The crew of Hunt’s Concordia 41 Harrier at the finish of the 1956 Bermuda Race where they finished runner-up in Class D. Harrier was designed to the CCA rule used in the USA but the previous year she had made a successful foray to England where, competing under the RORC rating system, she won five races at Cowes Week and only lost that year’s Fastnet Race as a result of a rigging failure
enjoyed by the Dragon and Star. Ray Hunt, always restlessly innovative,
then drew the 310 which was essentially a 6 Metre-sized 210. With a divided cockpit and over 32ft long on the waterline, she was impressively quick. But the increase in cost from the increasingly popular 210 killed the concept and only one example was ever built. The beautiful 410 was a 1947 variant,
being strip planked and round bilged. Despite her slightly odd round-sided deck- house, she was a beauty. For those enam- oured with double-enders, the beautiful 410 was a knockout at 36ft long, 6ft 11in wide and drawing 5ft 6in. She retained the Ten Series minimal L-shaped fin keel. The 410 won the New London to
Marblehead Race by such a margin that a phonecall was made to the Cape Cod Canal operators to see if she had taken a short cut. Sadly she was lost in 1961 when she was knocked down in a violent 80kt squall while racing far in front of the rest of the fleet. Her crew were lucky, picked up shaken but intact. The shallow, light- displacement hull didn’t accommodate a self-bailing cockpit and she sank quickly. This incident led to self-bailing cockpits and other safety requirements for east coast US racing. A sad end to a beautiful and fast one-off Hunt design. Of all the ‘Ten’ boats Hunt designed,
the one I have at the top of my ‘build when I win the lottery’ list is the 510. Ray Hunt had one built for himself and called her
46 SEAHORSE
Barbara after his wife. It was understand- ably one of his favourite boats. The 43ft-long, 3.5-ton displacement 510
made headlines in 1946 when she beat the powerful 42-ton 73ft S&S yawl Baruna boat for boat in the annual ‘NYYC Cruise’. She was undoubtedly the first ULDB,
with all the characteristics later made famous by the great John Spencer-designed Ragtime in 1963. Even her construction was unique, with longitudinal trusses taking the oak floors and laminated frames rather than a heavy centreline keel. She had a large cast L-shaped iron fin with lead bulb and a separate skeg and rudder aft. Compared to anything of the time, the 510 was revolutionary and genuinely fast. Her dimensions were 43ft long, 8ft beam and she drew 6ft, while displacing a mere 6,900lb (over 5,000lb was in the keel). Inevitably the rulemakers quickly saw to it that her low wetted surface, light-displace- ment symmetrical hull was duly penalised. Actually, another devotee of slim, double-
ended boats fell for the lines of the 510 and in 1975 had a second example built on the other side of the world in New Zealand. Sadly nature had the final word as she was destroyed by fire before launching. She too was built of resin-coated plywood. And she had a self-bailing cockpit. C Raymond Hunt and Associates still
exists and designs fine powerboats using the ‘Huntform’ hull shape. They also have a very tempting modern version of the 510 (the 512) that, if you like modern classics
that will still rock, is worth a good look. An interesting coda to the Ten series
was the tested but never built ‘1010 concept’. Briggs Cunningham, who loved sailing his 225, was an independently wealthy sportsman who was devoted to his sports of motor racing and yachting. Cunningham spent readily to follow his chosen pursuits and both sports were better for his involvement. As a major influencer and patron of yachting, espe- cially between England and the US, Briggs would have had his ear tuned to the future of the America’s Cup. We might forget that before the Twelve
Metre was selected as the America’s Cup vehicle it had active racing on both sides of the Atlantic and was a full-scale breeding ground for design advances within the narrow confines of the rule. Briggs Cun- ningham sailed his father-in-law’s Twelve Nyala (designed by Olin Stephens) on Long Island Sound and Mike Vanderbilt had a hugely successful summer in 1939 when he shipped his Twelve Vim to Eng- land where he won 21 of 27 starts against seven British 12 Metres. The 12 Metre class was selected to be the America’s Cup class for the 1958 races after a hiatus of 21 years from when the super J boat Ranger defeated a very good challenger in Endeav- our II. But what exactly transpired before the 12 Metre was selected? The smaller, Universal Rule M class
sloops were considered but there was some dissatisfaction with aspects of the Universal
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