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BOATS WE LOVE At The Front — Spring 2022

Yep. It’s a hull and a deck and a mast and some blocks and some tracks and maybe some winches too. But it’s more than the sum of all that. This issue of At The Front is about how the boat floats through the water and into our hearts.

Original header photos by Martina Orsini & Walter Cooper

We love sailing for lots of reasons. But for many of us, it all begins with a boat.

And where it ends…we’re still finding out.

By Bill Goggins, Harken CEO

One of the things I enjoy most about my job at Harken is that generally, there are boats around. If you’ve been in our offices, you know we have an Olympic Finn, mast-up, in the atrium as you come in. We have a classic Vanguard Volant hanging against a wall in the upstairs atrium. There’s an A-Cat down in the factory. You never can tell what might appear in the permanent display next. Customers bring their boats to Harken Canvas to be measured for custom covers. Sometimes a road-tripping sailor will call from I-94 a couple hours out and stop by for a sandwich. Our fellow owners are often taking off for a regatta after work with their trailers hitched up in the parking lot. So, no matter the season or the weather, we have emotional support boats available.

If I asked you, “What’s your favorite boat of all time?” How would you answer? Mull it over for a minute. Does the answer change if you think it through? Or is your answer already firmly baked enough that you have an immediate reply ready? Some of us get to sail our absolute favorites or remember them fondly. Some of us are left to view them forever from afar.

This month, we asked that same question to a bunch of sailors we know: “What’s your favorite boat of all time?” We got a fantastic array of sometimes unpredictable answers. Often, we asked via email. But whenever we asked in-person, we watched a smile and a 5-mile stare cross the face of the person we asked. It’s a little love thing, this favorite boat question. There’s probably no right answer. But there are any number of perfect replies. Sailing is about tactics and hiking and weather and teammates and fleet management…but ultimately it’s about beautiful boats sliding though or over beautiful water.

Boats YOU love. What's your answer? Tell us what you think. We'll share your thoughts: www.facebook.com/Harken/posts/10159668524166900

My favorite? We’re just days away from getting Ohana out of polar storage. Like an assortment of us here near the freshwater lakes of inland Wisconsin, I’m partial to the E Scow. But I respect all faiths! We hope you enjoy this issue…and being on the boat again.

Ohana

The Naples Sabot

by Riley Gibbs

Riley is a member of SailGP USA and American Magic. He is a Pan-American Games gold medalist in the Nacra 17, competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as a member of Team USA, and is a 505 North American champion.

Bring back the bowl cut, Riley!

Alamitos Bay Yacht Club’s junior program started at age six. They wouldn’t let me in early, so my parents brought me to a traditional summer camp. When the camp counselor brought out the crayons and told us to draw, I drew my Sabot. When she brought out the beads and string, my four-year-old self burst out of that gymnasium and hid in a locker for the rest of the day. I just wanted to sail. Sick of hearing me, my dad strong-armed the junior program director, and the yacht club let me in.

My first sabot was a hand-me-down from a family friend – a boat builder here in Long Beach. That thing lived many lives. It was originally pink! But my dad sanded it all back and had it completely reglassed. We lived close to Dennis Choate’s speed shop, and my whole family was really quite into it. We reworked the blades, realigned the keelson, and completely refaired the thing. It really did need to get refaired. Those hulls are like 3 mm of fiberglass, so over the years the bottoms get quite wavy and warped from the UVs. Obviously that refairing was well above my pay grade (I was 6), but I developed a huge appreciation for all the intricacies. The Sabot is a very technical boat. It was a hugely formative experience.

Sabot sailing here in California is definitely a phenomenon. Sabots come in two kinds. North of Marina Del Rey, they sail the U.S. Sabot, and everywhere south of there, it's the Naples Sabot. In terms of complexity, the Naples Sabot is the Finn and the U.S. Sabot is like the Laser. The U.S. Sabot has a centerboard, it’s much more simplified, and the rules are more strict. My brother and I sailed the Naples Sabot.

Those Gibbs boys and their infamous 'banana' boom

The Naples Sabot has a leeboard, which requires you to sail the boat completely differently from one tack to the other. The leeboard is on the starboard side, so on starboard tack you sail the boat completely flat. If you heel up, you’ll slip completely sideways. On port, it’s faster to sail a 10-15 degree heel to get maximum inversion of the leeboard in the water. The hull is like a Snipe bottom; it’s got two flat sides that come to quite a hard chine angle. My dad made molds for the foils too, so we did runner & leeboard testing for different thicknesses.

This was more than a junior program thing. We were optimizing the performance of this boat within the rule from a very young age. We had such a tight, competitive group at Alamitos Bay YC that we unintentionally almost killed the class. I'm sure there were sighs of relief when we departed that scene.

I’m telling you guys, this was full-on. There was basically a mini America’s Cup campaign going on. In Naples Sabots.

What was the fast setup? Well I had a custom-made LaFiel bronze-alloy mast and a super bendy aluminum tube boom. Originally we just retrofitted used windsurf masts, but as everyone got better, we started searching for those 2% gains and eventually switched over to carbon. We worked really closely with Dave Ullman to develop the fastest sails. Yes, as a 7 year old. He was like a god to us! It was so cool to be involved in something like that. I had no idea what I was talking about! I just liked the color of my sail numbers! (Actually, we really did optimize that too. My brother and I would get different colored numbers and cut them in half. Our numbers were 9339 and 9507. We switched colors on the 9s and the 7. He had a green & black setup, and I had a red & black setup.)

I don’t think I could’ve had a better upbringing. We were so fortunate to be so competitive along with other kids at that age. We’re all still super tight – You’re never going to lose that bond with your training mates. It’s totally a cult.

The most recent time I sailed a Sabot was on a Tuesday night at Alamitos Bay YC doing battle with the kids. The day before, I was blasting around on Comanche. They’re both really fun.

The Senior Sabot Nationals is on my bucket list of regattas. I’m always checking my calendar waiting for the stars to align. But conflicts always seem to come up. This year, I think there’s a SailGP event or something in the way. But mark my words: I will get there eventually.

The Hobie 16

by Bill Hardesty

Bill is a US Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, 12-time world champion, and an accomplished coach.

What’s my favorite boat of all time? Well that’s a very hard question. I’ve sailed the moth, foiling A-Cats, TP52s, superyachts, maxis, but I’ll be honest with you, I think it’s more about the people.

And when it comes to the people, the Hobie 16 is the boat that cut my teeth. I sailed it as a kid with my father. Back then, the fleet was extremely strong. 200 boats all launching off the beach. Picture that. Everyone puts their boat on the big beach wheels and pulls up onto the beach right next to their RV. After racing, there’s one big tent that hosts all the parties. Everyone introduces themselves and wants to chat. Yeah, sure, the boat itself is a little clunky. Hell, we even tipped over backwards in one race. Yup. Sterns down, tipped over backwards while we were going upwind. ...That’s kind of embarrassing but it’s true... The opposite of a pitchpole. It doesn’t matter because it’s all about the people. That’s what makes the thing go!

Harken: So, does anyone fall asleep and spend the night on the trampoline? Hardesty: Oh yeah. It happens. People wake up with sand in their teeth! Maybe the van is already at full-capacity for the night so someone just ends up crashing on the trampoline.

These days, the Hobie 16 fleet sees about 50 boats instead of the 200 I grew up with. But for modern one-design standards, 50 boats is absolutely a big fleet. There’s something really special about camping on the beach with the boat right next to the camper. It can be hot at those regattas — During postponement, we’d go into the RV, pop on the air conditioner, and eat lunch inside while watching out the window for the flag to go up. When we saw the flag, it was go time. By the time you close the RV door, slip on your life jacket, push the boat off the beach, and sail out to the racecourse, it's been maybe five minutes. You still have plenty of time to sail upwind and down before the starting gun.

The Hobie 16 keeps it simple. I really think any boat needs to be simple for it to be enjoyable. If you have to constantly work on it — like a Moth, which seems like it’s an hour of boat work for every two hours of sailing — sometimes that’s fun, but not always. There’s all this push for foiling, but the non-foiling boats are way more family-friendly. It’s nice and simple. You can sail one with your wife, your girlfriend, your kid, hell, even your neighbor. If you happen to snag the windward mark on a Moth, you’re quickly out a couple grand; that's not very forgiving.

In some Grand Prix classes, there’s a lot of backstabbing – people going behind backs and saying negative things to the owner. Sometimes you don’t even want to go to dinner with your teammates after the day of racing. That sucks the fun from the sport. As pro sailors, it’s our job to create an experience for the owner. There’s a fine line between the performance we’re after and the experience we do it all for in the first place.

Really at the end of the day, I love the Hobie 16. There’s a beautiful simplicity to it. We all get so serious chasing the world championship titles, often we forget this is all supposed to be fun. It should be fun.

The Tasar

by Jonathan McKee

Jonathan & Libby McKee at the 2017 Tasar World Championship. Photo by Junichi Hirai / BULKHEAD Magazine Japan.

Jonathan is a two-time Olympic medalist, multi-time World Champion, America’s Cup competitor, decorated collegiate sailor, Volvo Ocean Race and Mini Transat veteran, and seasoned bluewater sailor.

Favorite boat ever? Hmmm, that is not an easy choice. What makes a great boat? Performance, certainly, and a nice feel on the helm. A boat that is good in all conditions, upwind and down. And the simpler the better. But a truly unique boat allows for a sailing experience that you would not have in any other boat. In this case I am referring to the opportunity to race competitively with my wife Libby. While we sometimes sail other boats, we have been racing Tasars together since 1987 — 35 years. We started sailing together before we were even married, and this little boat has been a big part of our relationship ever since. In fact we are preparing for the 2022 Tasar World Championship this September. It never gets old. We just keep learning new tricks!

How can a 15’ dinghy without trapeze or spinnaker keep us captivated for 35 years and counting? Well for starters it is very light, only 148 pounds without rig and blades. Secondly it has a really nice hull shape, designed by the amazing Frank Bethwaite. The hull is wide on deck for hiking but narrow on the water for low drag, fine forward for waves, but very flat aft for fast planning. It's well-mannered in all conditions. The rig is small but surprisingly efficient, due to the rotating mast and fully battened main and jib. Best of all, the boats are completely one design, so good used boats are very competitive. We had our last boat for 24 years and won two world championships in her.

Photo by Junichi Hirai / BULKHEAD Magazine Japan

But the best feature of all has nothing to do with the boat: the community. We have had a great Tasar fleet here in Seattle since the mid-eighties, and many of the top sailors in the area have sailed Tasars — or still are. Not only that, our best friends mostly sail Tasars, so when we go training or racing, we are often sailing against sailors who came to our wedding billions of years ago! Can’t ask any more of a boat than that…

The IC-24

by Taylor Canfield

Bitter End Yacht Club Pro-Am Regatta held in the IC-24

Taylor is a five-time Congressional Cup champion, SailGP competitor, world champion, decorated college sailor, and many-time first-place ranked match racer.

Of all the boats I’ve sailed, for sure I’d say my favorite is the keelboat I grew up sailing in the Virgin Islands, the IC-24. The Virgin Islands needed an accessible fleet of club-friendly boats that anyone can hop into have have a fun one-design racing experience. Chris Rosenberg and Morgan Avery were looking for a fleet in that special range of 20-30 feet, but they struggled to find something that anyone could sail comfortably and without needing a lot of crew. What they realized was they could find a ton of J/24s. Many of these J/24s were just sitting collecting dust in boat yards. The problem with those is the comfort level. I love the Johnstone family and sailing J/Boats, but the 24 is a bit of a hate-machine for anyone except the driver. Chris and Morgan decided to draft up a new cockpit. They took the widely available and super sturdy J/24 hulls and cut out the cockpit. Those J/24 hulls will last FOREVER. Hell, J/24 hull number 5 is one of the IC-24s; it was originally purchased for pennies, and it happens to be one of the fastest boats in the fleet! In the J/24, the cockpit goes 2-5 feet back to the transom, so really the only comfortable person is the driver. So Chris and Morgan cut the foredeck off about 1.5 feet back from the mast, made a rounded Melges 24 style seat, and established a no-legs-over-the-rail hiking rule for one-design racing in this class. They kept the same rig. No genoa – typically you only race with the blades, but the mold still has a place for the genoa tracks. Now you’ve got the Inter-Club 24. You’re sitting in a naturally comfortable position not crunched up in the front or bent over the lifelines all day.

This boat created an experience in the islands where sailing was just plain fun.

It was a really incredible group of sailors that came together on this project in 1999 following a decimation of the fleet after successive hurricanes. Now, there are 25+ boats sailing in the St. Thomas International Regatta and the Rolex regatta. Fleets have developed not just with the big boom in the islands, but also in the United States and Canada. The fleet’s seen gradual growth over the years. It’s a very even one-design fleet, which is perfect for the islands. It’s been a very successful way to get more people out racing and to help build better sailors. It’s a really good platform for getting younger kids into keelboat sailing but also older sailors doing what they love in a way that’s not super physical.

My favorite? Well that’s easy. My dad bought the first hull, the prototype, and named it Boat Drinks, in classic Jimmy Buffett style. For me, that was my starting point into keelboat sailing. At 12 years old, my dad let me drive it and asked the experienced islanders to come out sailing with me. He relied on me to do the boat maintenance. I always made sure the bottom was in prime form. I really enjoyed that part of it.

So many boats, so little time!

by Dawn Riley

America True led by Dawn Riley fends off Nippon in the 2000 Louis Vuitton Cup in Auckland. Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget.

Dawn is a world champion, the first woman ever to manage an entire America's Cup syndicate, the first American, man or woman, to sail in three America's Cups and two Whitbread Round the World races, and is one of the forerunners in providing community access into the sport.

Somehow I’ve collected quite a few notches on my sailing belt! As someone surely said somewhere - every boat is enjoyable in their own way. Then again, some moments of riding the rail or steering the ship are more memorable than others.

That first time you are at the top of the crest of a 40 foot wave and instead of transversing down the backside of the swell you actually launch off and slam into the next for an exhilarating ride. You realize that you are planing on a VOR60 through the Southern Ocean. The fact that we crushed the core in some of those landings was just part of the business.

Or when you step on a boat, raise the main, and tighten the runners for the very first time, and you realize you are standing on a rocket ship where the energy ripples through the boat like fingers running over washboard abs. There is a glint in your eye and and energy running down your spine and you just know that this is a special boat. That was America True in the 2000 Cup. The IACC boats were developed enough to be very close and there was enough inventory to support a strong and wide field. America True was more than a special boat - she was a part of a team and all of her crew and supporters changing the sport.

Steve Fosset's 105' catamaran, PlayStation

But I seem always to find something to love about any boat I sail, a liftoff in a Waszp, the flashbacks of grit and hard work on the Match 40s race course, memories of trying to hold on while steering PlayStation close to the wind in 25 knots, the ping of the runners on Oakcliff's JV66 Numbers, the surfing upwind on Lake Huron on OC86, and even the surge of awesome and somewhat frightful power of a 131-tonne Perini Aquarius, in 20 knots, on the backside of St. Barth’s plowing through 16 foot seas!

150' Aquarius, built by famed Italian yard Perini Navi

I guess you can say I’m not choosy - I love them all!

The Blue Moose

by Schmichter

Hello. My name is Schmichter (when I say it, it sounds like “Shmik-ter”) and I’m a Blockhead. Guess you could say I’m THE Blockhead since Harken dreamed me up in Pewaukee and reverse-engineered my likeness into the Blockhead logo. Gotta confess, I don’t entirely understand how that happened. They tell me I’m equal parts historical figure and a figment of imagination. But I’m real too. Or else, who’s typing this?

Anyway, this is not about me. This is all about my favorite boat. He’s called “Once Upon a Blue Moose” and is owned by a friend of mine who loves sailing more than anyone I know. He’s (yep, Moose’s pronouns are he/his) a trimaran, 31 ft long and 22 ft wide. He was designed by a man named Dick Newick to be capable of crossing oceans. Mr. Newick was famous for designing some of the most famous small ocean-going tris of all time. Moose is a brother ship to the famous yellow “Third Turtle” that the legendary Mike Birch sailed in the 1976 singlehanded OSTAR race across the Atlantic. Google the OSTAR.

Why I like him:

I like “Moose” because it’s both fast and remarkably easy to sail fast. Those two things don’t normally exist together. I’ve sailed a foiling Moth that may be a little faster, but you have to live through a whole bunch of crashes learning how to deliver that speed potential. On the other hand, I have literally seen someone who has never steered a sailboat in their life, take Moose’s helm and in five minutes, be going faster then 20 knots. They don’t even realize how amazing that is…because Moose doesn’t make it seem remarkable. He has a gigantic speed sweet spot. I guess I respect his design for that. The boat is really dry because it has a lot of deck space as all the area between the amas (the side hulls) is decked rather than netted. The cockpit is deep and you can be blasting along in seas and not get splashed.

Why he’s my favorite:

He takes care of the people who come aboard.

There are a lot of safe boats. But you won’t find many that go 15 knots all day long and have reached 26.4 knots—without even really heeling. He has a cabin, but it’s really only big enough for two people to stay overnight. So, when I said he was designed to be sailed across oceans, he was designed to sail across those oceans keeping one or two crew members sailing at a high level. You should see how relaxed first-time sailors are out there. The way he makes them feel confident and in control…that’s why he’s my favorite.

The Flying Dutchman

by Ron Rosenberg

Ron holds five world titles and 50+ national titles, has competed or coached in every Olympic quad since 1984, and has a decorated coaching career including multiple world championship titles.

I’ve been very lucky to have sailed so many different kinds of extraordinary boats; however, one stands out as helping to boost me high up my own learning curve. The Olympic Flying Dutchman: 20’ of honeycomb and carbon pre-preg, a high powered sail plan and a high performance laboratory platform where innovation, serious thought and collaboration, and raw hard work on and off the water were always generously rewarded. This amazing laboratory of a platform was ideal for learning the critical importance of power and balance… perhaps the two most important components that factor into raw boat speed in almost any sailboat.

With a similar sail plan geometry as a J/24 or Dragon and an oversized centerboard and rudder with wide tolerances, the FD was always a highly overpowered machine. Often the challenge became how to best and most efficiently depower the sail plan (using extreme mast rake) and rebalancing the boat using the easily movable appendages by sliding the centerboard well aft, and then raking it aft as well in order to quickly pop up onto a full plane upwind… then carefully and smoothly lowering the centerboard back down in order to keep the boat planing in the highest upwind mode possible… in fact, one of the very first McLube Sailkote Dry Lube applications was regular coating of our centerboard trunks and boards themselves so we could still move them easily under extreme load.

When the FD was not correctly set up nor balanced properly, she felt untamable. But when you got her into a sweet groove, she felt… just perfect :)

I was intrigued as a young teenager watching the 6-boat squad of American FD teams working so hard together during their 1981-1984 Olympic Quad. This resulting in a gold medal for Jonathan McKee and Carl Buchan. My brother and I were lucky enough to come in on the heels of that program along with an enthusiastic group of the next generation of young sailors fresh out of youth sailing. Together, our gang bought nearly all of those six Mark Lindsay-built FDs, and we were smart enough to hire the previous generation to help coach us up to speed quickly rather than try to reinvent the wheel all on our own. I believe I learned more about how to make boats go fast during that 85-88 Quad than any other period in my life. We didn’t win our Trials that year, but I did win three major keelboat Worlds over those following three years in the J/24, Etchells, and Olympic Soling. Nearly everything that FD taught us was directly applicable to making other boats go fast too. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the FD… and even to this day, thinking about the sheer sweetness of having her right in her groove still makes me smile :)

Harken loves the FD too…We made it part of our logo!

The Fireball

by Chris 'Twiggy' Grube

Chris is a two-time Olympian in the 470 Class, competing in the Rio and Tokyo Olympics for the British Sailing Team.

I grew up North of England sailing on lakes. The Fireball was the first boat that I sailed with my dad, and it completely grew my love of the sport. There’s something really special about sailing in such a beautiful part of the world. We got to spend all day on an amazing lake with stunning scenery alongside a community of sailors that encourage and support you. How could you even think to leave the sport?

In anything in life, I think it’s the people that you meet on the journey that make all the difference. For me, it’s all about the journey. My Olympic journey really started when I was like 8, 9, 10 years old, blasting around in a Fireball with Dad. I’ve raced in two Olympics: Rio and Tokyo, both in the 470 with Luke Patience. I went through the RYA Youth System and sailed Toppers, Laser Radials, and Lasers, but towards the end of that, I got a bit discouraged because the boats didn’t appeal to me. Then I tried the 470 for the first time. All my memories in the Fireball with Dad came flying back. At 10, 11, 12 years old, we were blasting around the lake at speeds I had never reached before. To a 12-year-old kid, it feels really fast. Dad was driving, and I was on the trap, skimming above the water in this beautiful wooden Fireball. The boat is certainly beautiful but it was also the location, Bala Sailing Club in North Wales. That’s where I grew up sailing. The fleet was pretty small, only like 5 or 6 boats doing handicap racing. But what made it special was the people that you meet at the club. Hanging out with mates your age, camping close to the sailing club, hanging out together all the time. For me, the sport at that age was all about enjoyment. Getting out and capsizing every boat you sailed. I was always competitive, but the race wins weren’t what stuck with me. It was all about playing games: How many times can you capsize? When we took the club Toppers out, we spent most of the time upside down. Or jumping off the jetty. Or swimming around. That was our life, what we used to do every weekend. The Fireball made it happen.

Bala Sailing Club
Luke Patience and Chris Grube 470 Olympic Campaign || Photo by Lloyd Images

PETER'S DESK DRAWER PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Sailors are creative people. We get TONS of suggestions for products we should design or adapt slightly and sell. We listen. And over the years we’ve built a bunch. We’ve just started putting them in a collection we call “Peter’s Desk Drawer.” In every issue of At The Front we feature one here. Have a unique rigging challenge? Look in the drawer.

Harken 371

Recently, a sailor came up to us on the docks... "I always wonder… When one of the blocks on the Melges 24 jib clew blows (Harken 371), how do you replace them without replacing and sewing the whole new assembly back on? That's one of the most pesky things I deal with as a sailmaker."

Well, we have a fastener version that could be used as an emergency spare – HSB464. This 'Peter's Desk Drawer' version of the Harken 371 comes with a removable bolt through the middle instead of a rivet, so it can be undone and connected to various locations on your boat. Use care when removing the bolt and make sure you keep both of the block sides together to ensure the ball bearings don't come out.

This month's featured product: 29mm Carbo Air block with Removable Bolt – Part No.HSB464

You never know what you'll find in here. Go ahead, open the drawer: harken.com/en/shop/peters-desk-drawer/