Boat of the Month. August 2016. "Black Soo".

- With only one prior Boat of the Month (March 2016) which featured a rendition of William Garden's own personal yacht, the mighty Oceanus; I came up with Gardenia, the inspiration and my interpretation of the concept for a long, lean sailing machine; a very personal thing for me.
But now we are moving on to the following project.
A light displacement sailboat, and for the source like for the Garden, based on a long past of studying yacht design. In this edition, the van de Stadt legacy. 'Black Soo".

- VdS shows the way.
- van de Stadt is one of my favorite designers, he had a long history of being a pioneer. Be light displacement, spade rudders, chine boats, fin keels, and plywood and just about everything else.
The desire to avoid chines and the "chines" look has been prevalent for many years. Usually associated with Amateur construction and cheap; until now. Why? Because.
- As a Yacht Designer, I am in the Fashion Business. Sound strange to say, but it is what it is.
- Make it happen, and in the case of chines boats, it is happening.
For me, it happened a long time ago. The Faraman, my first introduction to light displacement boats.

- In the early 60's we lived at Saint Paul de Vence, in the South of France. A very special place to the extent that, every day you were rubbing elbows with movie stars, filmmakers, famous painters and the playboys of the time; just a lot of fun. But I am moving away from the topic. A friend of the family was Dr. Richard and he had a Faraman; the Marie Christine. Besides the usual Sundays spent going to the islands in the Bay of Cannes and even on the Giraglia race. Dr. Richard was kind enough to let my little brother and I borrow the boat for escapades to St. Tropez and further to the chain of islands including l'ile du Levant and Porquerolle and even Corsica. The whole thing with very little means, but we could do with a bag of rice, we even had to fish for food! I was 16 at the time and the boat had interesting characteristics that probably contributed to my love for the type ever since.

- At only 8.85M. (29') this plywood sailboat presented an interesting approach with the chine line. The design principle and the geometry are accomplished by choosing only one angle for topside and bottom and carries it on from the midsection to stem and stern with the chine kissing the waterline onto the bow.







- The Faraman Lines Plan resulted in a boat offering a different approach and with a good interior, the overall performance was ahead of her time. Remember this was before the fiberglass boat building revolution, U.L.D. B's and Sport Boats.

- A little small story.
While cruising the Island of du Levant, my brother and I found the small narrow cove below the lighthouse of the same name. Anchoring and being the only boat, we had the place for ourselves.
- Until came running down the cliff above us a vision of paradise. A 16 years old girl with a Polynesian tan from top to bottom. Soon she came aboard to share lunch with us and with her beautiful attributes over the cockpit table, it was not surprising for the two teenagers we were to frequently have to dove overboard to calm down the effects she had on us. A beautiful day in our birthday suit swimming the blue wonder and sharing the beginning of the world as we know it.
- I am getting distracted here.

- A few years later, I designed my own interpretation of the Faraman of my youth.
- The original had a few quirks. Starting with a very heavy mast and with her narrow waterline and a single triangle for deadrise, she was tender. The large volume of the keel, even if the lead portion was at the bottom did not help either. And yes she was pounding if you got the wave wrong, but fast on most occasions despite a low prismatic coefficient and a narrow stern.
My version corrected the above deficiencies with a bulb keel, fuller ends, and more beam. The rudder became a spade blade and the sail plan is modified to non-masthead with plenty of areas.
I kept the overall look the same, to conserve the same efficient interior accommodation plan.

- The next occasion to test the concept based on the same "Chine Line" was the Sight Sailer commission. Originally designed for a customer from New-Orleans who wanted a daysailer to accommodate up to 16 of his friends. I designed a 46' boat with very simple lines and an aluminum construction system which had the builder of over 200 boats to say that she was the easiest built boat that he ever put together.

- Just a couple of years before the SightSailer Design, I ventured to produce for myself a cruising sailboat that I might have been able to build and sail. It just did not happen for various reasons, but enough to put a big hole having spent 1500 hours to design this thing. Over time I received inquiries from around the world about this Steelstar project, but to no result to be built. Maybe the Look based on Black Soo was "depasse", maybe the steel for the hull was not what potential customers were ready to accept. There is an aluminum version but along with steel, the medium was not really acceptable at the time and unlike right now where for offshore cruising sailboats the metal materials are very much into consideration.

- Also check on the same Blog: Circus Maximus.