DESIGN FROM EXPERIENCE
In 1965 a young American designer, Dick Carter, met up with Bernard Hayman of Yachting World in the cockpit of Dick’s new race boat Rabbit. Yachting World recognised a mould-breaking yacht when it saw one and Hayman went on to publish Rabbit’s lines at a time when magazines rarely offered their readers this insight.
Three years earlier Carter bought himself a 33ft Medalist cruiser-racer, also called Rabbit. From the board of Bill Tripp, the Medalist had a long keel with a swept forefoot and a steeply raked rudder post which was the fashion of the day as designers strove to cut wetted area. The downside was that, as the keel-hung rudder crept ever-closer to the centre of lateral resistance, its lever arm diminished and boats became harder to steer. Dick Carter sailed his boat to Florida in the cold of winter to participate in the SORC races.
The experience convinced him that offshore racing was what he wanted and he made the 1,000-mile passage back to Long Island Sound in time for the Storm Trysail Club’s Block Island Race in 1962.
Always colourful in his descriptions, the tale of this eventful delivery reproduced here is taken from Dick’s new book, . The whole work is a grand read with cracking, was the result. In the summer of 1965 beat all three British Admiral’s Cup team yachts, , and and went on to win the Fastnet Race. The rest, as they say, is history.
