morphed into the hugely successful RSAero, and others became starter/institution boats, the Quest and Zest. Of these the most notable was the Aero, designed as a modern- day replacement for the Laser. ‘It is literally half the weight of a Laser, and primarily through the design,’ Richards explains. ‘I wanted to keep the panels so that you
could use flat sheets of foam, because as soon as you start to have to double-cut the foam the resin weight shoots up – so basic attention to detail. I would have been happy if we’d made them at 40kg [a Laser hull weight is 62kg], but the early prototypes were 28-29kg, so we beefed them up to 32kg before it went into production.’ The Aero’s rig is also half the weight of a Laser’s. The Aero won World Sailing’s Equip-
ment Trials for a new singlehanded dinghy but among the world’s MNAs there was too much vested interest in keeping the Laser, despite it marking its 50th birthday this year. ‘It is a fun boat to sail – I even have one of my own!’ continues Richards of the Aero. ‘I don’t race it, I just enjoy sailing it… it skids along. ‘I was also insistent that it came with an
aluminium trolley. In fact, an Aero on its trolley is pretty much the same weight as a Laser trolley alone.’
Design As his CV attests Richards is clearly an accomplished designer of boats. But in fact being self-taught rather than the product of a Southampton University course has meant he hasn’t been perceived a threat by those who were. ‘I have done a lot of work over the years with Ed Dubois and Tony Castro, because I am not a proper naval architect but a sailor who happens to know more than some about yacht design.’ It is also a generational thing, he observes:
‘It is very hard to go and build yourself a National 12 or a Moth these days, because they are so high-tech.’ When he was grow- ing up competitive dinghies could still be made from sheets of plywood with hard chines, etc. Also these days few people have the desire or the time to take a DIY approach to design and boatbuilding and there are also few attainable development classes where prices haven’t skyrocketed. ‘When I grew up there were several of us
at the local sailing club who sat down and designed and built our own National 12s because that is what you did. Back then you could make them out of four planks of plywood and if you made an outrageous one people noticed you. I was lucky that I could sail well enough so that even my clunkers did reasonably well! ‘In those days perhaps 50 per cent of
boats were home built – such as an Enter- prise or a Mirror kit. These days it is hard to find the opportunities to pick up the knowledge that I was able to acquire. I sug- gested to the National 12s a few years ago that they should change the rules to allow plywood chined boats to be 5kg lighter…’ However, to date such an incentive for home builders hasn’t come to pass. This
Olympic gold Richards may have given up on his own personal Olympic dream after Los Angeles in 1984 but he has since been involved in the Games as a coach or in some other technical capacity. Nowhere was his involvement so material as when Shirley Robertson won her first Olympic gold medal, at Sydney 2000 in the Europe singlehander. Jo recounts: ‘She literally phoned up in
tears from Sydney while I was on the beach in Gurnard! She had been at the worlds the year before with a wingmast [finishing third] but that had since been banned. ‘She had then been led down a road of
stiffer and stiffer masts that the RYA had been funding, based on David’s [Howlett] Finn experience. If you make the mast stiffer the sail flatter and you grunt harder… But the Finn is more like a keelboat and, even with a big grunty Finn sailor, the kit is still twice the weight of the sailor, whereas the Europe is half the weight of the sailor, so
situation is obviously exacerbated by the majority of classes now being one-design (most of them manufacturer one-designs). Neither is there a modern equivalent of
the Quarter Ton class where budding yacht designers can make their mark today. ‘To get on the ladder nowadays people have to have done a yacht and boat design course, or naval architecture, but also must have rich parents who can afford to fund a few boats for them to get themselves going.’ Richards admits that recently he has
preferred designing dinghies. ‘Big boat design has become increasingly technical and people often end up specialising in one bit, such as structural engineering or CFD. With a dinghy you can still sit at the kitchen table and do the whole thing your- self, which is what I enjoy.’ While his aversion to email, the internet
and even his smart phone might indicate Jo is some Luddite who prefers to draw or sculpt his creations, in fact he does use a computer. ‘I use Maxsurf to design the basic surfaces and then I usually go to Rhino if doing CNC-milled tooling.’
you needed something that works for the sailor a lot more.’ So Richards found himself on the next
flight to Sydney armed with the laminate schedule. ‘The first thing we did was bend test all Shirley’s existing masts. ‘Then we literally did 57,000 strokes of
sanding with a stick and sandpaper up the inside of this high-modulus carbon fibre mast she had, because we had to keep the correct outside dimensions. Then every day we would come in and test the bend again together with the periodic time of the bounce. ‘Finally, having taken all this material out,
we had to add weight back in to make it legal again… but without changing the bend, which involved laying in glass at 45° up the inside of the section.’ Robertson’s speed was apparent on the
opening beat of the Sydney 2000 regatta and she went on to claim the first of her two gold medals.
Typically for Rhino work Jo teams up with his friend, Cowes-based CAD specialist Guy Whitehouse. At 66 Jo continues to innovate. Visitors
to Dusseldorf Boat Show this year may have been intrigued to see the Pulse58, an innovative electric RIB he co-designed that is being marketed by a sister company to RS. This, he admits, is very much a work in progress – one of its latest features is a ‘rim drive’ rather than a conventional centre spline-mounted propeller. Having worked for decades designing
multihulls, even foilers such as Blue Arrow, it is perhaps surprising that he hasn’t been roped in to work for a recent America’s Cup team. However, he maintains that his organic skillset doesn’t fit in with modern design teams. ‘I still find that if I have to guess a section or a hull shape or angle of attack of a foil, my guess is often a lot better than people who have aeronautical degrees, just through having a better feel for it. ‘But there is no substitute for science. I
am not remotely qualified to do the sort of work required by today’s Cup teams.’ q
SEAHORSE 55
ALAMY
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