By 1975 small IOR designs were being built using the new composites, including the latest wood-epoxy systems. Bigger yachts were mostly still being built in aluminium, however, with the rest in timber. This (left) is the final S&S-designed Morning Cloud arriving from the fabricators for fit-out in 1975. By now younger designers like Holland, Peterson and Bruce King were moving in and the fourth Morning Cloud was not a success, failing to make that year’s British Admiral’s Cup team. Inspirational… maybe (right). Some of the Brazilian Admiral’s Cup sailors who helped give a young Jim Pugh confidence that there was indeed human life outside the Solent


‘Doug was good at hull lines and


interested in the engineering, but he rarely even committed the ideas to drawings. We would have meetings and Doug would just wander in, have a look, say a few wise words then walk out and leave us to it.’ But by now Pugh had fully grasped the


importance to the builder of good draw- ings and soon after joining he asked Tripp to help him improve this side of the operation. But the newcomer had over- stepped: ‘Doug didn’t like that at all,’ said Pugh, ‘but in the end I got my way and we were delivering much more detailed instructions, which became pretty vital as the materials started to evolve from aluminium and wood to composite. ‘That said, trade-offs were still needed,’


he said, ‘because people like Lowell were always modifying what was designed and adding their own ideas so we had to be flexible. Sometimes it could be testing.’ Whereas the construction details had


previously been very much in the hands of the builder, starting in the 1970s the quest for light weight had led to experimentation with these new materials and build tech- niques. Metal and wood processes were well refined among the best builders, with cold-moulded wood construction also making a return with the appearance of the ‘new-fangled’ high-performing epoxies offered by the Gougeon brothers. But larger boats were still built in metal so viable alternatives were being sought. At the time most production boats were


of course also being built in ‘composites’, but these were monolithic glass/polyester, too crude and flexible to handle the loads of a raceboat. Yet such composites were still attractive if they could be used as a light shell around a load-bearing frame; it was during this transition that designer Ron Holland started specifying alloy space- frames inside his boats to take the loads with a light glass shell to keep out the ocean – Holland’s all-conquering 40-footer Imp being the most famous example.


Pugh says another breakthrough boat of


this era was not built in California, but in the UK by his friend Bill Green who had worked with Jeremy Rogers to produce the Peterson-designed Gumboots, winner of the 1974 One Ton Cup in Torquay. Green was also pushing ahead with


epoxies, unidirectional cloth types and other new ideas that would help deliver a new generation of lighter, stronger off- shore racers, including the Peterson 43 Moonshine which dominated all the inshore races in the 1977 Admiral’s Cup and would have won overall had it not been for a mediocre Fastnet showing. Moonshine was built in a single skin with an internal web of reinforcements to take the loads from the spar and appendages, but this time using composite elements to replace the alloy frame used in Imp. It was Moonshine’s design that Pugh


says was a precursor to the popular Serendipity 43 built by Tom Dreyfus at New Orleans Marine, which in the next few years would dominate ocean racing in the US and beyond with boats like Louisiana Crude, Scarlett O’Hara and Dreyfus’s own Your Cheatin’ Heart, com- plete with tape measure graphics following a rating scandal that would later throw doubt over Crude’s early success. But before the close of 1977 Pugh had a


smaller project closer to home: Peterson’s own ¼ Tonner Starred Eyed Stella, built in composite by Dreyfus. At that year’s ¼ Ton Cup in Corpus Christi, Texas, known for windy conditions and steep waves, Pugh sailed for the first time with some other Californians who were well on the way to building a reputation for them- selves: Rod Davis and Tom Blackaller. In 1978 Pugh’s signature event was the


inaugural Sardinia Cup held at Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, where he sailed in the winning Italian team once again alongside Davis, Blackaller and other members of this new Californian elite including Gary Weisman and Dick Deaver. ‘This was my


first time sailing in Italy,’ said Pugh, ‘and with guys like that onboard it was pretty awesome… and slightly intimidating.’ Pugh reckons 1979 was the year of


another breakthrough design for the Peterson office, the Rogers-built 39-footer Eclipsewith such a light hull and deck that several tons of internal ballast were needed to bring the boat to its lines. Fortunately those tons of lead stayed in place during the stormy Fastnet race of that year’s Admiral’s Cup and while Australia won the Cup Eclipse ended the series top boat. Pugh raced that Fastnet on the second


Williwaw, a 45ft Peterson design on the US Admiral’s Cup team, again skippered by Dennis Conner: ‘That entire series was windy, except for a light-air struggle to get around Portland Bill before the storm hit. ‘We were reefed down as much as we


could; at one point only OJ Young and I were on deck and he screamed over the wind, “Whatever happens, we stay with the boat,” sadly ironic given what was going on around us. Then when we got to Plymouth we heard the stories.’ By the turn of the decade this frenetic


pace of new projects and racing around the globe was starting to wear on Pugh. ‘I needed a break,’ he said. ‘One of my last projects with Doug was the composite 41- footer Salute which we built in San Diego for my friend Bill Twist of San Francisco. ‘Soon after Salute launched I left Doug’s


operation for a sabbatical and raced the whole west coast season with Bill. We won pretty much everything… but a major factor was we had an excellent social director managing shoreside festivities for the crew.’ Ruefully Pugh adds, ‘Now we don’t have social directors, we have coaches.’ But Pugh’s sabbatical was pivotal; the


next chapter saw him reunited, still in San Diego but in a different context with a fellow graduate of the Peterson office and the birth of Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design. Part II… Maxis, sleds and Superyachts and almost everything else in between q


SEAHORSE 49


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