Specialist Designs

[Giles_Edmondes-Preedy]

My boat is a Grebe design, built in 1989 and while single bottommed and round bilged, seems to be much narrower than most designs of the same era and, being varnished inside and out; looks a bit like a compressed Firefly

I understand it was a design optimised for small lakes and rivers, and light airs. Certainly, from my experience, having previously had a Warlock, a Windfall and a Cheshire Cat, it is more manouverable in light airs but suffers in a breeze.

I believe only 2, plus a prototype, were built.

Were there any other designs that were targeted at specific conditons, or types of water? Were they successful?

Presumably, in earlier years it was less expensive for amateur designers/builders to experiment - does that mean the twelves now are more conservative or are designs now becoming optimised within the current rules? (to be provocative).

Giles
N3319

[Matt (Guest)]

I imagine that most hull designers tend to develop from common features of the successful designs. That is what I understand from Bim Daser, Phil Morrison and Dare Barry. And that covers most of the successful designs of the past years. Thats my understanding anyway.

I'm not sure that your hypothesis stands up when you consider that hulls can still be built down to weight in plywood. I see no reason why a a novel hull could not be prototyped using 3 mm marine ply and carbon tape before commiting to the more expensive (in both time and materials) technologies for a composite construction.

I'd be very interested if anyone can suggest what avenues in hull design might have been left unexplored.

Personnally I like the idea of designing to light wind conditions in shifty winds for venues like rivers and gravel pits - just to see if it can be done effectivley. I do acknowledge though that that would most likely go against the obvious trend that N12's get lighter with time and therefore planing breakout can only get more important. Strangely though its the light winds that I enjoy the most in N12 sailing (and that is coming from a cherub owner!)

Matt
N3486

[icecreamman]

Have a word with Brian Herring (his name is in the book) who either has or had a Grebe and had something to do with building them. He can give you as much insight into the background of the design and the areas of water it was designed for as anyone can do Giles.

Good hunting