It's The Day Of The Race
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday March 10, 1990
On the yachting scene these days it is not often that a new club day-racer is created, especially by an Australian designer.
In the keel handicap classes new one-off creations still make an appearance from time to time, but some of the steam seems to have gone out of class design activity.
The new Radford 35L from designer Graham Radford is therefore particularly interesting at this time, as well as for its design lines and performance results.
Strictly a day boat, the high-performance 35-footer is a light displacement yacht with a large rig, a relatively narrow beam, flush deck, a large cockpit and a low freeboard.
It's thoroughbred racing machine. It has no accommodation below decks, just stowage for safety gear and sails, and its cockpit is a long, shallow trench without seats.
The yacht has a lifting bulb keel and a spade rudder located under the hull. There is a well aft of the cockpit for storage of an outboard engine.
The R35L has been sailing in prototype form for some time and this week its first production version was begun by a Victorian builder for a southern buyer.
In prototype (built by Pittwater builder Ron Stenner), the yacht has done well in Inshore Division One racing at the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, where there is traditionally a strong around-the-buoys fleet.
Named Race, the prototype has been outsailing yachts equal or larger in size and has lost to just one boat, the skiff-style 40-footer Buckle Up, against which it has has come out about 50-50.
The R35L's designer Graham Radford is no stranger to yacht design and was previously a partner with the well-known Australian yacht designer Joe Adams, the creator of designs like the Adams 10 and the Adams 13.
Indeed, the R35L has about it some of the same long, slim greyhound looks that distinguish the Adams racers and have made the well-tried Adams 10, in particular, an inshore racer that is still in the fast lane.
For designer Radford, however, the similarities stop there.
"The basis of the design began with a requirement (by the buyer) that it should be able to beat the (Adams) 10s, but it has gone well beyond those original requirements," he said.
"It is significantly different from the Adams 10. It is two feet longer and is lighter and has a considerably bigger sail plan than the 10.
"To me it was a design exercise that will lead on to other boats - 40, 50 and 60ft shorthanded high-performance boats."
Still, he says, he won't be displeased if the R35L becomes a successful production boat.
Radford also explained some of the general thinking behind his design.
"The most successful all-round yachts over the years have been those with good stability and good windward performance," he said.
"The advent of the ULDB (ultralightweight displacement boat) has seen a big improvement in offwind speed but in many cases unsatisfactory windward performance.
"The aim of the R35L is to have the minimum weight for offwind sailing while still maintaining satisfactory righting moments for good windward performance.
"While crew weight adds to the stability, the primary source of the R35L's righting moment is in the high ballast ratio, low centre of gravity and the form stability of the hull."
Radford said a ballast ratio of 50 per cent of hull displacement had been achieved by a lead bulb bolted to the foil which makes the keel. Even with the keel raised, the yacht still passed the Australian Yachting Federation stability requirements, so the boat could be raced in light airs with the keel drawn up.
(The foil of the keel is made of timber and double-bias fibreglass laminate.)
The lightness of the R35L has been achieved by its hull and deck construction, which is from foam/glass sandwich, using double-bias E-glass and vinyl-ester resins. Radford says this has produced a hull and deck weight that is two-thirds of the conventional foam/fibreglass construction and has better stiffness and strength.
The sail area/displacement ratio is very high and the rig is a three-quarter fractional, with double swept-back spreaders. The Pittwater version is being sailed with both a standard and masthead spinnaker.
To make life a little easier for the crew, the cockpit coamings have been specially designed so the helmsman and mainsheet hand can sit comfortably at their cockpit stations. The rest of the crew (in a total of six) sit at the rail, legs over the side when necessary.
Price? Radford says that will be established as the first production yacht is built.
Since the yacht is bigger than the Adams 10, it will come in above the price of one of these, which is in the $60,000-plus range, but beyond that Radford says he cannot give any indications at this stage.
He can be reached through Graham Radford Yacht Design Pty Ltd, PO Box 1155, Brookvale, NSW, 2100. Telephone (02) 9079569 .
SPECIFICATIONS
Length overall: 10.66m (35ft)
Waterline: 10.48m (34ft 4in)
Beam: 2.83m (9ft 3in)
Draft: keel down, 2.65m (8ft
8in); keel up, 2.03m (6ft 8in)
Displacement: 2,519kg (5,553lb).
Sail area: main 37 sq m (400 sq ft); genoa 33.5 sq m (360 sq ft).
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald