Hall of Fame - David Tyler by Graham Cox David Tyler: 1945 - new ideas, although perhaps the to be more efficient to It takes an independent and emphasis is different. To find a person windward than a adventurous spirit to take a small boat who excels in both fields is rare. David standard, flat-cut ocean voyaging. To do it time and Tyler is such a person. junk sail, though not Hélène Fercot Hélène again, quietly and competently, David is a lifelong sailor, having as efficient as Lliutro’s requires an organised and resourceful started at the age of 10. He is also an Bermudan rigged sisterships. mind. It could be argued that similar experienced designer of yachting Marie- qualities are needed to develop and test equipment, working for both M S Gibb This rig consisted of and Kemp Masts (now Seldén stiff battens that were UK) in the UK. It was while split to pass either side of Country and the Isles of Scilly. At developing Hasler self- the mast, joined at the forward end by times they had a hard beat down steering gears, with Blondie a radiused block of wood, with the sail channel, and the rig performed on board Pilmer, that David doubled around the mast and single, excellently. This rig became the basis first became enchanted with flat panels behind the wishbones. The of all David’s future wingsail designs. junk rig. When they wanted running lines passed down inside the After 12 years, David found himself in to fiddle with the self- wishbones, giving the rig improved a position to afford another boat, so steering gear, they would aerodynamic efficiency. There was no bought the hull and deck of a fibreglass just let the sheet fly and the yard. The first mast David built was Lone Gull II (designed by Maurice sail would quietly take care one of the earliest hybrids, but it was a Griffiths), and began fitting it out. He of itself. Pull it back in and bit light and eventually bent. He had to fit a Bermudan rig to Lliutro in off you go. David decided replaced it with a stouter carbon fibre order to sell it, and was thus left with he had to have one. mast. two spare masts. The decision was In the mid 1970s, he began A couple of years later, he adapted a therefore made to rig Ivory Gull, as the fitting out Lliutro, a twin- Swingwing sail from Robin Blain, new vessel was called, as a junk keeled Sadler 25, and cutting it down to fit Lliutro, and schooner. The carbon fibre mast decided to fit it with junk rig. designing shorter wishbones. This rig became the mainmast and the cut- However, being David, he had an articulated joint just abaft the down hybrid mast was used for the was interested to see if he wishbones, inducing camber, although foremast. David, along with other could improve it. His it was just made from a lashing and members of the JRA, had begun subsequent wingsail design was subject to considerable chafe. It experimenting with batten hinges and was highly commended in was a successful sail, allowing David to cambered panels by this time, so Ivory Ivory Gull with original sails made in 1995 the RCC Centenary design cruise, often with his family, to the Gull’s sails were barrel cut with 4% competition. The sail proved Channel Islands, Brittany, the West February 2016 The JRA Magazine issue 70 Page 5 camber, with hinges in the lower Tystie is an unusual vessel. She is too much chafe and stretch, especially battens as well. 10.36m LOA, displaces 7 tonnes, and for ocean voyaging. It had been quite David’s wife unfortunately died of has moderate draught, with twin, satisfactory on Ivory Gull, which had cancer soon after the launching of Ivory asymmetrical, pivoted bilge boards, much smaller sails. The two upper Gull. David took early retirement at 50, which are toed in and canted out. The panels proved too large for heavy in 1996, and began a series of summer hull has high freeboard aft and is weather, and too much of the sail hung voyages around Land’s End and up to somewhat reminiscent of a Chinese down when deeply reefed. Scotland, where he engaged in a junk in profile. She has a conventional The new sail was a considerable vigorous campaign of mountain hatchway, but this is fitted with a Jester improvement. It had more pronounced climbing, known as “Munro bagging.” pramhood, from where David keeps fanning in the panels, allowing smaller He completed them all, some 280 odd watch and handles the rig at sea, rarely top panels, and was built from peaks, between 1997 and 2003. They are needing to go on deck, and only polyester cloth, Hayward's “Sunwing”, all in excess of 3000 feet. He also putting on his wet weather jacket when and had a U-sectioned sail catcher. The found the time to sail Ivory Gull around standing up in the hatch to reef. battens were retained by a series of Ireland. The boat was initially rigged with a short pockets, instead of being lashed Now that he had no commitments single, 55.7 square metre junk sail, with on, as they were on the first sail, which ashore, David began dreaming of more moderately fanned battens in the lower still allowed access to the battens for adventurous voyages to the far ends of five panels, two large fanned panels in repairs etc. David had tried using Tystie’s first seven-panelled sail the earth. He was not dreaming of the top of the sail, a high-peaked yard, plastic cable ties on the first sail tropical seas, trade winds and flying pultruded fibreglass battens, and a initially, as Tom Colvin recommended, cambered, acrylic sail. The sail had but found they broke easily and chafed crews of 20 or more, used to set fish, however. His preference is for the astonishing amounts of canvas, and lonely, wild and woolly, high-latitude three separate luff-hauling parrels, the sail. each controlling two battens. The lower Arne Kverneland and his cohorts in places, preferably ones with At New Year, 2004, David was Norway have shown what can be challenging mountains to climb. one went aft then forward again, introduced to Fran Flutter by Annie allowing David to haul the luff of the achieved inshore with huge rigs and David’s voyage photos are often taken Hill. Fran had already made a solo fast hulls.) The real problem, however, from the top of some peak, with his sail to windward, to balance the rig circumnavigation and became Tystie’s downwind. was handling the sail in stronger yacht visible as a speck far below. first mate. After a shakedown cruise in winds. Launched in 2000, Tystie joined the JRA the Irish Sea in February (enough to Ivory Gull was not the ideal boat for In winds above Force 7, with the sail such enterprises, so he drew up a set of Scottish Rally that year, and appeared test anybody), they set off to the north, on the cover of the November edition cruising all the Scandinavian countries deeply reefed, the high-angled yard comprehensive sketches that David required the yard-hauling parrel to be Thomas turned into a formal yacht of the JRA Magazine (#37). It was the that summer. first edition to appear with colour eased, which increased twist and design. The hull and deck were built in By the time they returned, David was weather helm. Undoubtedly the sail plywood by Hedley Bewes at Hamble. photos, and her large, bright red sail on thinking of further rig development. the cover looked quite startling. Tystie could have taken Tystie around the On his last summer aboard Ivory Gull, The new sail performed excellently in world in the trade winds, but he felt it David took along a drawing board and later sailed 2,500 miles to Lofoten, moderate airs, although David Norway and back with this rig. would be difficult to handle in high designed his ideal voyaging interior, lamented the lack of sail area for light latitudes. He began thinking of two- then came home and started fitting out Returning from Norway, David winds, as always with junk rig, at least masted rigs. In Tystie’s case, that meant the boat himself. decided that he needed to make a new on short-handed voyaging yachts. a ketch, as he did not want to move the sail. The acrylic material was subject to (Chinese trading junks, with their existing mast aft. He was not Page 6 The JRA Magazine issue 70 February 2016 convinced that a junk-rigged ketch was even easier to reef than a standard the Cape Verde Islands. Just south of which took them by surprise, as the would give him the performance he junk sail. that archipelago, they were treated to sea-state had not – until then – desired, so he decided to revisit the In 2005 David and Fran sailed to the the stirring sight of a square-rigged appeared particularly dangerous. wingsail concept. Faeroes, around Iceland, to the Azores ship under full sail, the Dutch sail- Fran suffered a cut in her scalp and a Tystie’s new wingsail ketch rig was and back to England, stopping at The training vessel, Europa. Shortly after, few crockery items were broken, but built during the following winter, with Turks Head, Agnes, Isles of Scilly, on the they noted that the log now recorded there was no damage to the vessel or fibreglass battens, wishbones and nose way home, for a pint of English beer 25,000 miles since Tystie’s launch.