One of two new 5.5 Metres built by Peter Morton last winter, the Hollom-designed Jean Genie is seen during an early outing on the Solent. The crisp chine (opposite) also defines the point above the waterline where maximum beam is measured. At this stage Jean Genie was sailing with an experimental runner-less rig but by the time she arrived in Italy the team had reverted to a conventional set-up which allowed a more slender topmast section; the narrow upper girths on the design’s high-aspect mainsail meant that the fatter tube section necessary to dispense with the use of runners cost too much in terms of efficiency in the top half of the sail
Champion!
Dave Hollom, once best known for his winning glider foils, is on a roll with championship titles in sailing in everything from OK and International 14 dinghies through to the highest echelons of model yachting.
Then in May his first 5.5 Metre, Jean Genie, put on a dominant performance on its competitive debut on Italy’s Lake Garda…
In 2019, in time for the 2020 Worlds, I produced a prospectus for a proposed new 5.5 Metre. It contained a number of new avenues of possible progress in the design of 5.5 Metre boats and it was hoped that the Australian David Hayter, who very suc- cessfully sails one of my International 14 dinghies, would perhaps be able to contact prospective owners during those Worlds in Australia. As it turned out Peter Morton, otherwise known as Morty, a British owner
50 SEAHORSE
new to the class and keen to have his own 5.5, decided to take matters further. It all started in February of 2020 with a
visit to Cowes to discuss the project with Steve Quigley, an Australian naval architect and trusted advisor of Morty. During the design study in the prospectus I had pro- duced a number of VPPs to test various areas within the allowed rule space – Steve seemed duly impressed that the VPP that was closest to Morty’s existing boat agreed extremely well with the boat’s recorded sailing performance. A few weeks later Morty decided to push
the go-button, with me designing the boat and Steve running CFD tests on each design. To add to the strength of the team Tom
Schnackenberg, of Australia II and New Zealand America’s Cup fame, and a close friend of Morty’s, was recruited to oversee the performance predictions. Dave Lenz, Ruairidh Scott and Sam Haines looked after sail design and Suzy Russell of Orca Con- sulting took care of the boat’s structure. The boat was to be built by Gavin Tap-
penden of Composite Craft in Cowes, with whom I have had a long relationship that spans a fair few successful boats. Andrew Palfrey, aka Dog, took on the role of project manager and also looked after the rig and general control systems.
History The 5.5 Metre class has its origins in a rule devised in 1914 for the Boat Racing Associa- tion (BRA) by Malden Heckstall-Smith, the then editor of the Yachting Monthly maga- zine and brother of Brooke Heckstall-Smith, yachting correspondent of The Field and the first secretary of the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU). The BRA was formed by a group of
members of the Yacht Racing Association (YRA), the forerunner of the Royal Yacht- ing Association (RYA), who were dissatis- fied with the type of yachts that the YRA was promoting and instead wanted a rule that produced the type of yacht that they were more interested in racing. The rule that Malden came up with became known as the ‘BRA Eighteen Foot Rule’. At the time there were two major yacht
racing rules: the Universal Rule, devised by Nathanael Herreshoff and used in the USA, and the International Rule, used in Europe. The International Rule was in essence a
length and sail area rule (see last month’s Charles Sibbick profile). It was basically the old Seawanhaka Rule with additions for freeboard, plus a ‘d’ measurement to encourage deep canoe bodies; although there was a minimum displacement based
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