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Real Boats!!


JennyMorgan

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On 22/08/2018 at 10:05, marshman said:

Nice to see Solace made the trip!

I have just heard "along the rhond" that Solace, on her way to Oulton, ran well aground in the river just downstream of Runham Swim and was towed off by a passing preserved launch/towboat which was also on her way to Oulton. And they say the lower Bure does not need dredging?

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On ‎23‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 09:21, C.Ricko said:

Ladybird sail number 13. 

Viking is 113, she had a canoe stern added to her a year or so ago, 

I thought Tony Knights put her cabin back to original? I think it was also him who had the rig of Crossbow on her. 

 

942080882_OultonWeel2014005.thumb.JPG.3d3f4e3cd6631aa7bfe9f5e9992d1372.JPG

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2 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Clive, was Ladybird ever lengthened? I have a vague memory that someone once told me that she had and looking at your half hitched picture and the one that I posted does make me wonder.

No, she is as she was built, I have a copy of her drawings somewhere.. 

Im not 100% sure it is her in the picture as it could be a normal transom and the angle of the photo playing tricks  but she is painted and stem looks right..

I told Sid i was taking it and gave him a donation!

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8 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

The cabin in Sid's picture looks, to my jaded optics, to be longer than the lines drawing suggests but the stem does look right.

That is because those are her original drawings, as a racing boat, with a large cockpit for the crew.

Raisena had a similar conversion done by Martin Broom, to give her a larger cockpit but a slightly shorter cabin, but I don't believe Raisena was ever a hire boat.

I notice on the drawing that the tiller goes into the aft deck a long way behind the rudder post, which is under the thwart at the back of the cockpit. The two are connected by cross bars and connecting rods, so that they both move together. Evening Flight had exactly the same arrangement.

Mark Dunham has another drawing, which shows Ladybird, with another boat - called "the new boat" - superimposed on it. The new boat, was "My Lady".

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16 hours ago, C.Ricko said:

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As we are into a good discussion about racing flappy things, there is something else to notice from this drawing.  Notice that the long bow and the canoe stern stick out a long way fore and aft of the actual waterline. So when the boat heels over when tacking, the bow and stern dip in the water, and greatly increase the waterline length. On a displacement hull, more length means more speed! This is what designers call "wetted surface". And this is a design from 1936, which can still race competitively with all the modern ones, more than 80 years later.

 

 

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Now let's consider this lovely photo by Peter, of Maidie at Oulton. She is heeling over, close hauled, and the water is lapping almost to the end of the counter stern. The same thing is happening at the bow. In Maidie's case, she almost doubles her waterline length when this happens.

You need to try not to get the decks wet if possible, as we can see that all the deck fittings cause a lot of drag in the water, so the mainsheet must be eased quickly in a gust, to keep her at a good angle. So you can see that Maidie has two mainsheet hands. The mainsheet blocks have no "standing part". Instead the purchase has two "hauling parts". To "pull this off" needs the co-ordination of a very good crew, but it is much faster when gybing, or reacting to sudden gusts of wind.

A lot of the crew are in bare feet. Much better than yachting shoes, on a wet deck.

What drew my attention especially, was that although it is not a very strong wind, she has one reef in the mainsail, to better balance the boat. So although she is heeling well over, Mike Barnes has the tiller in his hand pointing straight ahead. Beautiful co-ordination between the helmsman and the mainsheet, and a beautifully balanced boat. With a big rudder like she has, if you carry too much "weather helm" it is like pulling on a handbrake.

She was built as a racing machine and indeed, she still is!

 

 
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6 hours ago, Vaughan said:

That is because those are her original drawings, as a racing boat, with a large cockpit for the crew.

Raisena had a similar conversion done by Martin Broom, to give her a larger cockpit but a slightly shorter cabin, but I don't believe Raisena was ever a hire boat.

I notice on the drawing that the tiller goes into the aft deck a long way behind the rudder post, which is under the thwart at the back of the cockpit. The two are connected by cross bars and connecting rods, so that they both move together. Evening Flight had exactly the same arrangement.

Mark Dunham has another drawing, which shows Ladybird, with another boat - called "the new boat" - superimposed on it. The new boat, was "My Lady".

I think Ladybird originally had a chain to connect the tiller to the rudder, 

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1362095290_EveningFlight.thumb.jpeg.da127bc3a89ce8b79f779d45d1699b5f.jpeg

 

This is just over a minute before the start of a Cruiser race on Wroxham Broad. Photo by EDP,  but no date on the back. At a guess, 1968.

Evening Flight in the foreground, sailed by Barry Johnson (of St Olaves) with me on the mainsheet.

You can clearly see Ladybird (Mark Dunham) in her original rig. I can also recognise Melody (Leslie Landamore), Fantome (Cmdr Bickmore), Goldfish (Colin Wilson), Swallow (Tom Percival) and White Wings (John Williams, of Jack Powles). I think that is Raisena, just out of shot to the left.

We are going about rather fast, to avoid colliding with the jetty, in front of the clubhouse! Barry always judged these things by inches! It looks as though we are getting set up for a port tack start but by the time the starting gun went off, Barry got a lovely starboard start on the other side of the Broad!

It makes me wonder, does Cruiser racing look any different, or feel any different now, to what it did 50 years ago?

 

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Nice pic, 

I dont do much these days but its all a bit tense on the start of a cruiser race, especially if its a bit windy!  lots of shouting especially at Wroxham which is who i try and just do passage races and Barton (which i missed this year) 

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4 minutes ago, C.Ricko said:

I dont do much these days but its all a bit tense on the start of a cruiser race, especially if its a bit windy!  lots of shouting especially at Wroxham which is who i try and just do passage races and Barton (which i missed this year) 

I agree with that too! That's why they are called River Cruisers. You can get as much pleasure from cruising in them, as you can from the serious racing.

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I am absolutely close to being positive that Mark didn't buy Ladybird until the early 1970s.  We moved there end 1970 and I remember him buying Ladybird when Herbert Woods sold her out of the hire fleet at about the same time that Smuggler was also sold and that would have then been 1971 at the earliest

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On 22/08/2018 at 09:28, JennyMorgan said:

River Cruiser Class despite being an out and out racing machine, as several of the class are but that has long been the way of racing yachts. I was told what she cost, wow, but then she is a state of the art boat!

But could you cruise it - or any one of a number like it ? They are a different class and should be raced as such !

 

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1 hour ago, Poppy said:

But could you cruise it - or any one of a number like it ? They are a different class and should be raced as such !

 

I've long held the view that the owner and crew should be required to cruise and live aboard their boats for a week and during that week be expected to pass under at least one fixed bridge.

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