Opposite: the Dubois-designed Singapore entry Uin-Na-Mara slides through to leeward as the USA’s Peterson 46 Williwaw broaches out during the second inshore race of the windy 1979 Admiral’s Cup. Dennis Conner was Williwaw’s helmsman at the time… a small reminder that Solent wind-against-tide conditions are ready and waiting to test a new generation of Admiral’s Cup racers come July. Above: by the 1978 Pan Am Clipper Cup in Hawaii, the trend among smaller IOR yachts to lighter, flatter, more dinghy-style fractional rig designs is spreading upwards. This is Peterson’s Magic Pudding – his first new-generation One Tonner – and Bruce Farr’s latest One Tonner Country Boy (to windward). Both boats are centreboarders but, while the Peterson solution relies completely on internal ballast for stability, the centreboard being light enough to float, Farr’s design is carrying about 20 per cent of its ballast in the board


into the London offices of the Royal Ocean Racing Club magazine, Seahorse. His name, Ron Holland. He just appeared out of the blue one


day, with a ‘fairy-tale’ from the sunny climes of San Diego. I was editor, at that time, of Seahorse and Ron was also look- ing at ways to break into yacht design. In an era more or less dominated by


Sparkman & Stephens, German Frers and Dick Carter, a tale of an upstart designer, Doug Peterson, taking on the establish- ment was too good to miss. The US trials for the team to represent America in the upcoming One Ton Cup were split into east coast and west coast events. Doug took the opportunity presented by having the trials in his backyard, head-on. His good friend Carl Eichenlaub, a


boatbuilder in San Diego, took Doug’s quickly, yet beautifully drawn lines plans and built the 34ft boat in 12 weeks flat. But when measured after her launch, only days before the trials began, Ganbare didn’t quite measure as a One Tonner. In the idiosyncratic world of the IOR


rule she was deemed to be too big. The solution? Make her less powerful and thus rate less by bolting lead bars onto the deck. It worked but, being out of time for rating changes, Doug now needed dispensation from the other competitors. Ted Turner, already selected from the


east coast trials with his S&S-designed Lightnin’, had visions of getting a west coast sistership into the team as well. His


reaction to Doug’s dilemma. ‘Aw, hell, let ’em race, that funny little boat has no chance anyway.’ Were Turner’s immortal words the tiny slice of luck that Doug needed to launch an embryonic career? Famous last words, as they say.


Ganbare easily won the west coast selec- tion trials and with it the right to represent the US in the One Ton Cup in Italy. It did indeed turn out to be an epoch moment as Ganbare, helmed by Doug, representing the US and with a little help from his friends Ron Holland and the late great Bill Green, went on to conquer the world. It didn’t do Ron any harm either, who,


apart from regaling me about his friend Doug Peterson, came to tell me about his own ‘first’ design, the Quarter Tonner Eygthene which later in that summer of 1973 Ron would steer to victory in the Quarter Ton Cup – another game-chang- ing moment in the history of yacht design. It’s interesting to study exactly what


Doug brought to racing boat design with that first IOR creation. His ideas certainly created a new chapter in the time-hon- oured relationship between rating and boat speed. The Peterson shape was demonstrably quick out of the box com- pared to the One Tonners of S&S and Dick Carter who, between them, had won every One Ton Cup in the new offshore era of the event since 1965. The ease with which Ganbare went


upwind caused Olin Stephens, out watch- ing the Cup in Italy, to comment just how


good she looked making her way through the Mediterranean slop. Little did Olin know, but he was witnessing the beginning of the end of his own office’s domination of racing yacht design. Yet there was nothing radical about


Ganbare. Sure, everyone said she was a small boat, relatively light with less beam than was typical at the time, and that these were the defining features of the design. But these weren’t the only differences. She looked small, with her short aft overhang and narrowish beam, but in the department that really counts – waterline length – she was only slightly shorter than average. But there was a subtlety of shape in the under- body that was to prove key in the perfor- mance of these first-generation, so called by Peterson himself, pintail designs, that to a greater or lesser extent extended through the concept of all of his IOR boats. From his experience of racing aboard


some pretty radical boats, like the John Spencer-designed New World, and being in the company of a certain Ron Holland, Peterson was convinced that fore and aft hull balance was critical to all-round performance; but, most notably, would have the biggest impact on upwind perfor- mance if a yacht hull remained balanced as it heeled over rather than tipping bow down which, Peterson noted, wide-sterned boats were prone to do. It wasn’t so much that an asymmetrical


water plane was inherently slow, but that as the bow went down the keel would


SEAHORSE 47 


PHIL UHL


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