Part 2

Jim also designed launches:

Cats

Cruising Yachts

…and Trailer Yachts

Aaron Young

Aaron, is the oldest of two brothers, the younger Stephen works at Southern Spars as a design engineer. Although I was on boats from age 1 my first real memory was when Jim was racing boats of his own through the seventies and when I was very young the 1977 One ton cup was in Auckland – that was a memory as a four year old that I thought was so cool, this regatta with all these racing boats and crazy guys who sailed them. That’s what I wanted to do. My dad Frank was bowman, Jim steered.

Heatwave was Jim’s boat – it nearly won the 1978 One Ton cup in Europe. Not many NZ boats made it to Europe then so as a kid I always thought his boats must be pretty good.

I didn’t actually really learn to sail until I was 7 and was taught to sail a Young homebuilt 2.8 sailing dinghy.  I hit some rocks in it fairly early on so had a fear of rocks (still do after clobbering some round the back of Tiri in a Squadron race a few years back now) but quite liked getting out there on my own.  When Dad bought a Y88  (no 32) from Roger Land and sent it to Singapore where we lived at the time all I wanted to do was to sail the big boat to a bay then sail my dinghy.  A shame I reckon that at most bays round NZ now you see most kids in inflatables with outboards but I didn’t know any better (or wasn’t allowed) so the dinghy with a sail was perfect I thought.  I recall a 300 mile offshore race on the y88 when I was 11 and we won, my main memory was stepping over 3 rather sick guys on the floor after they had obviously seen better days – a 42 hour beat upwind in 30 plus knots on a 88 as I now know is a bloody long way !  I was crook, I will never eat spag bol again on a long race as I sat at the back in the tactics position, watched and learnt off Dad and eventually I got used to it.

After Starlings, then Lasers, did a heap of laser racing in NZ and Asia over the years then it all got too hard to stay fit enough to be competitive !!!

So after 3 years overseas and the only boat racing I did was in the pub I came back and bought a purple Piedy!  Suspect Device. Last Piedy built, bought her back from Tauranga the day the 97 Volvo fleet arrived in Auckland but she made it with a half sunk dinghy and storm jib!

Second in the 98 nationals, we won the 99 nationals. Cool boats, 15 boat raft up at Barrier two years in a row, raft ups off the old Akarana wharf after winter racing, the 99 nationals we won were sponsored by a Gentleman’s club in Takapuna!  Only in the Piedys !.

Onto an Elliot 770 -  Junkyard Dog – which I owned with Ned Wood, this boat got used a lot when we had her and loved the boat. I recall asking Jim to come and have a look one day – he got to the carpark, looked over the edge and said “well it’s a nice colour.”  Jim would have preferred I bought one of his designs and was thrilled when he knew I would sail the 88 nationals !. Did everything in this boat – cruised the Barrier, raced everything, screamed through to leeward of Urban Cowboy three handed doing 17 knots off Devonport wharf, Got round the bottom of Waiheke in a Trifecta race ahead of most the 40 footers.

The next couple of years I set up my own business (Storepro Solutions pallet racking and shelving) so not much spare time. Spent time sailing on,  different boats – Diablo (when Tom goes rum racing with 30 people), Fun n Games (when Steve Mair owned her), Blackout, 88 Proof (when Maddock owned her) and the National keelboat Champs etc.   So this got me thinking of these 30 ish footers Hot Rod type boats and so I thought of “Extreme”  Still one of the coolest looking boats in the world.  Couldn’t buy that so I bought Positive Touch – at the time a little neglected but still a pretty cool boat that we should be able to tidy up and be quick enough to compete with the new stuff.  Just got her and sailed her in the opening Richmond Weds race div 2 and won by miles (nearly hours !), thought holy cow this thing is still quick even with the rags as sails. So the tidy up turned into a rebuild and took longer but she is awesome now. After 4 months of work by me and Gary Patten as the boatbuilder and design work from Steve Y, Steve M and Gary, Manson Marine built the keel, prod amongst other things, Chris did the signwriting on the boat, sails were done by Josh at Norths she was ready to go back in the water.

Managed to get married to Kate amongst all this rebuild too. Kate used to sail heaps with Zoe when she had Cool Change and we got married at Sails (of course).

The night before the Tauranga race Steve and Chris and I were screwing deck fittings on, Josh was trying the headsails on the forestay and Gary was making sure the galley was painted. So then to prove the old girl was still the quickest. Our first race to Tauranga proved this when we match raced Jive Talking, Samurai Jack and Power Play through the night. Upwind in 5 -8 knots and the same pace as a 40. Ended up finishing 20 minutes behind M1 a Ross 44.  So we partied hard in Tauranga and wound up Steve aka Yachtyakka as much as we could!!! He took it and gave us the kudos we had earned.

On board Positive Touch enjoying another spanking of the Hot Rods

The only disappointment was the coastal last year when the rudder blew apart.  2 miles ahead of Higher Ground, only the 50s ahead of us at Sail rock.  The race had been long and light and the nearest hotrod was miles out of sight.  The breeze came in suddenly and we took off doing 16 knots and bang, the rudders gone.  Dump the gennaker, Higher ground pass us about an hour later thinking we had broken the prod.  Over the next hour, I’m so gutted I actually rang and swore at the builder,  everyone’s really quiet but the Manson marine boys Steve and Ned fixed the rudder to get us home bolting bunkboards (so cat 3 is worthwhile!) together and strapping the whole thing. We two sailed to Brett at round 12-15 knots and really using the main to steer but we knew the race was over,  the bulk of the 40s passed us at Brett which was a relief to see as we knew from there we’d probably make it to Russell with a light upwind leg to go.  I chose to go outside Brett, in hindsight if we had gone through we still would have been first hotrod but in the interests of safety we took the outside. So then to be at the finish amongst the 40s and the first 4 hotrods to finish within 3 minutes we were actually stoked, to make it alone but to beat Blackout on the line and be a minute behind Waka after sailing 60 miles with no gennakers !

Unfinished business for Positive Touch !!!

We never lost a rum race on PT, even Kate and the girls got the gun one day !  Then to a 1020 and go cruising and class racing.  The Hot Rods are great fun but the class as such hasn’t grown which is a shame. Ultimately you cant beat class racing and I’ve got to admit that the 1020s are the closest in NZ, even more so the 88s.  We were second in the nationals and had only ever raced the boat for one day prior to this so were pretty happy.  We were first owner driver, Willsy and his guys were too good as it turned out but we’d done pretty well.

Where to now you ask?

I’m probably a bit negative on the whole keelboat racing thing at the moment – in short I think the racing is all a bit two sail drag racing due to the geography of our harbour; the clubs need to do more stuff together, they need to get us out of the river and out into decent water for some decent racing and maybe actually offer us less quantity but more quality.  Heres is where SSANZ have done well and created a real event.  Handicap racing will always have its lovers and haters and I’ve been both.  At the end of the day ask yourself why do I go racing?  If it’s to win a $20 voucher or a bottle of Mt Gay then don’t bother. Cheaper to buy the bottle yourself.  We always sail to win, and we always knew what we did right and wrong and thus where we felt we should have finished. Ultimately though you can’t beat the handicapper if in fact if you do sail well !  Get used to that or go and get an 88 or 1020 or a Laser.

That’s the answer – a laser for me.  And a launch for my wife, I’ll have my little red PT Wind Warrior sailing off the back. I remember saying to my great uncle Alan Young (built a lot of the Formula and Vindex launches) at a 1986 boat show – “Don’t really like motor boats, why motor when you can sail”

Thanks to all the crew.org members who sent in information:

http://crew.net.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8195

building-buckle-up1

Cats & Tris in New Zealand

Cats & Tris in New Zealand – A brief history as I saw it

By Jim Young

The true sailor loves to sail fast.

Yesterday, about 1957, John Peet phoned. “How do you think a catamaran would go in the Inter Dominion unrestricted 12ft champs?” I was obsessed with cats after being inspired by the then spectacular performance of the English Prout 16ft Shearwater moulded ply cat a couple of years before. With its light weight moulded ply hulls that was a historic breakthrough and a pointer to the future. As a dedicated student of yacht design (as I remain today) I had, by 1957 designed and built a number of 16ft cats, learning quickly from first hand what it was like to go really fast under sail, some pitfalls and a little of what made a cat tick. Never had I imagined the thrill of sailing continuously really fast, the controlled flying a hull even sailing upwind faster than I had ever sailed downwind, with the bow wave falling back in the water half a length behind the stern. Would I ever forget the ferry skipper, with tongue in cheek, catching me at top of the gangway with. “Hey, don’t you know the overtaking boat gives way?” Yes, for the first time I could regularly pass a ferry, and in only a 16footer. You could never tire of the constant speed. But back to John Peet. Convinced by then that a 12ft cat could easily outsail current high tec monohulls, I said. “If you can get accepted you will win.” John, who had seen the potential approached the Unrestricted 12ft Association. The response? “Sure we can accept a cat if you are mad enough to try.”

So it was all on. But first the design. My first 16ft cat, Arahi, based on the Prouts, had no bulkheads or internal stiffening in the light weight moulded ply hulls. There was nothing to stop them from twisting. I had not realized this so we soon found that when crew weight was moved aft and to windward the whole structure could twist. Only the windward hull would lift its bow leaving the leeward bow plowing along fast but with nose down and a spectacular bow wave. One foot on the throttle and the other on the brake! Arahi was demountable. The hulls were held together by the plywood cockpit tray which was bolted to the hull gunwales. The single centerboard was mounted in the tray between the hulls. Here was another problem. With no hull on top there was nothing to prevent a massive entry of air exposing the windward face of the foil right to the bottom tip and leaving a 70mm wide hole with huge drag and loss of lateral plane efficiency. The addition to the foil of a horizontal wing fixed this but it was not the answer. The next 16footer had smaller twin centerboards, one in each hull supported by a light bulkhead. The result was spectacular increase in speed. You could lift the lee bow, the hull would run cleanly and the cavitations’  was completely gone. The benefit of this experience, all so obvious in hind sight, went into the 12 footer. Fearing the possibility of such a short cat pitchpoling the overall beam was compromised at 2.1 meters. John, a true perfectionist, created a very handsome and purposeful craft and with his son David as crew, (with Laurie Davidson on standby if the wind blew) went on to defeat the Australian boats and easily win the Inter Dominion Championship. Cats were then banned from what was the Unrestricted 12s.

The seed was sewn however. This new sailing was unstoppable and buoyed by this wonderful fast sailing I turned to thoughts of fast cruising catamarans. Upright sailing, no such thing as a slog to windward, no rolling downwind, knee deep shallow draft and the ability to cruise in shallow waters and to sit upright on the beach. Catamarans made sense. Expect for one thing. They could capsize. Unlike keel yachts which. On average, then , were self righting from up to approx 115 degrees heel a cat remained inverted. Unlike keelers through the cat was less likely to sink and could shelter from bad weather in countless places inaccessible to deep draft. If a safety device could be developed to dump sails then a cruising catamaran was entirely feasible and had enormous potential. If only it were not for prejudice which only time could overcome.

I patented a design for a safety device which would release the sails when the cat passed a given angle of heel. It was only then that I felt free to produce the first cruising catamaran design. The 24ft Tiki design for sheet ply home construction had deadwood keels foe approx 2 ft draft and 12ft beam, 4 sleeping berths, standard headroom in the hulls and naturally generous cockpit. This was followed by a 26footer for the late Frank Gresham of Tauranga ( great place for cats) and the 29ft Ninetails which we built for Tony Armit who had won the Slocum Medal for his global circumnavigation. More on Ninetails later which was to figure later in the media over a controversial capsize. In addition there were the Daysailers, the 16ft Whirlwind and the 20ft Typhoon Folding Cat with 11ft beam. They remain at least equal in performance to today’s manufactured cats. My “Cinderella” has never been built. A 36ft performance cruising cat embracing all that was good in earlier designs. These cats have not been promoted since the early 60’s but therein lies another story.

The first cruising catamaran to take the water in New Zealand was designed and built by my brother Alan Young, 15 years my Junior. As an all round performance cruising catamaran Vitesse was a spectacular success and remains a yardstick by which to judge cruising Multihulls. In general the yachting fraternity then regarded catamarans with suspicion and prejudice to such an extent that a cat enthusiast was seen as slightly mentally deficient. Clubs refused to allow them to race.

All wooden boatbuilding was hard physical work and I was just another, struggling to survive in a small market of the 50’s dabbling with cats in my spare time, most of which was taken up in finishing the house I had been building and in building Fiery Cross which I believe was the first yacht with a canting keel. Traditionally a boatbuilder relied for business on doing his best and hoping that a few (genuine) boating people would observe and appreciate his work and note the traditional builders name plate usually placed in the cockpit and that this would lead to future orders. Costings did not cover advertising and that industry, which was limited pretty much to promoting soap on the radio, had not yet found boating. It was unthinkable to ask a bank manager for a loan to buy a boat! Even for a power boat which had always and still does comprise 70-80% of the industry. I was constantly worrying when the next order might come. In this climate, success in catamarans was to have its drawbacks. Public logic soon had me typed as a specialist in these strange craft and therefore not a builder of normal boats. I found I was losing precious business because people thought I just specialized in catamarans. More on that later.

Following this spectacular win a fleet of Kitty’s were soon racing in New Zealand and Australia. They were not easy to build though, needing a mould over which to hand laminate the hulls with two diagonal skins of 2mm veneer. Kitty Mk2 with 3.5mm sheet plywood hulls was much simpler to build and no perceptible difference in performance and one of the annual National Championships was won by Chris Bouzaid in a MK2. Their popularity went into decline after a decade or so and its place was taken by Ron Givens nifty little dart like 15ft single handed Paper Tiger, which remains a strong class even today although Kitty’s are still racing in Victoria Australia. The 16ft 5metre sheet ply Whirlwind was so much faster and much more suitable for 2 adults but then it did not win the Inter Dominion champs, the whole basis of the Kitty’s popularity.

The Kitty is now being reproduced in fibreglass.

Anyone know a millionaire
who wants to go fast
yachting?

This post is tagged Buckle Up, Extreme, Firey Cross, Jim Young, Kitty Kat, Positive Touch