Boats – The history of design

Minis and 17 mini-cruisers from just micros £2,900 You don’t need a large boat for big fun. Mini-Tonners and Micro-Tonners from the 1970s and 1980s offer terrific value today, says Peter Poland – whether you want entertainment or value for money

Hunter Sonata Price from £4,995

Hunter Sonatas enjoying a fresh breeze David Harding

28 Practical Boat Owner 531 February 2011 • www.pbo.co.uk 17 great mini-cruisers

E Boat Price from £3,000

Hunter Horizon Price from £11,950 David Harding David Harding Multi-chined E Boat was one of the first UK Mini-Tonners Hunter Horizon 23 uses the original Sonata with a new to offer more space below

hen you hear the words ‘chartering big’ has a lot going for it. Let of the hull, thereby ‘cheating’ the rating. ‘mini’ and ‘micro’, what someone else pay the hefty annual insurance The all-important waterline length (which springs to mind? and mooring bills on the big boat. effectively dictates a hull’s theoretical maximum If you’re of my speed – unless it can plane) was measured generation, the chances Birth of a baby with the yacht floating upright: too much wind are your memories will How did the Mini Ton Cup come to be? As the and the measurer refused to turn up. So spinW back to the swinging 60s. Skirts and cars Quarter Ton-cuppers were making hay in the designers encouraged sterns to float clear of that ‘went mini’ epitomised that era. Whether early 1970s, I, and many others, had a yen to the water at standstill. These large overhangs you were hanging out on the Kings Road or in build something slightly smaller, but similar. So then became immersed under way thereby downtown Southampton, you saw these I approached designer David Thomas, whose increasing waterline length and thus speed. delicious objects everywhere. Irrespective of multi-chine Quarto and smaller Intro class I had The stability factor took no account of crew, gender, 1960s people loved them both. And of greatly admired, and asked for a 6.7m (22ft) so IOR designers relied on wide beam at deck course the micro skirt (better known as a fan round-bilged development that could be built in level to provide perching space for ample live belt) was even more exciting. It is also large numbers in GRP. The Hunter Sonata and movable two-legged ballast – although the interesting to recall that the length of skirts was born. ill-fated 1979 Fastnet Race led to the became accepted as a reflection of the state of Then, as if by divine intervention, the RORC penalisation of excessive tenderness. Finally, a the nation’s economy. The better off people felt, announced an inaugural championship for realisation that mainsail area added less to an the shorter skirts got. No surprise, therefore, what it called the Eighth Ton Cup just as the IOR rating than jib area meant that more new that hemlines have been remorselessly first Sonata was nearing completion. Our new IOR boats became fractionally rigged. Hooray. dropping during the last year or two. baby fitted perfectly. However, shortly after (and The inaugural (and, as it turned out, only) Depressing really. I’ll only feel at financial ease hot on the Eighth Ton Cup’s heels) the French Eighth Ton Cup took place in Lymington in when skirts get shorter again. joined the party and the all-new Mini Ton Cup 1976 and the entry list featured several new But the ‘mini’ and ‘micro’ words also made an effectively took its place. designs that went into full production. These exciting impact on the sailing scene, albeit a Sadly for us, the early Mini rules stipulated a still make excellent low budget mini-cruisers. decade later in the mid-1970s. The One, Three maximum beam of 2.5m (8ft 2in) to comply with Quarter, Half and Quarter ‘Ton Cup’ classes – mainland Europe’s towing regulations. This Made in Britain around 11m (36ft), 10m (33ft), 9.15m (30ft) and was eminently sensible, of course, but since The first UK ‘Mini’ off the blocks was designed 7.6m (25ft) respectively, and featured in the the Sonata and some other first-comers to the by Julian Everitt and was a revolutionary small recent issues of PBO – had sucked ever more new Mini party were a bit wider, it was also a bit boat. The 6.7m (22ft) E Boat featured a sailors into the joys of fast cruiser-racers. The of a blow – although fortunately the early multi-chine hull, suited to either plywood or pressure mounted for the phenomenally designs were given dispensation in this GRP build, and a ballasted daggerboard-style successful ‘Ton Cup’ format to be applied to respect, so could still come out and play. lifting . Most examples have a flush deck, even smaller boats – after all, why should the Like the larger Ton Cup classes, the Mini which means headroom is low, but its massive better-off sailors have all the sport? 2.8m (9ft 2in) overall beam ensures There’s a saying in boating There’s a saying in boating circles that goes that there is plenty of living space circles that goes ‘the smaller the below. The very last examples grew boat, the bigger the fun.’ If you ‘the smaller the boat, the bigger the fun’ a small wedge roof. In many ways enjoy a recipe of weekend sailing the 975kg (2,150lb) E Boat, of and occasional coastal trips, combined with an formula was based on the then-prevalent IOR which the lift keel represents 317.5kg (700lbs) annual two-week cruise in a bigger OPB (other handicap system. Measurements galore were is a giant ballasted dinghy and it offers person’s boat) or CCB (charter company’s lobbed into a computer and out popped a excellent performance under sail. boat), then a smaller ‘Ton Cup derived’ rating. In the case of Mini-Tonners, the magic True, its masthead rig is not as flexible or cruiser-racer can be an ideal purchase. I for figure was 16.5ft – a notional IOR length adaptable as a fractional one, but make no one maintain that ‘owning small’ and derived from such features as hull shape, mistake, the E Boat is a ‘goer’ in every sense of length (overall and waterline), beam (maximum the word – it has even crossed the Atlantic. Its and waterline), freeboard, girth measurements, lifting keel makes trailing viable, although the foretriangle dimensions, and boom whole boat needs to be tipped on its side to get About the author measurements, and stability as assessed by inside the 2.5m mainland European maximum n Peter Poland crossed an all-important physical inclination test. towing width. the Atlantic in a 25ft Certain oddities within IOR designs resulted Julian Everitt told me that the production Mini (7.6m) yacht in 1968 from features that increased actual Ton-sized boats preceded the one-offs – which and later spent 30 years performance more than they increased the was rarely the case in other classes. as co-owner of Hunter boat’s rated IOR length. Some IOR hulls display ‘The E Boat design was one of the first Boats. He is now a prominent bumps at girth measurement points, Minimum IOR raters to appear. This was a way freelance journalist. for instance. Also, a retroussé moved of bringing sailing under the International the aft girth measurement point to a fatter part Offshore Rule down to the lowest possible cost. ➜

Practical Boat Owner 531 February 2011 • www.pbo.co.uk 29 Boats – The history of yacht design

Catch 22 Price from £3,750 David Harding David Harding The Catch 22 looks like a proper, scaled-down large yacht

Limbo 6.6 Price from £5,495

Hunter Duette 23 Price from £6,250 David Harding The Limbo 6.6 has a pivoting keel allowing relatively easy trailering The Hunter Duette 23 was a twin-keel development of Hunter’s successful Sonata

‘Prior to this in 1974, the Quarter Ton Class All these boats were around 6.7m (22ft) long commercial move. Yet the Sonata still managed was already dominated by quite expensive one- and 2.6m (8ft 6in) wide – apart from the slightly to achieve all this within a weight of around offs. However the growth in Mini Ton-sized larger Sonata and E Boat – and all went on to 1,116kg (2,460lb) – of which the keel production boats after this point was meteoric, make splendid small cruiser-racers. represents 460kg (1,015lb) – largely thanks to led by the E Boat and Sonata, which between its advanced GRP laminate that comprised them sold close to a thousand boats. Some Family friendly unidirectionals and rovings, as well as really oddball one-offs were first created for the The new David Thomas-designed Sonata run-of-the mill chopped strand mat. Mini Ton Cup itself, but in the early years the made its mark by winning the production boat Subsequently, the Sonata also appeared with event was largely dominated by production or prize and in the process clearly demonstrated an alternative shallow draught stub keel semi-production boats.’ its prodigious power upwind. (drawing 0.76m/2ft 6in) that housed a pivoting Julian went on to say how Mini-Tonners soon But, interestingly, it also boasted the most cast iron centreplate, and also as a twin keel outnumbered Quarter-Tonners on mainland ‘family friendly’ interior. This probably helps development known as the Duette 23. Europe, mentioning how his own semi- explain its subsequent success as a volume Neither version shares the close-windedness of production Glass Onion design went on to production boat. A conventional vee-berth the 1.37m (4ft 6in) draught fin keel Sonata, nor dominate the scene, first with Shaved Fish in forepeak (with WC hidden under the head of do they slice upwind in half a gale in the same 1979 and then with Glass Onion herself in 1981, one berth), decent-sized athwartships galley to extraordinary way. But neither do they hang 1982 and 1983. starboard aft of the main bulkhead, and around. Indeed, the twin keel Duette 23 is still But going back to that inaugural Lymington generously proportioned settee/quarter berths probably the sharpest small twin keeler that event, other designs to feature prominently aft provided plenty of living space. It was even floats – closely followed by the twin keel Hunter were the Hunter Sonata, Limbo (precursor to possible to slot a brace of cot-style pilot berths Horizon 23 that uses the original Sonata hull the production Limbo 6.6), Sweet Sixteen outboard of the settees if required. The allied to a brand new deck, offering full standing (prototype of the Skipper 700), Catch 22 and builders’ determination to insert a civilised headroom and an aft heads compartment and Dutch-designed Oceaan 22. interior into a quick 22-footer was a sound double berth. Some feat in a Mini-Tonner hull.

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30 Practical Boat Owner 531 February 2011 • www.pbo.co.uk