[Leica] Re; Boating PESO S-Class sailboats

[r.s.taylor at comcast.net (Richard Taylor)]

Thank you Lawrence.  You filled in the background of the class nicely.  The 
S-Class boats are truly beautiful, something hard to say about most modern 
boats. 

Regards, 

Dick



On Aug 06, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:

> Richard,
> 
> 
> Lovely pictures of a classic sailboat. Excellent old designs seem to hang 
> on
> forever. The S-Class and the Star sailboats are good examples. So too is 
> the
> Leica camera, Barnack or M.
> 
> 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rtaylor/PICKS/2010_boating/300_8374.jpg.html
> 
> 
> The S-Class sailboats were designed by Nathanial Herreshoff in 1919.
> Herreshoff was the dean of American boat naval architects and designed and
> built 5 America's Cup winners. The S-Class boat is a classic  "old
> fashioned" racing sailboat characteristic of the early 1900s. It shares the
> same relationship to modern racing boats as the Leica does to modern
> cameras. Fast sailboats of that era were slim and had a relatively deep
> draft. They were often referred to as "plank on edge" style boats. The
> S-Class boat is smaller than it looks from Richard's pictures. It is 27.5
> feet long with a beam of a bit more than 7 feet. If you had long arms, you
> could reach from side to side. The mast curvature is not accident. It helps
> the sail hold its shape better and increases sail efficiency. The last boat
> was built in 1941 but the class proved so popular that 95% of the boats
> built are still sailing. Here are the specs of the S-Class boats:
> 
> 
> http://sailboatdata.com/VIEWRECORD.ASP?CLASS_ID=73
> 
> 
> The S-Class was inspired by the Skerry Cruiser, another fast sailboat of
> that era dating from 1907.
> 
> 
> http://www.squareskerryyachts.net/30m/index.html
> 
> 
> The Skerry Cruiser is a Swedish design incorporating every known trick for
> making speed under sail. The Skerry Cruisers are absolutely beautiful boats
> but they are so difficult to maintain that few are in use today. Hereshoff
> was determined to develop a similar boat which could be raced and 
> maintained
> by ordinary club sailors. Judging by the popularity of the S-Class boats, 
> he
> succeeded.
> 
> 
> Just for the record, modern club racing sailboats tend to have flat broad
> hulls and fin keels, rather than narrow hulls and deep full keels. They 
> tend
> to be scaled up dinghies rather than smaller America's Cup racing boats.
> 
> 
> There are two S-Class boats and one Skerry Cruiser in my sailing area. A 14
> foot Force Five, a Hobie Cat,  or a Laser could easily beat them in a race
> but that's sort of like saying that a hopped up motorcycle could outspeed a
> classic Rolls Royce.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Larry Z
> 
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