Dick Carter Design. Memories.

- Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of visiting Dick Carter, my boss at Carter Offshore for over 3 years.

-Guess what? We talked about boats and how things have changed. It was a memory lane with the main topic being the Rating Rules, guiding the Sport. I mean handicap rules. Let's not forget D. Carter started the I.O.R. along with Olin Stephens and van de Stadt. The goal was to merge the American C.C.A. with the British R.O.R.C.

- I joined this article in French about Dick Carter and his era. It gives a good account of the early days.

- I forgot to tell you. The visit was prompted by my desire to have Dick Carter write a book about his Designs, Carter Offshore, and the events in his life after the office closed.

-Two years later, it is done or almost done. It is all my fault, as he told me on the phone today. Hard work indeed to put something together like an illustrated book and place your life and memories in the open to the world.

 Dick Carter- Yacht-Designer.

In the Golden Age of Offshore Racing.

- Hard Cover - Release August 3, 2018.

Now available and sold at Amazon.com

- Search on this Blog:
- Dick Carter 1928-
- History Seahorse.
- Carter 37.

- Carter 36

- In the Golden Age of Ocean Racing.

I wrote the following to introduce the book.

- Richard E. Carter was clearly influenced in his yacht designs by his experience with small boats, particularly in the International 14 Class (the thoroughbred dinghy for the time).

And the International competition opened his eyes to the European theater, which would later be the source of his success.

- His first Design, Rabbit, inspired by his youthful racing days, showed an interesting approach to sailing upright and fast.

Dick gets his Offshore experiences from the Medalist, a Tripp design with American features due to the CCA handicap rules. The Medalist offers Rabbit a larger beam than other European boats designed under the RORC rules. His understanding of drag led him to show the sea less frontal area below the waterline, streamlining appendages, and separating the keel from the rudder. The theme for all his subsequent boat designs. If the water does not see it, the boat will go faster through it!

- Tina, his second boat design, this time for a customer, was a revelation to us all, dabbling in yacht design at the time of the 1966 One Ton Cup in Denmark. Her motion, her look, and the beautiful shape were the features we all wanted to imitate in the future. But it took a while to get there; Dick Carter was well ahead in the game. 

- I noticed several times that the word "crisp" came up in the book. And that is true, I remember vividly when drawing the Lines Plan of a boat, Dick would be over my shoulder murmuring, "Keep it crisp, Yves-Marie!

- The International Offshore Rule, the I.O.R is the melange of the RORC and CCA, creating a new handicap system for the world of sailing. Dick Carter had the vision of boats going offshore, no daysailers, no Wednesday beer can racers, but real boats that were, for the most part, comfortable. If the latter notion got diluted over the years, I believe that was one of his regrets, but his work under this new world allowed the Carter Offshore organization to spread around the Globe.

- A few corrections and notes from the book

- One point to be made about sails and the experience with Raoul Gardini's 45' Naif and Lowell North sails, which became the wardrobe to have. 

- It is that at Carter Offshore, we had a plethora of sailmakers for boats built all over the place. Then came North, and with a shrewd approach to promote the Brand by literally pushing young, upcoming yacht designers of talent: Doug Peterson, Ron Holland, and Ed Dubois, to name a few.

- Doug Peterson spent one week at the Tower, soon to leave to design his Ganbare, strip-planked, built in 45 days, and devoid of all comfort. The Trent was on for stripped offshore racers.

- Correction: the 65' Benbow. The boat was designed in 1971, during my first year at Carter Offshore.

Lines Plan of June1971, not 1975-76.