-hung rudders on ocean-racing yachts almost overnight. This development caught the Illingworth & Primrose design team somewhat off guard and, while S&S and others went from strength to strength in the development of short-fin keels and separate rudders, Illingworth & Primrose failed to capitalise effectively on this major change of design direction. Only three years after Outlaw stunned the racing world in 1963 Illingworth &
GUIDO CANTINI
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