Esthetics and practicality of traditional boat design have now given way to Jacuzzi styled cockpits followed by massive freeboard areas punctured with massive ports (picture windows). Lines no longer freely flow leading one’s eye from bow to stern in a smooth manner. (It’s even worse on power craft!
This evolution in fiberglass boats is discussed in the latest iteration of my fathers book. Briefly, it's broken into 4 phases.
Phase 1: Early fiberglass designs are based on their wooden predecessors. The plugs for the molds are actually constructed from wood.
Finished boats had applied wooden trim.
Phase 2: Fiberglass boats evolve away from their wooden counterparts to form their own identity. Bright finished wood trim becomes a nuisance rather than a badge of honor, while the previous general boat proportions generally continue.
Phase 3: Boat shows spring up worldwide as manufacturers utilize these venues to promote boating as a family activity, furthering women's
participation in boat selection and buying decisions. Feedback from these events comes the impetus to improve and expand accomodations for a given length. Even more pressure is brought to increase beam/length by the emerging IOR rule with it's fools dream of continued racing with the family racer/cruiser. The E39 is an early representation of this, before the light displacement quest superseded.
Phase 4: After the disastrous Fastnet race in 1979, the IOR falls from grace and there is a renewed interest in cruising. The quest for more interior volume continues with vehemence. This is coupled with wider sterns, molded in steps, plumb stems, higher freeboard, and straighter sheerlines.
This evolution he never could comfortably embrace, preferring to hold on to some semblance of traditional aesthetics, and seaworthiness.
Phase 5: This is not in the book, but we had a discussion about it after I came back from a recent trip to Catalina astonished at the hideous lines and grotesque hull shapes I was now seeing in this next generation of sailboats.
In case anybody is wondering, this book is not available to the public just yet but I am trying to get him release it as a print on demand offering. I will let you know if and when it becomes available.
nshof.org
