KM,

What a pathetic display ..... Talk about being in the "Clutch of the Crutch" !!!

Man of your age shoud know better..

R.

Senility is a wonderful thing.

Just look at the fun DR is having

KM
Thanks for your 1/4ton rating report. Quarter Ton IOR rating was 18ft, Half Ton rating was 21ft. rather than resurrect obsolete rating rules, this thread is to get old ex rated 1/4 tonners ie Black fun, Bashful (Davidson 25's) Farr 727's / Fantizpants, Stans Family Jewels, Hunky Dory, Evergreen etc(Atkinson 25s) Strawberry Letter, Quantel,Magic Bus (Whiting 25 design) and other one offs such as Ali Can, Amalgam, Swamp Dog Home grown, Boomer, Apolllo, Gumdigger etc etc out for a series of windward leewards and Olympic courses, including the 2 handed 3 legged races in which Suburban Reptile (which would rate around One Ton under IOR?) has been a great competitor.
There appear to be a few old IOR rating boats out there for sale under 10K for fun racing. If interested PM or call me at Sparloft 09 579 3923.

BB: If the above is all confusing, try this.

Think of the cargo carrying capacity of a vessel, think small fishing sailing vessels, think of french vs bretton sailors arguing over which boat is faster and brings fresher fish to the dockside market.

So what size boat could carry one ton of fish, sail quickly and beat another similar sized but different designers, builders and owners.

So they had a race to solve the arguements, more races as the first race was not fair . . . and then even more races . . . and a trophy appeared sometime along the passing years.

Then think fishing industry collapse plus many more years until pleasure sailing developed.

Find the old "One Ton" of fish cargo cup not being used and . . .
my yacht is faster than yours arguement develops yet again.

Simple handicapping based on length, beam and sail area was simply knot enough as that was unfair to some.

So there was lots of different handicapping systems tried and expanded until the IOR (International Offshore Racing) system was developed, with 27.5ft (?) being the approximate size of one ton cargo fishing boats.

So find aforesaid trophy and "One Ton Cup" racing was created.

This was clearly OK until a few competitors were very unhappy and so the smaller half and later quarter ton yachts held their own competitions.

The bigger boats were now really annoyed as they could not on handicap beat the smaller "one ton cup" yachts and so the "Two Ton Cup" was created.

The different cups had maximum ratings as per quarterback's post.
The maximum size for racing was 70ft handicap as per first Whitbread Round the World Race, Admirals Cup, RORC etc. The americans used the same system for their major races SORC, Transpac, Bermuda etc.

Pushing the limit to just under the maximum rating became a major exercise. On one half tonner, we got down to grinding a quarter inch off the tips of one propeller and even less off the blade widths. 2 or 3 millimeters on todays rulers. We ended up 0.005ft below the maximum rating limit, the closest you could get.

Then it became silly as people moved into creating boats and adding weights in masts to boats so they became more tender to get a better rating. Then new systems were created to stop unseamanship and bad boats being built.

Hope that helps.

QUOTE!!! takes two to Tango, big boy.!!! END OF QUOTE!

and it is fun.

the reactions and lack of them is very interesting.

the fact that i annoy a few to the stage of them putting me on "foe" then, later, seeing them comment on something i have posted is a hoot


if we were all the same it would be boring. and the shock value is priceless

The following boats sailed in the ¼ ton worlds series 1980 at Panmure
There will be a regatta for old ¼ tonner next March

3112 Bashful
3642 Strawberry letter
Hi flyer
4420 Anchor challenge
3311 Black Fun Current owner Bruce Leydon Wellington
4439 Blue berry
3628 Russel Pumper (Alley Kan)
2959 Home Grown
4453 Chiefweazel
3951 Ms Prem Plastic (Qantel ) 4 sale
4320 Hellaby
4223 Hatchway Hummer
4274 Hot Number
3542 Samson (Solid Citizen)
2163 Pinto
3650 Smokey Joe current owner A Toles
4455 Continental Fun (Sea Fun)

Wonderful, thank you all very much for your concise and some less-than-concise explanations.

Now, to pick my favourite...

PS. I own a 1/2 tonner so have a personal interest. Which means it's not thread drift. Or something.

I think you could just about rate any boat into the old IOR tonne rule if you wanted.

some modern very small boats might end up being 1-2 tonners though.

a interesting exercise.

Cav 32's were 1/2 tonners.

Any boat can rate = yes but big boats would end up with tiny sails and so wouldn't sail competitively.

Small boats would end up with massive masts and massive sail areas and would tip over in 5 knots of breeze.

Roly Tasker, Sailmaker, Perth Oz, (in 1968 ~ 1973 abouts) once put a 10,000 sq ft spinnaker on an 18 footer and it rated.

In racing on a Cav 32, an extra 6ft on the mast was really needed in the light.

IMHO, and as I can remember, the Bob Salthouse Cav 32 was designed to be a good cruiser, which it is. It was knot designed to be an IOR super tweaked racer, nor designed as a 1/2 tonner.

By working with sail areas, pole lengths, it could be made to rate. they were strong enough, and easily handled heavy offshore conditions outside Great Barrier on Poor Knight's races etc.

The Cav was originally designed with an extra 3 ft on the mast, it was chopped off before the first one hot the water so it would rate. I put the rig back up on mine and it was a different boat.

Hey and don't forget the age allowance rule!

that was a beauty and by the late eighties the Cav 32 was rating 18ft under IOR (plus age).

by now it would be rating like a RC yacht!

Would be interesting to find out how many are still about, and how much work would be needed to get them on the water.

The following boats sailed in the ¼ ton worlds series 1980 at Panmure
There will be a regatta for old ¼ tonner next March

3112 BashfulSank in Wellington Harbour
3642 Strawberry letter (Sailed with Upto26 in 2009- new owner I think now...Not sure on their details though)
Hi flyer (Sailed with Upto26 in 2009- new owner I think now...Not sure on their details though)

4420 Anchor challenge Top UK boat
3311 Black Fun Current owner Bruce Leydon Wellington
4439 Blue berry
3628 Russel Pumper (Alley Kan)
2959 Home Grown
4453 Chiefweazel
3951 Ms Prem Plastic (Qantel ) 4 sale
4320 Hellaby Went to France
4223 Hatchway Hummer
4274 Hot NumberIn New Caledonia
3542 Samson (Solid Citizen)
2163 Pinto ( Haven't seen pinto for ages)3650 Smokey Joe current owner Toles
4455 Continental Fun (Sea Fun)

For the regatta next year, how would the boats be rated? If it's to be the 30th anniversary, we should have a big arguement about ratings!

Twitchy
Thanks for the addition the the where are they now list
was Bushfull salvaged at all

No. They searched the bottom for several days, but no trace.

I understand what was left of Bashful was discovered some months later, quite a distance from where it sank. By that time all the winches and other gear had "fallen off".

Hi there, interesting thread, I've been following the Quarter Ton revival in England the last few years, great to see. Be brilliant to see something similar happen here, and I see it looks like the date has been set for March next year. Am presently researching and writing a book about the IOR/1970s (plenty of detail coming for anyone that wants to know more about the 'ton' classes!) - part of that might be relevant to the question about how to 'rate' the boats for a revival regatta - in the present Worlds they set an upper IRC limit (0.920). Could consider using an upper PHRF limit for here eg 0.700, based on the formula they used to use to work out TCF's from the rating to save the cost of IRC measurement. That might enable the net to be cast a little wider if unable to attract enough bona-fide ex-quarter tonners, perhaps creating more of an 'up to 26ft' type trophy. Hopefully though some of the old fleet might start to re-appear.

You may be interested in this website, the IOR days from an american perspective. http://www.implegend.com/.
Great movie/slideshow on the photo page.
Nothing to do with me I just love all the old IOR boats, it comes from a childhood of staring in amzement at these things back in the 70's.

Interesting that no Harmonics are listed. I thought Trinity was a 1/4 tonner and campaigned fairly regularly. Also there were two Harmonics built off the same jigs with J24 rigs. Crikey Dick was one. Can't remember the name of the other but it had an ugly coach house added later.