Friday, October 23, 2020

THOUGHTS ON 28 FOOT L.FRANCIS HERRESHOFF 'ROZINANTE' DESIGN

 The thoughts will be your own as you reflect on this photograph and the video (below).




9 comments:

Bursledon Blogger said...

One of the most beautiful yachts and by all accounts is a joy to sail, but probably much like the folkboat, wonderful dynamic character but lack of accommodation plus the expense of that canoe stern when moorings are paid by the foot mean it's relegated to a class similar to a fine vintage car

Alden Smith said...

Thanks for your comments Max. She is certainly a minimalist type of boat that would bring out a sailors inner Thoreau. I agree with you that she is an aficionados boat. I can see myself driving down to a 'Rozinante' in my vintage British racing green MG sports car, rowing out to the mooring in a varnished Herreshoff designed clinker dinghy and going for a sail (chuckling of course at the quaintness of having to use a cedar bucket and rowing the boat back to the mooring if the wind dies).

Rozinante fits well into that genre of boats that evolved during the late 1800s and were promoted by the Humber Yawl Yacht Club. It is easy to see the designs of George Holmes and Albert Strange reflected here. L. Francis Herreshoff writes about this era of the British canoe yawl in his book 'Sensible Yacht Designs' where Rozinante is featured.

In Richard Powells recent book 'The Canoe Yawl'(Lodestar Books) the last chapter deals with an updated version of Albert Stranges' famous 'Wenda'. Though fuller bodied and with a centre board this boat is similiar to Rozinante. Both boats (separated in time from 'Wenda' by 60 years) are great examples and authentic evolutions of the type.

There is a Rozinante design being completed in Auckland NZ at the present time. I am looking forward to taking a look at her when she is launched.

George A said...

A nice end of summer video! Thanks for posting. We'll probably get our first frost of the season by Halloween. So, between the weather closing down and the virus hanging around, we're just about done up here.

Alden Smith said...

Thanks for your comment George. Yes, as we move into summer you guys enter winter!
I enjoyed your last post on your blog - a wide variation of Moths and some very interesting boat names!
Be on your guard around that virus - it doesn't like people very much and it's much deadlier than the flu - Take care.

Dan Gurney said...

Just heard about the earthquake. Thinking of you and hope you're okay. Alden

Alden Smith said...

Thank you for your concern Dan and nice to hear from you.
The alert is now over and no tsunamis arrived, only small waves and tidal disturbances in several places.

The earthquake was quite large at 8.2 on the Ricter scale and quite shallow. The response from the general public was great with all coastal areas in the danger zones evacuated in an orderly manner.

The main Whangarei business area and a lot of residential housing is very vulnerable being at sea level even though it is at the head of the Hatea river and 30 miles inland. We live close to town but up high in the surrounding hills.

New Zealand is now on a watching brief, hoping there are no large after shocks that might generate a tsunami - time will tell.

Our Prime Minister Jarcinda Ardern was woken and informed of the quake at 2.30am in the morning. Her response was (as told at a news conference) "Bugger, that's just what we don't need" as Auckland has only last week had to go back into a Level 3 Covid Lockdown and the rest of us into a Level 2 Covid Alert - 'It doesn't rain but it pours" as the saying goes!

Kind Regards - Alden

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

C'mon Smith - 6 months is more than long enough to come up with a new post.. :o)) Seriously.. glad to hear your OK... not sure what the NZ rules are, but have you managed to get some sailing in, and di you get to see any of the AC?

Alden Smith said...

Steve mate - as Lauren from the Catherine Tate show would say - "I'm not bothered, bothered? Does this face look bothered? I'm not bothered etc " : >) [Just what did happen to that glorious comedy show??? where's a good comedy programme in this time of covid?]

But yes, I guess you could keel haul me for not posting a bit more but I have been pretty busy - and next week starting on the 8th of April I have the Zephyr Nationals at Manly on the Whangaparoa Peninsula in Auckland. There are 68 entries to date, so the start line is going to be a long one. I will be doing well to get a final result in the top half of the fleet and I will be trying my best to do just that.

To date NZ has done well with Covid (only 26 deaths to date i.e. 26 deaths too many) and
the country is at level one which is pretty much back to normal life.

I have been doing a lot of sailing and training for the Nationals as well as tweaking my Zephyr as much as I can to get as much speed as possible - things are going well at this stage - I'll know in a weeks time whether my efforts will make any difference.

I watched all the AC races on TV. We nearly went down a couple of times for the final races but as it turned out we got a better vantage point from the TV. I nearly paid and booked a $450 trip to watch a couple of the races on Peter Blakes old Whitbread race boat 'Lion New Zealand' but didn't follow through because of the predicted weather and sure enough racing was called off on that particular day. I enjoyed all the AC racing but was a little disappointed that there weren't a couple of days of around 20 knots which would haven't shown what the boats could have done speed wise - even in the moderate breezes the boats were cracking well over 45 knots on occasions.

I hope you and yours are well and coping with the tribulations of Covid - we get regular updates from our English domiciled daughter and family.

And I will do a blog post about the Zephyr Nationals when I get back in a couple of weeks time - although I'm not bothered, do I look bothered?

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Methinks the man doth protest too much.. :o)) Best of luck in the Nationals!