Shaped by Wind & Wave: Musings of a Boat Designer

Shaped by Wind & Wave

Musings of a Boat Designer

By

Dudley Dix

To Mom and Dad, you gave me the freedom to grow yet restrained me enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. You often despaired of me but you prepared me for the wind and the waves to do the rest.

The contents of this book reflect the opinions of the author, who takes no responsibility for the use or misuse of any of the information contained in it. It is written as a layman’s guide to understanding the general principles of boat design and not as definitive instruction on how to design a boat.

ISBN 978-1-105-65112-0

Copyright © 2012 Dudley Dix Yacht Design

1340-1272 N Great Neck Rd #343, Virginia Beach, VA 23454-2230, USA

Website http://dixdesign.com/

Blog http://dudleydix.blogspot.com/

About the Author.

Dudley Dix was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7th May 1949. He had a rather unimpressive school career in which his most remarkable feats were to fail Grade 11 and then to graduate from Grade 12 at Westerford High School with a First Class Matriculation Certificate. He demonstrated very well the principle that the teacher makes the student by managing to spread his mathematics exam results across the full range from 100% to 13% and back again, depending on how pretty the teacher was. He also managed to fail woodwork in high school, then to build three large offshore sailboats and a host of smaller boats, all from wood. This showed that if he had an interest in the task at hand he could do anything and a lack of interest rendered the task impossible to complete.

While in high school, his parents sent him and his sisters to the Labour Dept offices in Cape Town for aptitude testing, with the goal of gaining direction toward a suitable career. Dudley showed no particular aptitude to anything above anything else. So as not to destroy his chances of gainful employment, the counselor told him that he would be able to do anything that he put his mind to.

After high school he studied at University of Cape Town and graduated with a Diploma in Quantity Surveying. A few years later, while building a 36ft sailboat, he realised that he was on the wrong career path and enrolled with Westlawn School of Yacht Design. He graduated from that establishment with a Diploma in Yacht Design in 1988.

In 1979, when part way through his design studies, Dudley entered the annual yacht design competition run by Cruising World Magazine. His entry, the CW975 multi-chine plywood cruiser/racer, won the competition and launched him into professional yacht design. Two more big boat self-build projects and four trans-Atlantic voyages later, he emigrated with his family from South Africa to USA in 2004. They now live in Virginia Beach, on the south side of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

With his boat design roots in amateur boatbuilding, Dudley has naturally drawn many boats that are suitable for amateur projects and which are now being built in more than 85 countries. He has also designed many boats for professional builders. His Shearwater 45, built in Cape Town by Shearwater Yachts, was selected as Traditional Voyager of the Year and also overall Boat of the Year 2001 at the Annapolis Sailboat Show.

Dudley currently sails a 14ft high-performance dinghy, the prototype of the Paper Jet design. His boat has won innovation awards at wooden boat shows in Mystic Seaport, CT, and Georgetown, SC.

Dudley Dix Yacht Design is a very small office comprising only Dudley and wife Dehlia. They intentionally keep it small because Dudley wants to design boats, not manage people. This does, of course, limit the number and size of designs that can be done each year.

The Dudley Dix Yacht Design website is at http://dixdesign.com/. Follow Dudley’s blog to keep up with news about his boats, at http://dudleydix.blogspot.com/.

Introduction

This book started as a collection of articles written over years for various magazines. I thought to include them in one volume, with preview pages of my designs but it grew and grew as I thought of other things to include, so I dropped the designs out of it. I intend to produce other volumes to cover the various construction materials in more detail, each with preview pages of the applicable designs.

I have expanded and updated all of those articles from their original form, adding more information and photographs. There are also some chapters written specifically for this book.

This book is not intended to teach you how to design a boat for yourself, although it does include sections that will teach you new skills if you want. Rather, it is intended to help the reader to understand why I do what I do when designing a boat. Every yacht designer has his own style of design, based on his own experiences and preferences. We all emphasis those aspects that we feel to be most important and it is clear to see when you walk your local marina that we don’t all share the same ideas.

It is very easy to get into the train of thought that you don’t need a designer because you will be able to design your own boat. Many have done so and ended up building a boat that is not worth the materials that went into it, primarily because they were not equipped with the experience needed to do a good job. I entered yacht design via that route but I was better prepared than most. I had already learned many tough lessons on the water. I drew my first boat, built it then broke it within 10 minutes of launching it. I repaired it, broke it a few more times and eventually had a fast and very fun boat. Then I paid Westlawn School of Yacht Design to teach me how to design boats properly.

The title reflects both on my origins and on my philosophy about boats and their design. I grew up on the side of a lake in Cape Town, South Africa. This lake, named Zeekoevlei (Hippopotamus Lake in Afrikaans), is the breeding ground of many of the top sailors in South Africa and much of the boating industry. My parents both grew up with and around boats, also at Zeekoevlei. My father was provincial champion in the Flying Dutchman class, sailed in many of the local big coastal races, built boats as a hobby and made boat fittings to earn extra money. I saw that he could do anything that he set his mind to, or so it seemed to me as a small boy observing his father.

Of course, I picked up that philosophy from him but it took many years for me to develop that part of my character. I was a wimpy kid and a very late developer, 5’ 2" at 17 and more than a foot taller at 22. I did not find those characteristics inside me until much later and by then I had a lot of ground to catch up. I learned a tremendous amount from my dad but didn’t actually put much of it to good use until I was in my 20s and started to build boats myself.

Growing up in that place of wild winds taught me how to sail in all conditions. I remember sailing crazy high speed reaches with my dad on high performance dinghies, when it seemed that we were under water as much as on top of it, with the home-made self-bailers gurgling louder than a dentist’s suction while trying desperately to stay ahead of the torrent that was flying in over the bow. I was terrified of capsize but Dad told me You don’t know how to sail your boat until you have capsized it. Yet, I never did capsize with him. I remained terrified of capsize until I had my own boat, a 12ft Dabchick scow, and capsized that. Righting it was easy, capsizes became fun and suddenly I was cured.

Since then we have come full circle. A nephew had a dinghy that he seldom sailed because he was petrified of capsizing it. I told him exactly what my dad had told me. I took him sailing on his own boat in strong winds, we capsized multiple times, had a lot of fun and he learned just how easy it was to right his boat from capsize. A few years ago he visited us in Virginia Beach after working as sailing instructor at a summer camp in New York. He told me that he really learned to sail that day when I taught him how to capsize.

Cape Town sailors are known for their sailing ability in strong winds. If you don’t develop the ability to handle a boat in boisterous conditions then you will miss out on much of the great sailing in that area. I am not a champion sailor by any means but I can handle myself on a boat in wet and wild conditions.

In my late teens I started surfing, almost to the exclusion of all else. I sailed only occasionally, when the surf was flat and there was nothing better to do. Girls rated a very distant second and even then they had to sit at the beach all day, without complaining, to be considered a keeper. Needless to say, there were no keepers for me until I had a car of my own.

Surfing played a very large part in my development in sailing. I surfed many breaks around the Cape of Good Hope area and along the West and South Coasts of South Africa. I got to know those waters in all of their moods, surfing the shores along which I was later to do all of my offshore racing. I surfed at reef breaks, point breaks and beach breaks. I surfed at beautiful white sandy beaches and at the foot of massive cliffs, often in thick kelp that will grab a leg or leash and drag you under before you know it.

The first boat that I designed and built was a plywood beach catamaran, allowing me to sometimes indulge my sailing and surfing passions on one piece of equipment. On that boat I surfed and sailed on many of the surf breaks and in bays where I had only surfed before.

Those thousands of hours on and in the water allowed me to observe close-up exactly what happens to the swells as they wrap around the reefs and headlands and what happens to the wind as it becomes distorted by the hills, valleys and mountains. As that knowledge developed it allowed me to select surf spots according to the conditions that I saw, while others were missing out on that same surf.

I have wiped out in big surf and had to swim a long distance back to the shore, in the days before the leashes that now keep us attached to our boards. I clearly remember sometimes feeling panic rising in that situation then hearing my father’s voice saying to me Don’t panic, panic will kill you. He had told me those exact words at a very early age when I was panicking over something that seemed terrifyingly insurmountable to a very small boy. The message stuck and it still comes back at any time that I am in a dangerous situation. I developed the reputation at sea of always being cool, calm and collected, always doing the right thing in an emergency situation. On my boat Black Cat my nickname was Cool Cat, not because I am popular but because nobody has seen me lose my cool on a boat. I thank my dad for that characteristic. He has saved my life more times than I care to remember.

This is just background to why this book is what it is. My whole being has been shaped by wind and waves. That is how it is with boats also. If they are not shaped to suit the conditions in which they are expected to operate then they will not be a success. I don’t pretend to be the greatest designer when it comes to racing sailboats but I have a reputation for drawing boats that are fast and seaworthy, that sail well in all conditions and are able to claw their way out of danger in lumpy water and nasty winds. That ability comes from my long-time immersion in the winds and waves of the Cape of Good Hope.

Since then I have also sailed across the South Atlantic four times. The first was as navigator and sailing master on the Shearwater 39 Ukelele Lady in the 1993 Cape to Rio Race. Two crossings were as skipper of my own Didi 38 Black Cat in the 1996 and 2000 Cape to Rio Races. The other was a double-handed return voyage from Rio to Cape Town in 1996. Those crossings, in widely varying conditions from calms to storms, reinforced my confidence in my own ability at sea and gave me more opportunities to observe the results of my work that started with pencil and paper (the Shearwater) or CAD programs (the Didi 38). Both boats proved to be immensely satisfying.

I have been asked many times by young guys who want to become yacht designers what the most important thing is for them to do to ease the process. I tell them to get onto the water and sail as many different boats as they can and as often as they can. When you no longer have to think about why you are doing what you are doing in shaping the boat, when the motion of the boat and the flow of water around the hull and the wind over the sails are second nature, then you will have learned the most important lessons in preparation for designing successful boats. Both are important but time on the water beats time buried in a text book every time.

Some people consider yacht design to be a science and they are right. It takes science to design a successful race-winning boat for the highest level of world competition. Others consider yacht design to be an art and they are also right. It takes a great artist to design a beautiful boat that moves elegantly and efficiently through the elements of water and air.

And then there are people like me. I am not a scientist; I don’t have the technical expertise nor the desire to design boats that seek to scratch another two seconds per mile advantage out of a handicap rule. I am not an artist either, sculpting intricate superstructures for the sake of fashion and the latest trend. I imagine that I fit in somewhere between the two, or maybe out on a lateral branch of yacht design. Instead of science or art I have intense passion for what I do and the further that I move from my customary seat-of-the-pants design style the less comfortable I feel with what I am doing. I design boats with the primary goal of elegant simplicity. I want them to look good but in an uncomplicated way, which contributes to making them easy to build. And I want them to work with rather than against the elements of wind and wave. That makes them efficient, which also makes them fast. In the process they become simply elegant.

1. Nautical Terms & Design Coefficients

Nautical Terms

Athwartships – At 90 degrees to the centreline of the boat.

Back – Anti-clockwise change of wind direction, i.e. the wind changes toward the left.

Beam (1) – Overall width of a boat.

Beam (2) – Athwartships structural member supporting the deck.

Bulkhead – A wall, generally structural, on the inside of a boat, which breaks up the interior into compartments.

Bulwark – Portion of the hull skin that projects above deck level. This feature may be found on some cruisers but is not likely to be seen on a racer.

Cabin sole – Surface on which you walk inside the boat.

Camber – Curvature of the deck or cabin roof.

Canoebody – Portion of a hull that is immersed below the surface of the water, excluding appendages.

CB – Centre of buoyancy, the geometric centre of the immersed volume of the boat.

CE – Centre of effort, the geometric centre of the sail plan, normally calculated on the triangular area of the mainsail and the foretriangle.

CF – Centre of flotation, the geometric centre of the waterplane.

CLR – Centre of lateral resistance, the geometric centre of the flat lateral area of the immersed portion of the hull in profile.

CG – Centre of gravity, combined centre of all weights in the boat.

Chainplate – Originally it was a metal plate that was bolted to the hull or a bulkhead to attach the rigging that holds the mast up. Modern composite racing sailboats might have composite chainplates that are integrated into the hull construction laminates.

Clew – Aft lower corner of a sail.

Design Waterline (DWL) – Level at which the designer intends the boat to float.

Displacement – Weight of liquid that is displaced by any object floating on the surface of the liquid. It varies to coincide with the total weight of that object, including whatever is on or inside it. In the case of a boat it includes all equipment, tools etc plus liquids in the tanks, food, crew and all their clothing, even whatever water is in the bilges. So, it is not a fixed figure that is easily quantified. For the purposes of comparison with other boats, we calculate a theoretical total weight for the required condition, normally half-load. This definition only applies to something that floats, i.e. it has positive flotation. A submarine will comply with this principle when it floats on the surface. When it dives it takes on water in the ballast tanks and that water becomes additional weight. When total weight exceeds the weight of the water displaced by the volume of the submarine, it can no longer be supported on the surface. It has nowhere to go but down.

Draft – Depth of the boat to the deepest part, normally the keel. Hull draft would be for the hull only.

Drag – Resistance from motion through water or air.

Floor – Part of the transverse framing of a boat. It can be an independent piece in the bottom of the hull or the portion of framing on centerline of the hull that links the two halves of a frame.

Foot – Lower edge of a sail.

Forefoot – Forward part of the underbody, where it curves up to join the stem.

Foretriangle – Triangle bounded by the mast, deck and forestay.

Frame – A structural member running across the boat, unless it is a bulkhead.

Freeboard – Vertical distance from the deck to waterline.

FRP – Fibre Reinforced Plastic, resin reinforced with fabric of another material.

GRP – Glass Reinforced Plastic, resin reinforced with glass fabrics.

Gunwale – Upper edge of the hull.

Gybe – Changing direction of travel from sailing with the wind on one side of the boat to sailing with the wind on the other side of the boat with the wind passing across the stern of the boat during the manoeuvre.

Head – Top of a sail.

Heave – Vertical movement of a boat, generally in reaction to waves.

Laminated floor – A timber frame that is made up from multiple layers of timber that are glued together to form a curved or bent structural member in the bottom of the hull. It may be attached to a bulkhead or link two halves of a frame, or it may be free-standing as part of the support structure for the ballast keel.

Lee helm – Tendency of a boat to turn downwind.

Leeward – The side of the boat that is away from the wind.

Leeway – Sidewards drift of a sailboat relative to the direction that the bow is pointing, i.e. the difference between the direction that the bow is pointing and the actual direction of travel.

Lightship displacement – Weight of the complete boat, including all permanent fittings and equipment but excluding variable items such as crew, stores, liquids, cargo, clothing and other personal items.

Lines – Drawing of a hull with a grid and contours to define the shape in plan, profile and end views.

Offsets – Measurements taken off the lines drawing and listed in tabular form to define the shape of a hull and used to draw the lines drawing at full size.

Overhang – Projection of the bow and/or stern past the end of the waterline.

Peak – Aft upper corner of a gaff sail.

Pitch (1) – Fore and aft rocking motion of a boat, generally in reaction to waves.

Pitch (2) – Measure of the distance that a propeller advances through the water for each full revolution that it makes.

Port (1) – Left side of vessel when looking forward.

Port (2) – Window in a boat.

Port tack – Sailing with the wind from the port side and the main boom on the starboard side.

Reef – Reduce sail area by reducing the size of a sail rather than changing to a smaller sail. This is done by rolling the sail like a roller blind or by pulling the sail to a lower position on the mast and lashing the excess sail area ar the bottom of the sail to the boom.

Roll – Side to side rocking motion of a boat, generally in reaction to waves or wind.

Scale effects – If a sailboat is increased in size by the same proportion in all directions, it will have predictable results that are directly related to the geometric size change. If the boat is doubled in size, the resulting increases will be as follows:-

All linear dimensions (length, width & depth etc) = x2

All surface areas (hull, deck, sails, wetted area etc) = x4

All volumes (displacement, materials, tankage etc) = x8

Heeling moment = x8 (sail area x lever arm)

Righting moment = x16 (displacement x righting arm)

Structural inertia requirements = x8 (2 x 2²)

Displacement hull speed = x1.41 (√2)

Scantlings – Dimensions of structural members in a boat

Seakindly – Characteristics of a boat that make it comfortable in big seas.

Seaworthy – Characteristics of a boat that make it safe to go to sea.

Sheer (1) – Upper edge of the side of a hull.

Sheer (2) – Curve of the deck edge when seen in profile.

Shorten sail – Reduce sail area by reefing, taking down a sail or changing to a smaller sail.

Shrouds – Wires that support the mast athwartships.

Simpson’s Rule – Formula for calculating volumes from the areas of a series of cross-sections or area from a series of widths.

Skeg – Structure extending downward from the hull, used as full or partial support for rudder.

Stays – Wires that support the mast for/aft.

Stem – Forward end of a boat, from deck to forefoot.

Starboard tack – Sailing with the wind from the starboard side and the main boom on the port side.

Tack (1) – Changing direction of travel from sailing with the wind on one side of the boat to sailing with the wind on the other side of the boat with the wind passing across the bow of the boat during the maneuver.

Tack (2) – Forward lower corner of a sail.

Throat – Forward upper corner of a gaff sail.

Topsides – Side of a hull between waterline and deck edge.

Transom – Aft surface of a boat that does not have a pointed stern.

Trunk cabin – Cabin structure above the main deck surface.

Tumblehome – Curvature of a hull toward centreline near to deck level.

Underbody – Immersed portion of a boat.

Veer – Clockwise change of wind direction, i.e. the wind changes toward the right.

Waterplane Area – Area of the surface of the water occupied by the boat.

Weather helm – Tendency of a boat to turn upwind.

Windward – The side of the boat that is toward the wind.

Yaw – Variations in directional of travel of a boat, generally in reaction to waves.

Design Coefficients

The following are explanations of the various terms and coefficients used for comparison of boat designs. Designers use them when comparing designs from their own drawing boards and those of other designers. The same info can be used by the layman to assist in selecting a design to build.

Block Coefficient

Ratio of the underwater volume of the hull to a rectangular block of the same overall dimensions as the underbody, ie the portion left if you were to carve the underbody out of a solid block.

Formula: Cb = Underwater volume / (LWL x BWL x canoebody draft)

Displacement / Length Ratio

Non-dimensional value for comparison of displacements of hulls of various types and lengths. Low D/L values apply to lightweight racing hulls (40-50) and high D/L values apply to heavy displacement cruisers (350-400).

Formula: D/L = Displ in tons / [(.01 x LWL in ft)^3]

Fineness Coefficient

See Waterplane Coefficient

Midship Coefficient

Ratio of the largest underwater section of the hull to a rectangle of the same width and depth as the canoebody. This defines the fullness of the canoebody. A low Cm indicates a cut-away mid-section and a high Cm indicates a boxy section shape.

Formula: Cm = Max underwater section area / (width x depth of largest underwater section)

Prismatic Coefficient

Ratio of the underwater volume of the hull to a block of the same overall length as the underbody and with cross-sectional area equal to the largest underwater section of the hull. This is used to evaluate the fore/aft distribution of the volume of the underbody. A low Cp indicates a full mid-section and fine ends, a high Cp indicates a boat with fuller ends. The range for sailboats is about 0.48 to 0.65. If a hull is rescaled to a different size, the prismatic coefficient will be unchanged.

Formula: Cp = Underwater volume / (LWL x max section area)

Sail Area / Displacement Ratio

Non-dimensional number for comparing sail power to displacement of boats of various sizes. Low numbers (15) apply to cruisers and high numbersd (25-30) to racers.

Comparisons involving sail area can be inaccurate because of differing methods of reporting sail area. The traditional method includes the triangle areas of mainsail and 100% foretriangle in the calculation and is mostly used for cruising designs. High performance designs are more likely to be reported with total sail area, including mainsail roach and largest headsail area.

Formula: SA/D = Sail area in sq.ft / [(Underwater volume in cu.ft)^(2/3)]

Sail Area / Wetted Surface Ratio

Number for comparing sail power to wetted area, indicates performance in light wind conditions. See comment under Sail Area/Displacement Ratio re differing methods of reporting sail area.

Formula: SA/WS