Stephens Waring Yacht Design

Spirit of Tradition Yachts Designed In Maine

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Retro Golden Globe One-Design Racer Gets Lost In Design Time.

and filed under Construction, Design, Marine Engineering, Racing

Hey, Don McIntyre! You’re the organizer of the Golden Globe 2018 single-handed round-the-world race. You know, the one where anybody can grab a select list of old fiberglass boats and go around the world non-stop, with not much more than a sextant. Is there a rule we missed that says the new one-design for your race has to be a slow boat to China and back? It’s not like we’re not big fans of the coming Golden Globe Race 2018. We flat out love how your GGR will send off a mixed fleet of about 30 professional and amateur sailors. […]

Marine Engineering 111: Why is my cockpit eh … a cockpit?

and filed under Construction, Design, Marine Engineering

We all sit in them, we stand in them, haul lines in them, and have lunch in them. But do we know why a cockpit is what it is? In many boats, the answer is no. Cockpits seam to slouch in as pre-ordained stories. And that’s a shame, because roughly 7 out of the 10 of the design choices in a vessel involve the design and function of a cockpit. Cockpits expose the inner guts of a boat to the elements and bad luck. Soles that are too low can sink a vessel through downflooding. And it’s the cockpit that […]

Paul Pounds Sails: Why Handicapping Sail Materials Is a Material Mistake.

and filed under Boat Nerd Tech, Racing

Sailing is not golf. Handicapping a sailboat race is a silly, silly idea: Length, weight, sail area, wetted surface are difficult to compare fairly. Nothing comes close to a simple “three-stroke handicap” that captures the subtle mix of tools that make a boat fast or slow. But, still, we sailors want to have fun, we don’t want confusing rules and penalties that are faulty in basis.  Mostly we want to collect our friends and all our different boats, together at the same party, and race. It’s what we do. Today, we’re going to rant about the especially gnarly problem of […]

Bequia Wins Again: A Look at the Candy Store Cup 2017 Fleet.

and filed under Design, Racing, Spirit of Tradition

It may be shameless self promotion, but … one of our favorite boats, Bequia, took another decisive win on the race course earlier this summer. She took first overall at this year’s pretty darn competitive Candy Store Cup, in Newport, RI.  When we find luck on the race course, we like to take a moment to compare the boat to the others on the race course. That way we learn where the speed might have come from; and dig into what we can improve in future designs. The very talented marine photographer, Mark Krasnow, was very generous to share his spectacular race photos. […]

Question of the Month: Should I Varnish My Boat in the Caribbean?

and filed under Boat Nerd Tech, Construction

We love boats of all materials– okay, except MAYBE go easy on the ferro-cement. But we’ve drawn a lot of cool boats, boutique boats, and modern classics. Many have been built as custom one-offs in composite wood construction. We’re often tapped for our expertise in building fancy things out of different wood species. And we recently had a reader and a customer pose a question we get a lot: Can I keep my modern wooden boat in the Caribbean year-round? What challenges will I see? To be honest, the brutal conditions of the sun and salt air of the sweeping […]

Marine Engineering 108: Why on earth does anybody pay so much for a custom boat?

and filed under Construction, Design, Spirit of Tradition

And now, the customer: All the elegantly engineered keels, retro-installed electric drives and superyacht-regatta winning hulls matter not a whit unless these yachty wonders wind up into a real, floating boat. And that real boat requires the near magical, impossible-to-design thing: A real customer. We’ve been working the yacht design wheels for nearly 60 combined years, and we know less now about where the good clients come from than when we started. Where does the individual with the means, inclination and imagination come from to create a great boat? We have no idea. But it is impossible to overstate their […]

The Scuttlebutt on the Camden Classics Cup

and filed under Brokerage, Design, Racing, Spirit of Tradition

One of the upsides of sponsoring the Camden Classics Cup is we get to cozy up to the scratch sheet for this year’s racing. Entries are still coming, but so far there will be some distinguished Spirit-of-Tradition yachts, with great backstories, out there on crystal blue Penobscot Bay. Since any time is a good time to jaw about these lovely boats, here’s a couple of favorite designs you can expect to see racing on July 27th. Marie J: This Tiffany Jayne 34 was the cold-molded wood prototype for a successful fiberglass production run of this boat, designed by Paul Kotzebue, […]

Marine Engineering 106: How to Win a Super Yacht Regatta.

and filed under Design, Marine Engineering, Racing

Talking about racing sailboats starts a competitive debate around here. On one hand, we’re still the boat-nerds dreaming of deconstructing a Vendee Globe or America’s Cup racing rule to unlock the hidden speed secrets that take the silver home. All designers dream of sailing glory. But on the other, experience has taught us that real raceboats are a bummer. The dumb things go out of date before they’re even built. And the boat you wind up having to sail is a beast: Rough. Wet. Dangerous. And that’s assuming you know how to sail fast. Most of us live through the […]

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