Bump's World - June 2008
June 17, 2008
BUILD A BOAT
After my ULDB trip to Santa Cruz, California, I ordered and received an Express 27 hull #10. With memories of surfing off of waves I couldn’t wait to sail and race her. I also couldn’t wait to show all these east coast water pusher sailors what real boat speed was all about.
My first race was in 8 to 10 knots of breeze. All these much bigger boats circled around me before the start, everyone wondering what was going to happen. The race started and upwind I was OK, sort of hanging in there. I could tack and accelerate quickly, but I didn’t point as well and was a little slow. At the weather mark I was near the front of the pack and looking forward to blinding downwind speed. The spinnaker went up and in 10 knots of breeze the knotmeter read 5 knots and I watched the boats ahead get father ahead and the boats behind line up to pass me. I felt like a traffic cop waving everyone by. Where was my blinding double-digit boat speed?
I raced in a least 20 more races the rest of the summer. A couple of times it blew over 20 and those rides were exciting with double-digit speeds. In the Manchester Fall series I did get a windy series and won easily. In one race the start was down wind blowing 25 plus and I got the boat planing right at the start and flew away from the fleet. When the boat planed it was flat and totally in control. When you are going 15 down wind in 25 knots of breeze the apparent wind is only 10. Therefore you only feel 10 knots of breeze.
Over the winter I struggled with, maybe ULDBs are only good in areas of high winds. Since they rate much faster than boats of similar size, you race against much bigger boats, with way taller rigs, much more sail area, and much longer hull lengths. Maybe the old guys were right that hull length more than anything determines your speed. Then I thought, if the displacement length ration is extreme, maybe the sail area should also be extreme. Even at the expense of rating.
Everyone has an idea of what a boat should be and is quick to wonder what others were thinking when they design and built different boats. I talked to my ULDB gurus, especially Terry Alsberg the builder, and Carl Schumacher the designer of the Express Boats. They were determined to keep me going to the church of ULDB. Terry sold me a hull and a deck built from the 27 moulds. Buzz Ballinger built me a rig that was the same height as the 27, but this was masthead instead of fractional, adding huge sail area both upwind with the genoa and downwind with the spinnaker. The mast was keel stepped instead of deck stepped. Everything turned out to be an engineering nightmare. With the help of Chip Bem slowly the pieces came together. I needed to gain stability to off set the additional sail area, I lower the keel by putting a 4” by 8” block of oak between the standard 27 keel and the hull and faired it in with micro balloons. I took threaded rod and welded to the ends of the keel bolts to extend them through the oak and into the boat. I used a lot of 5200 adhesive between the keel and hull. The standard interior is very basic, however I eliminated the chat table, galley area, forward bunks, and storage compartments. I ended up with a boat about 10% lighter than a standard Express 27 with 25% more sail area.
Finally I was headed to the starting line. PHRF charged me about 12 seconds per mile for my changes. In 8 to 10 knots of breeze I went upwind at 6 and downwind at 7.5. In anything over 18 downwind the boat planed. I sailed with 6 or 7 people instead of 4 or 5 to try and keep her flat. In 14 races I won 11. This boat truly was a rocket ship. It was scary to sail and I often wondered if she would hold together for the race. At one point I had pulled the stern deck about ¾ inch off of the hull. I don’t think I could have sailed the boat in over 25 knots of breeze. There were 2 problems with that, 1 the boat would be so over powered she would lay on her side and shake and 2 my construction would explode.
After 1 season I sold the boat to Chris Howes who also won many races. After Chris the boat went to Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, where she won races and then sank in a hurricane. The new owner raised her and continued to race her. He won his class at Key West with her.
It was really exciting building my own boat with my own ideas. I did get a lot of help from Carl Schumacher, Terry Alsberg and Chip Bem. Carl was great because unlike every other designer I have worked with, he did not lecture me that the standard Express 27 was fine and I just needed to learn to sail. I’m not sure I want to build a boat again with all the pain of making all the pieces work again. I also want to stress that this was a very dangerous boat with that much power. It was kind of like putting a 454 V8 engine in an MGB.
If you look at today’s grand prix race boats you will see big dinghies that are very very light and have a huge amount of sail area.
Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com
Bump Wilcox
