An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 1

Transcription

1 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 1 I, and many others who currently race in the H Class, believe that the admission of CCSB boats might at best only marginally benefit, and at worst could greatly harm, the competitive vitality and future popularity of H Class racing. Accordingly, when the proposal for CCSB admission is presented to the H Class membership I plan to vote NO. I urge all other QYC members who own a 12 1/2 boat to renew their H Class membership and also to vote NO. Summary: During the last 2+ years, while serving as QYC's representative on the H Class Association board, I have carefully examined the results of the "Measurement Study", have done substantial other research into the long history of the CCSB issue, have interviewed all of the QYC members who are currently active in our own racing fleet, and also have spoken with members of other east coast yacht clubs where mixed fleets of Doughdish and CCSB 12½ replica boats are now being raced. I also interviewed long-time racing members and officers of the Bullseye Sailing Association and have studied the history of other onedesign classes where multiple boat manufacturers have been admitted. In total, I spoke at length with more than 50 people. I began these contacts last year, during the winter, when I was quarantined at home (and needing something useful to do) while recuperating from an illness. At that time, the report of the Measurement Study recently had been released, and as QYC's H Class representative I felt it my obligation to investigate this issue carefully before forming an opinion either for or against it. Accordingly, in most of the interviews my primary goal was to gather information; mainly, I asked questions and listened carefully to what was said. Among those whom I interviewed, I found that very few admitted boat owners who race were in favor of the CCSB admission proposal, that most were wary and many were strongly opposed. Conversely, I found that owners who don't race their boats either were indifferent and/or inclined to vote "yes"; typically their attitude was "The more the merrier -- Why not?". My reasons for opposing CCSB admission are based upon this investigation, and are summarized below in boldface type. A more detailed explanation for each reason is given in the "Explanatory Notes" found at the end of this memo. The first three of the reasons below are based upon what I learned from the interviews, and also upon historical data -- published information that I have assembled and verified and that you can confirm for yourself should you care to do so. For the most part, my personal opinions are confined to "Reason 4" and its related Notes. Reason 1. The margin for error is small and the potential for harm is great. Reason 2. The H Class Association's Measurement Study shows that CCSB boats actually are not "the same" as existing Doughdish and original Herreshoff 12 1/2 boats. The Study's author(s) claim that these observed differences don't matter, that CCSB boats can easily be ballasted to race evenly against the existing H Class racing fleet. But this claim is just a personal opinion of the CCSB admission proponents and it is not supported by any of the measurement data obtained in the Measurement Study. Reason 3. In the history of other one-design racing classes where multiple boat builders have been admitted, extensive regulation and supervision has been needed to prevent the evolution of manufacturing and design details that eventually make the newer boats somewhat faster and the older boats un-competitive against them. As presently organized, the H Class Association, its boat specifications, and its boat builder supervisory resources are wholly inadequate to this necessary task. Reason 4. The proponent's reasons for raising the CCSB issue at this time are not persuasive (not persuasive to me and many other H Class boat owners who are active in our racing fleet). Notes, Reason 1: The simplicity, convenience and economy of our one-design racing format (no measuring, no inspections, no certification, no handicapping, just show up at the starting line and race) is the fundamental reason for the long-continuing popularity of H Class racing at QYC.

2 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 2 This one-design format is accepted by those who race (at least among all of the racers that I know) because they believe that all boats that sail in our races were designed to be, and actually are, "dead even" in their on-the-water performance, so that in our H Class we truly have a level playing field. This collective belief among its members is the only significant asset that the H Class Association has, and the preservation of this belief is essential to the future health of our long-standing racing tradition. For each member, the belief in the fairness of our one-design format is not based on measurements, it is based upon many years of racing experience For instance, at QYC we have many capable sailors, and we DO NOT have a situation in which any few of them predictably will win most or all of the races. Instead, one boat wins today, another boat wins tomorrow, still another wins the next race, and so on. Furthermore, in many of our races the results are very close; in a typical race there are 10 to 12 boats at the starting line, a total elapsed time of 60 to 90 minutes until the winner finishes, and typically 3 or more boats have crossed the finish line within less than one minute after the winner. Races that last more than one hour and in which the finish line is crossed by overlapped boats are not unusual for us. And, over-all, the number of our races that are won by wooden boats is roughly in proportion to the relative number of these boats in our fleet. The same is true for newer vs older Doughdish boats. The competitive spirit that this closeness engenders is FUN, and this also is a fundamental reason why Herreshoff racing has remained so popular, year after year, at QYC. The racing outcomes described above are possible only when all boats in the racing fleet truly are evenlymatched. Therefore, it must be true that William Harding actually did achieve his stated original goal, to make a fiberglass replica boat (the Doughdish) that would race dead-even against a well-maintained wooden Herreshoff. And since, some 40 years later, our fleet now is mostly Doughdish boats, some of which are fairly new and many are now decades old, it must also be true that Harding succeeded in maintaining uniformity in the production of Doughdish boats, year after year, decade after decade. Since the Measurement Study has shown that CCSB and the Doughdish boats really are not identical, and since the admission of CCSB boats into H Class cannot succeed unless the members' confidence in the level playing field is preserved, it then becomes necessary to carefully consider how much difference in actual sailing performance among the CCSB boat, the Doughdish and the wooden Herreshoff could be tolerated. The answer, I think, is almost none. Consider the racing results cited above; in a 90 minute race where the elapsed time difference between winning and a middle-of-the-pack finish is a minute or less; this means that the actual through-the-water speed difference among the first few boats to finish probably was less than 1%! It also means that the admission of any other boat that has even a slight built-in advantage (or disadvantage) in actual sailing performance can destroy the level playing field belief upon which the popularity of H Class racing has been built. Therefore, we should not vote to permanently admit the CCSB boat or any other 12½ replica into the H Class unless and until a majority of our members, particularly those who race, actually believe that the level playing field will not be upset. This collective belief is not something that can be dictated by physical measurements or somehow prescribed by an outsider (i.e a Naval Architect) who claims expertise but who has "no skin in the game". It can come only from actual racing experience. One or two years ago, the H Class rules were changed so that affiliated yacht clubs are now formally authorized to admit CCSB boats (and potentially others) in H Class races that they conduct for their own members, and permitted also to otherwise modify the H Class rules in response to their own local needs and desires. Accordingly, a few clubs have been admitting CCSB boats into some of their own H Class races. Principal among these clubs is Beverly Yacht Club (Marion) where several members own CCSB boats and where the president of Cape Cod Shipbuilding also is both a member and a racing participant. But at QYC and most other H Class-affiliated yacht clubs, there are few locally-owned CCSB boats (QYC has only one or two) and these boats are owned by people who have little apparent interest in racing. In each of the past two years, the H Class Association has attempted to resurrect a midsummer Buzzards Bay inter-club race (at Cleveland Ledge), a race in which CCSB boats might be admitted so that participants from clubs other than BYC might experience racing against them. But thus far no such race has yet actually been held.

3 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 3 Notes, Reason 2: Both the CCSB boat and the Doughdish are replicas (fiberglass-hull copies) of a wooden-hulled boat that was designed in 1914 by Nathaniel Herreshoff and was built during several decades thereafter at his boat yard, the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. Whereas wooden hulls are "laid-up" over a wooden buck (a male form), fiberglass hulls are formed (essentially, cast) inside a female mold. The hull molds for CCSB and Doughdish boats were developed separately, at different times, by rival yards, and for a different initial purpose. For these reasons, and because some above-water features of these two boats are different, there has been long-standing uncertainty about whether they might also be different under-water. When the Measurement Study initially was proposed, it was asserted that the method to be used would objectively settle, once and for all, the question of whether the CCSB boat and the Doughdish have the same hull metrics (dimensions, shape and weight). What actually was found is that: a) in transverse sections. the shapes of both boats are very nearly identical, and b) the overall weights are different -- in a sample of several CCSB hulls, the average weight was about 90 pounds less than the average weight of a few Doughdish hulls that were weighed. I believe that this measuring work was responsibly and competently done, and that these resulting data do not need further validation. However, I completely disagree with the assertion, by the Measurement Study author(s), that these measurements are sufficient to show that CCSB and Doughdish boats will compete evenly if CCSB sailors add 90 pounds of fixed ballast in the cockpit, under the seats. The basis for this disagreement is that the study methodology did not include any measurement of two factors that are primary determinants of through-the-water speed and sailing performance -- waterline length and righting moments. The significance of each of these omissions is explained below. Waterline Length: A first principle of marine architecture is that the hull speed (essentially, the maximum through-the-water speed) of any displacement-hull vessel (such as a 12½) is limited by and proportional to its (actual) waterline length. Every boat or ship that has a "displacement hull" (one that doesn't rise out of the water and plane upon its surface) has a built-in hull speed, and this limits how fast it can move through the water when a propulsive force is applied. In other words, whenever there s enough wind force to drive the boat at its hull speed, a boat that has a longer waterline will be faster. But our Measurement Study did not include any determination of actual waterline length. (In fact, no longitudinal measurements of any kind were made and the Measurement Study report is deficient in failing to state this clearly.) When measured, all of the boats were out of the water, so the actual location of the waterline, on the hull, was not (and could not be) determined. Instead, in drawing its conclusions, the measurement committee simply assumed that all boats had the same 150 waterline. In fact, the 150" waterline assumption might be correct for Doughdish and wooden Herreshoff boats (the boat specification in our class rules says this) but it very likely is not correct for the CCSB boat (in the Bullseye Class specification, the waterline length is said to be 150½"). This difference is small, but the more important point is that the actual waterline length is what really counts, this is partly determined by how high or low the boat is riding in the water, and in turn this is influenced by the displacement weight of the boat. To read further about waterline length and hull speed, a convenient place to start is Righting Moment: In the Measurement Study, overall hull weights were measured and compared. But no comparative measurement of righting moments were made, and it is entirely possible for two sailboats that are identical in external appearance, in underwater hull shape and overall weight can have substantially different self-righting properties. The righting moment is a measure of the tendency of a boat to return to an upright position in response to an external force that causes it to roll or pitch. In the design of a sailboat, the transverse righting moment (heeling moment) is determined primarily by the weight and depth of its keel, and the righting force thus created is proportional to the vertical distance between the boat s center of gravity and its center of

4 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 4 buoyancy. If one sailboat has a greater heeling moment than another sailboat, and if all other things are equal, the boat with the greater heeling moment will sail stiffer and very probably will be able to make faster upwind progress. The righting moment also has a fore/aft dimension, which sometimes is called the "pitching moment". In general, a boat with a higher pitching moment will better resist "hobby-horsing" when sailing through a chop and hence will have a built-in heavy weather speed advantage. Bilge Shape: The interior hull structure of the CCSB hull is unique. This difference probably is less important than the two issues discussed above, but in the current question (where even small inherent differences can be significant) it is relevant nonetheless. All Doughdish and most of the wooden 12½ boats were constructed with open bilges, whereas in the CCSB hull these same interior spaces are closed-in (and filled with flotation). When sailing in a chop, any water that splashes over the coaming will immediately drain into the bilge, and because water is heavy, even a small amount of it that s sloshing in an open bilge will significantly reduce the righting moment of the boat. In the real world of Buzzards Bay rough water sailing, its closed-in bilge could sometimes be a built-in racing advantage for the CCSB Boats. Notes, Reason 3: Some of the members who currently race an H Class boat have had prior racing experience in other one-design classes. To them, this prior experience has shown that the admission of two or more competing boat builders inevitably will create a situation in which each company feels that its survival depends upon its ability to make a better product within the limitations established by the class rules. In other words, each boat builder will need to "read between the lines" in order to make "improvements" in his product -- he will be compelled to do this simply to remain competitive with the other admitted builder(s). For the racer, these incremental improvements will mean that to remain competitive he periodically will need to buy a new boat. NOBODY WANTS THIS to happen within the H Class! The Star Class provides a useful example of a one-design small boat racing class where multiple builders have been admitted, and the current rules and procedures of the Star Class are referenced below to show what the H Class Association will need if, after admitting the CCSB boat (or any other second builder), we are to have any chance of success in protecting our class from the incremental improvements problem described above. Briefly, these are as follows: a) There is a very detailed technical specification (16 pages) that a prospective builder's product must meet to qualify for admission to the Star Class. (Please see and compare this Star Class specification with our current definition of what constitutes an H Class eligible boat, see b) There is a technical committee that reviews a prospective builder's proposal, then extensively tests a prototype of his boat. If this committee is satisfied with the results of these initial tests, the committee will then grant a provisional acceptance of the proposed new boat. During the provisional acceptance period, the prototype(s) are permitted (required?) to compete in a specified minimum number of Star Class races, races that are formally observed and judged. And then, at the end of this trial period, there is another formal review in which permanent eligibility is either granted or denied based upon the new boat's actual sailing performance. c) In the subsequent production of an admitted manufacturer, no deviation from the Star Class specification is permitted, and no subsequent variation in any detail of materials or construction (either from the tested prototype or from the practice of other established builders) is allowed, except by prior approval from the Star Class technical committee. In the H Class, we have not yet adequately addressed any of these complex issues.

5 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 5 Notes, Reason 4: The proponents of the CCSB question are reasonable and well-intentioned people who are genuine in their hope for the future prosperity of our H Class racing tradition. They believe that CCSB admission will strengthen the H Class, but I disagree for all of the reasons given below. The proponents' reasons "for" are well-explained in the documents currently posted under "Voting" on the H Class web site, so I will only briefly enumerate them here. The proponents thus far have given two reasons for advancing this question, at this time: a) Injustice: In his letter to the members that was posted in 2014 on the Herreshoff12.org web site, the Association's president asserted that "Exclusion of the CCSB boat is a long-standing injustice that should now be corrected" (or words to that effect). In this assertion, the injustice was committed in the mid- 1970s when the members at Quissett, Buzzards, and other local yacht clubs decided to reject CCSB boat and to perpetuate the H Class with the only admitted boats being: 1) Herreshoff originals and restored examples thereof, 2) Newer wooden boats built by Quincy-Adams Shipyard and later by CCSB (both "licensed" by Nathaniel Herreshoff's successors and built using original Herreshoff hull molds and plans -- hence also considered genuine Herreshoff boats) and 3) The fiberglass Doughdish replica boat that had been developed by William Harding and had been racing within the local wooden boat fleets during the previous one or two summers. With respect to the assertion that this long-ago decision was unjust, I disagree. Certainly it is true that the outcome was unfortunate for CCSB, a long-established company that had purchased Herreshoff's wooden boat hull molds, and a company that had, then and now, a reputation for high-quality work. Even so, I think that decision was wise, correct and proper for the problem then at hand -- how best to maintain an old and cherished tradition of one-design racing at a time when wooden boats are becoming increasingly expensive to build and maintain, and when most of the boats in the existing racing fleet are getting old and tired. A fiberglass replica boat was needed, the only such boat then available from CCSB was the Fisher's Island Bull's Eye, and it was not then, or now, suitable for one-design racing against the existing Herreshoff fleet. This was the circumstance 40+ years ago when William Harding, a well-known and respected local sail maker, commissioned the design of a fiberglass replica boat (later named Doughdish), a boat designed and built specifically for one-design racing against the existing Herreshoff fleet. Harding (a sail maker) teamed-up with Peter Duff (partner at Edey & Duff, a respected local boat building company) to build the first examples of the new boat, and these new boats were raced within the existing wooden boat fleet for at least one whole season before CCSB countered with its own gaff-rigged offering (the CCSB boat). Further information about these events and controversies that ensued are given in the appendix at the end of this report. More importantly, I think that these past events are irrelevant to the question now at hand: specifically, what the future of the H Class is to be. b) Requests from CCSB owners: One of the documents currently posted on the H Class web site begins as follows: "Cape Cod Shipbuilding (CCSB) owners from multiple fleets have asked and continue to ask the Association Board to allow them to participate in the Annual H Class Championship and the H Class Association." I think it is improper for the H Class board to ask its members to vote, either directly or indirectly, for the admission of "new members" and "new fleets" without providing any specific information about who they are, where they are located and what their qualifications and interests might be. (This doesn't even faintly resemble the new member admission process at QYC or any other yacht club that I've ever known of). For instance, currently there are a several hundred 12½ boats many different replica versions thereof. These replica versions include Doughdishes, Bull's Eyes (three different types), Havens, and even a few recently-built and very beautifully-constructed wooden replicas. They reside in harbors scattered along the entire length of the Atlantic seaboard, also in the Great Lakes and even on the West Coast. In many

6 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 6 of these locations the fleets are small and racing is sporadic, but in some other locations the fleets of one type or another are large enough to support a one-design racing program. The question of whether to admit the CCSB boat is not directly related to the question of whether to widen the geographic spread of the H Class Association, to make it "more national", by affiliating with additional yacht clubs that might periodically host our annual Championship Regatta. But it is related indirectly, so in deciding how to vote on the CCSB question, please consider these things: 1) The Association rules already permit any owner of a Herreshoff 12½, a rebuilt restoration thereof, or a Doughdish, to become a member of the Association and participate in our Annual Regatta, regardless of his location and regardless of his yacht club affiliation (or lack thereof). A no vote on the CCSB question will not change this. 2) It has been reported (though not yet verified by me) that there are "large fleets" of 12½ boats at currently non-affiliated east coast yacht clubs; for instance, Annapolis Maryland has been mentioned. I do not yet know how big the Annapolis fleet is, or what mix of 12½ variants it contains. Nor do I know whether, in its racing program, all variants of the 12½ race together, or whether they are segregated by type, or whether handicaps are used, etc. (I recently tried, but without personal contacts it is difficult to get such information in mid-winter.) But, for the sake of discussion, suppose Annapolis does have a mixed fleet of 12½ variants, and suppose they have developed some format in which these variants are raced together. Would you vote to participate in this without having any information about it? Would you vote to adopt mixed-variant participation in our one-design fleet without having any first-hand experience with their format? Would you be interested in transporting your boat to Annapolis and get some first-hand experience before deciding whether to admit the CCSB boat into the H Class? For me, the answer to all of these questions is no. 3) Even in the absence of specific information about who's asking for H Class admission, it seems likely that BYC (Marion) and possibly EYC (Edgartown) might be the only currently affiliated yacht club(s) where there are CCSB owners who might actually show up to compete in our Annual Regatta. The H Class rules already provide that affiliated clubs can admit CCSB (and presumably other 12½ variants) to participate in racing events that are held for their own members, and also to make their own rules to govern such participation. Under current H Class rules it also is possible for either club to collaborate with others to host inter-club races for mixed fleets of 12½ variants. A no vote on the current question will not change this, and until it becomes apparent that there actually is some interest in participating in such inter-club races, it is premature to consider the CCSB question as currently written. c) A desire to revitalize H Class racing participation: In the course of my interviewing, several respondents expressed a concern that, at their club, the popularity of 12½ presently is (or someday might be) gradually fading away. In my informal survey, this opinion was expressed mainly by 12½ owners who currently aren't racing and by members of clubs other than QYC, and often these respondents were the same people who also told me: "Why not admit the CCSB boat. The more the merrier. Maybe that would help to revitalize racing participation at our club." When I made the interviews I had not yet sorted through this issue and I did not try to answer. But I do have an opinion now. I think that the right place to build H Class racing popularity is at the grass-roots, at the local level, and not by expanding the Annual Championship Regatta. For each of the past several years, our Regatta has had more than 30 participants. Last summer, there were 44 registrants. More boats would be too many, in my opinion. Mike Fenlon QYC's H Class Representative

7 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 7 Appendix: A brief history of the Herreshoff 12½, the Doughdish and the CCSB variants. From the beginning of the H Class Association, only original and restored genuine Herreshoff 12½ wooden hull boats, and Doughdish fiberglass-hull 12½ replica boats (designed by William Harding and sold by his company Doughdish, LLC) have been eligible to race in H Class events. But at some point later this year the H Class Association membership will be asked to vote on the question of whether to allow the CCSB Boat (a fiberglass H 12½ replica boat designed and manufactured by the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Company of Wareham, MA) to compete in the H Class Annual Regatta. If this question is approved, the owners of CCSB Boats then also would become eligible to participate in the governance of the H Class Association. This question is important to anyone who owns and races a 12½, and it has a long and convoluted history. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, located in Bristol, RI, designed and began building the 12½ sloop in Originally nicknamed the Buzzards Bay Boy s Boat (on the original Herreshoff drawings it is called simply the 12½ ft. class ), this new Herreshoff design was very successful; it quickly became popular at QYC and among sailing families elsewhere in southeastern New England. Nathaniel Herreshoff died in 1938, but his company continued in operation for a few more years, managed by his eldest son Sidney Herreshoff. In 1947, and after its war work had ended, the company closed its doors. As of that date, Herreshoff had built and sold a total of about 360 wooden 12½ boats. (Note: According to one source, the last Herreshoff-built 12½ was hull number 357, built in Also, in some sources, Herreshoff s given name is spelled Nathanael. This and other historical information about Herreshoff, his company, and work can be found at: At this same time, and particularly at QYC and other New England yacht clubs where there were large member-owned fleets of the 12½ boats, the pre-war tradition of one-design racing was being resumed. Participation in these racing programs gained in popularity, and a demand for new 12½ boats emerged. But the Herreshoff Company had closed and was no longer building any boats, so a few other boatyards stepped forward to satisfy this need. The first such builder was the Quincy-Adams Boatyard ( , Quincy, MA). In total, this company built and sold 51 new wooden H 12½ boats. Unlike their Herreshoff-built predecessors (which had hulls planked with cedar), the Quincy Adams boats had mahogany planking which proved to be troublesome, and few of these boats have survived. Even so, the Quincy Adams boats were built under a license granted by Herreshoff and were laid-up upon an original hull mold supplied by Herreshoff, so they were then and are still considered to be genuine Herreshoff 12½s. Another post-war builder of wooden Herreshoff H 12½ boats was Cape Cod Shipbuilding Company (1899-to date, Wareham, MA). In 1947, and as part of its conversion from wartime to civilian work, this company hired an employee who previously had been a workshop foreman at Herreshoff. In addition, they bought from Sidney Herreshoff (Nathaniel s eldest son and heir) one or more of the wooden molds upon which the original H 12½ hulls had been framed and planked. These molds plus all of the other jigs and patterns that had been used to build the 12½ were moved from Bristol to CCSB s shop in Wareham. In this transaction, CCSB also obtained the original patterns to cast the 12½ s bronze hardware, the original keel mold and Herreshoff s original sail plans and line drawings--all of these bearing the stamp Herreshoff Mfg. With these resources, CCSB built a batch of 31 new wooden 12½ hulls (cedar planked) and sold them during the next few years, boats that were then and are still considered to be genuine Herreshoff 12½s. In the mid-1950s, CCSB sold one of them to the Burt family, and during its subsequent racing career at QYC, many trophies were won by this boat, named Jancy Lee. Over the years, other boat builders also have sought to produce wooden H 12½ replicas, building and rebuilding them in various ways and for various purposes. For instance, the Artisan Boatworks (Rockport, Maine) has constructed at least three new wooden H 12½ replicas with a very high standard of materials and workmanship. A friend who lives nearby (in Camden) also has told me that, in recent years, both Rockport Marine (on Penobscot Bay) and The WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine also have either

8 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 8 built or rebuilt some small additional number of wooden H 12½ boats. NOTE: While these boats might be an accurate and faithful copy of the original Herreshoff design, I have called them replicas because, so far as I know, only Quincy Adams (licensed by Herreshoff) and CCSB (that subsequently purchased all of Herreshoff s tools and plans) can legitimately call their wooden boats genuine Herreshoff 12½s. An interesting further discussion of this wooden boat history can be found at the following web link: THE H CLASS AND THE DOUGHDISH: William Harding was a local sailmaker who also was a Buzzards YC member. For many years he had been a dedicated and successful 12½ racer; he won the first of his two championships in Early in 1972, Harding and other local 12½ sailors founded the H Class Association, an organization which was dedicated then, and now, to preserving the tradition of one-design racing for the 12½ boat. Harding also recognized that many of his compatriots in the local racing fleets had aging wooden boats, and he conceived the idea of a fiberglass-hull replica boat that would be evenly-competitive when sailing in the existing H 12½ one-design racing fleets but would be easier and less costly to maintain than the wooden originals. So Harding undertook to create this new boat, and the result of his work was a design that he called the Doughdish. Although its hull was molded fiberglass, in its shape and dimensions both above the waterline and below, the Doughdish was a deliberate and very faithful replica of the original Herreshoff design. No shortcuts were taken and no cost-cutting measures or other improvements were introduced in the design; the new Doughdish had teak trim, wooden spars, bronze hardware, rigging and sails that closely replicated the Herreshoff originals. Harding once stated that to make the mold for the Doughdish hull, he actually had used three original Herreshoff boats, averaging their hull shape measurements to ensure that the new mold would produce replica hulls that would be truly representative of the original boats, and also averaging their mid-season weight so that the new Doughdish would not have a weight advantage when the wooden hulls of its competitors had become water-soaked. In any event, Harding claimed that his primary goal, both in the Doughdish design and all the details of its construction, was to produce a replica boat that would sail dead-even against well-maintained wooden original boats. As a sailmaker, Harding was then perhaps the leading supplier of sails to all of the H 12½ racing fleets in this area. But the Harding Company only made sails; it was not a boatyard and it did not build boats. So from the beginning, Harding needed to contract with others to do the actual construction of new Doughdish boats. The first batch of Doughdish boats was built in the winter of 1972 and was raced with the existing fleet of wooden 12½s during the summer of And, at the end of that season, the locals who had been racing against the new boats voted to admit the Doughdish into their newly-formed H Class. I once either was told or read somewhere that, at the outset, the first few of the new Doughdish boats were built by... (I don t remember the name of this boatyard; perhaps some other member knows it). Anyhow, at some point later in 1972, and during the following summer as the first batch of new Doughdish boats were being raced and becoming accepted into local H 12½ racing fleets, Harding partnered with Peter Duff, a boat builder from Mattapoisett. Together, they incorporated Doughdish LLC; and this new company then became the owner of Harding s proprietary designs and his other Doughdish assets. From that time, and until two years ago when Mr. Harding retired, all Doughdish boats were manufactured (under contract to Doughdish, LLC) at Peter Duff s workshop, the Edey & Duff boatyard in Mattapoisett, MA. Edey & Duff continued in business until 2010, and although Mr. Duff had died some years before then, the company continued in business and continued to build boats for Doughdish LLC. In 2012, and upon Mr. Harding s retirement, Doughdish LLC and all of its assets were acquired by Ballentine s Boat Yard (Cataumet, MA) where new Doughdish boats are now being built. The current price for a new Doughdish is about $45,000

9 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 9 When the decision was made to admit Doughdish boats into the H Class Association, its by-laws were amended to include a carefully crafted set of rules for the admission of boats into the class. These rules were written specifically to admit the original wooden boats (including wooden boats built by CCSB) and restored examples thereof, and also to admit the new and proprietary Doughdish design. But except for the Doughdish, all other fiberglass hull replica boats (including the CCSB Boat ) were specifically excluded. During the past 50 years, a total of about 500 Doughdish boats have been made and sold, and in this respect Mr. Harding s Doughdish venture has been a success -- the Doughdish most recently built and sold by Ballentine s is hull #510. So, Harding s original insight about the need for a more durable racing boat replacement certainly was correct; most of the wooden boats in the original racing fleet are now retired from service and the Doughdish has become the mainstay of today s H Class racing. In summary, the acceptance of the Doughdish as a one-design equivalent to the original wooden H 12½ boats and the continuing popularity of this one-design racing class can be attributed primarily to three things: 1) The fact that the Doughdish and the wooden boats look alike, both inside and outside, both above the waterline and below. 2) The experience of those who have been racing them for the past 50 years; among the most capable sailors this racing has always been very close a Doughdish wins one race, a wooden boat wins the next race, and a different Doughdish wins the next race, and so on. 3) The collective belief, among H Class members and regatta competitors, that Harding s design effort and construction methods really did succeed in creating a dead-even replica boat. CAPE COD SHIPBUILDING AND THE BULL S EYE: In the years when Harding was beginning to market the Doughdish, Cape Cod Shipbuilding (CCSB) was selling the last of its post-war batch of wooden H 12½s. Like Harding, CCSB also saw the making of a fiberglass hull H 12½ replica as a market need and a business opportunity. But unlike Harding (whose purpose in building the Doughdish was narrowly focused on one-design racing), CCSB saw itself as the legitimate successor to the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company and sought to respond more broadly to the needs of the market that Herreshoff had created. Nathaniel Herreshoff designed and built three different boats using the same wooden hull form(s) that he originally created for the gaff-rigged 12½s that we race today. From an early date, a 12½ buyer could order his new boat with either a gaff rig or a Marconi rig. Several years later (in 1938), Herreshoff also created a third variation, a boat that he called the Bull s Eye. It was designed in response to an order from members of the Fisher s Island Yacht Club. They had asked for a 12½ derivative that would be easier and more forgiving in rough water. Although it had the same wooden hull as the 12½, the Bull s Eye s topsides were different; its coamings were further inboard (allowing the boat to heel more before shipping water), its rudder was taller (permitting the tiller to pass above the transom), and it had a Marconi rig on wooden spars and a newlydesigned curved wooden jib club. There also were differences inside the hull. To provide additional flotation, a pair of longitudinal air tanks were built-in on either side of the previously open bilge, under the cockpit sole. (A few of the original gaff-rigged 12½s may also have had these tanks.) In 1949, CCSB became the first company ever to make a fiberglass replica of the 12½ hull. This new boat also was developed in response to an order from members at Fisher s Island YC, sailors who by then were needing to replace their aging fleet of original Bull s Eye boats. The new fiberglass boat that CCSB delivered had a hull shape that copied its wooden-hulled predecessor. And like the original Bull s Eye, it had an over-the-transom tiller, a pair of longitudinal flotation tanks in the previously open bilge space, inboard coamings, a Marconi rig and a curved wooden jib club. But it differed from the original Bull s Eye in having an aluminum mast and main boom, and a fiberglass cuddy cabin style foredeck. CCSB named this new replica boat the Cape Cod Bull s Eye.

10 An Analysis of the CCSB Question: Page 10 To make the new fiberglass hull, a female hull mold was needed and, as CCSB already was making authentic wooden H 12½s, it was well-equipped to make an accurate copy. On this subject, CCSB has stated that except for some minor changes to make the hull more easily removable from the mold, the hull shape of its new fiberglass Bull s Eye closely duplicated the shape of the Herreshoff-built original. CCSB recently also stated that the minor changes in the statement above refers specifically to the shape of the transom, which is slightly convex. In the early 1970s, and at about the same time that the Doughdish had been introduced into local H 12½ racing fleets, CCSB used this same female hull mold to produce a new gaff-rigged 12½ replica boat with Sitka spruce spars and a through-the-transom tiller; a new boat that initially was called simply the fiberglass Herreshoff 12½. This is the CCSB Boat that now is seeking admission into the H Class. CCSB has stated that, to date, it has built a total of 938 fiberglass Cape Cod Bull s Eyes (all of these with aluminum spars and Marconi sails) plus an additional 202 CCSB Boats (as described above). Following Herreshoff s practice, a customer can choose to have his new CCSB Boat delivered with either a gaff rig or a Marconi rig; in either case with wooden spars. Possibly some owners of the CCSB Boats have purchased both rigs and can interchange them, but CCSB has said that most of the 202 boats were originally delivered with the gaff rig. (NOTE: The 202nd boat was completed just recently and, when this was written, was currently available for sale. The base price, gaff-rigged and with sails, was $44,427.) As is the case for Doughdish boats, there is a Class Association dedicated specifically to Bull s Eye boats see for details. However, in recent years only the Cape Cod Bull s Eye version of these boats is raced in the Bullseye Annual Championship Regatta. With its Marconi rig and lightweight aluminum spars, this Bull s Eye version probably is both lighter and faster than either a Doughdish or the CCSB Boat. Although the Bullseye Association was established in 1962 and currently has eleven affiliated yacht clubs at east coast locations ranging from Southwest Harbor (Maine) to Card Sound (Key Largo, Florida), many of the Bullseye racing fleets are small (all the ones that I know of, at least) and their Annual Regattas seem not to have attained the competitive vitality of the H Class Association. For instance, the 2014 Bullseye National Regatta, held at Fisher s Island, NY, had only 17 entrants. By comparison, the 2015 National H Class Regatta, held at Buzzards Yacht Club, had had 44 entrants. (Note: the spelling Bullseye is used by this Class Association, so I have used this same spelling here.) The 2015 Bullseye regatta was held at Sandy Bay YC in Rockport, MA and had 16 entrants. In Bristol, RI, the Narragansett Bay Herreshoff 12½ Footer Association is still another club that periodically holds racing events for both Doughdish and CCSB 12½ replica boats. This is a small club (10-15 members) that admits all types of 12½ boats, both Marconi-rigged and gaff-rigged, both wooden originals and fiberglass replicas. See: CCSB says that there are many other clubs on the east coast, particularly in Maine, where CCSB Boats and Doughdishes are raced side-by-side. But among all such clubs that I know of, most have small fleets and sporadic racing. Mike Fenlon QYC's H Class Representative