Half Ton Cup 1982

The 1982 Half Ton Cup was sailed in Mikrolimano, Greece, and was won by local yacht, Georges Andreatis' Atalanti II, a Joubert-Nivelt design skippered by champion US yachtsmen Rod Davis and Chris O'Nial.  This result gave the Michel Joubert and Bernard Nivelt design team their second success in a Ton Cup, and was a prelude to the even greater success they enjoyed with their minimum rater, Diva, at the 1983 Admiral's Cup. The Daniel Andrieu design Cifraline 2 took second place.

Atalanti II - 1982 Half Ton Cup winner

French yacht Cifraline 2 had a successful build-up to the regatta at La Rochelle and was a favourite for Cup honours when she came to Mikrolimano. She was constructed in fibreglass and Klegecell sandwich at the Technicoque. Cifraline 2 was the faster downwind. With a clean hull shape and small keel she was fast downwind. The crew including Daniel Andrieu, Philippe Follenfant, Christophe Cudennec, Jena Baptiste le Vaillant and Michel Geoffrin started badly each race, and as a result put themselves under pressure to challenge the leader yachts. In the last offshore race, she was three hours behind in the first quarter but came through the fleet to win.

Cifraline 2

Philippe Briand was the designer and helmsman of Free Lance, also from France, and she was another favourite for the Cup.  Free Lance was very quick at all points of sailing and all winds, other than  downwind in light airs, this due to Free Lance being a long boat, very light (About 2300 kg when sailing), a very clean shape, as with Cifraline 2, but a correspondingly lower sail area.  However, while Free Lance started strongly, she was disqualified from the fourth race for a startline luffing incident with Greek yacht Jonathan. This was viewed by many competitors as unduly harsh, and was met with some anger by the Free Lance crew. In protest at the perceived unfairness of the decision, the Free Lance crew elected not to start the final long offshore race, resulting in a disappointing 20th place in the final standings.

Free Lance - had a disappointing end to her regatta, but bounced back in the 1983 event

The Germans had two boats in the series, including Play and Loss, designed by Nissen. She was skipped by Berend Beilken, a well-known sailmaker and winner of the 1978 One Ton Cup (with Tilsalg). Although very close to Cifraline 2 regarding measurements, Play and Loss had a very different hull with a reverse waterline below the stern. She was oriented to light airs.

Play and Loss (above and below)

The Italian team included the Fontana-Maletto-Navone designed Pioneer (renamed Pionière to address an issue regarding sponsorship), which had won the Italian selection trials. She was nicely built in cold-moulded wood at the Morri and Para Shipyard, and was very quick in light air, finishing first and second in the first two triangle races. Pioniere was quite different to the French designs, being heavy (2,700 kg), long and wide, with a large sail plan. She finished sixth overall. 

Pioniere (above and below)

Lady F, skippered by Eric Duchemin and Jerome Langlois, was an interesting design, but appeared to be too light for the design of the hull, which affected the way she sailed through the waves and chop off Mikrolimano.  Poor tactics in the first race where she finished 31st affected crew morale, and while they bounced back in the last race to take third, this was too late for a podium finish and they finished seventh overall.

Lady F (above and below) - finished seventh overall

Atalanti II

Play and Loss rounds a gybe mark

Attenti a quei due (placing unknown)

Don Quixote IV - finished tenth overall

Atalanti II

Hazzard (ninth overall)

Pioniere

Atalanti II

The results for the 1982 Half Ton Cup (first ten yachts)

Rating measurements for some of the top boats at the 1982 Half Ton Cup, including the 1983 winner, Free Lance

Atalanti II went on to win the Half Ton Cup again in 1993, after being fitted with a new keel and taller rig and benefitting from an age allowance.

Many thanks to 'Chorus' for his assistance in translating one of the French articles from the Half Ton History site regarding the 1982 regatta.

Allegiance (Andrews One Tonner)

Changes to the One Ton rating limit in 1983 provided the opportunity for a new breed of dual purpose 40 footer aimed at level-rating as well as grand prix competition. The design of Allegiance was born from this new potential, and the design was commissioned from Californian-designer Alan Andrews in the summer of 1983 following a Transpac race with the owner, Bill Ostermiller, aboard his previous boat, the Peterson-designed Serendipity 43 Celerity. 

The challenges of performing in mixed and level-rating fleets was highlighted by Andrews, who commented at the time that the two styles of racing - corrected time on one hand, boat-for-boat on the other - made it hard to create a specialised boat. "I've just tried to get the best performer I could from the IOR. We have concentrated on upwind ability". The hull was low in freeboard to save weight and windage and to add stability, while the keel was not that generous in terms of lateral plane, but was balanced by a deep, high-aspect, rudder. Her for'ard sections were reasonably fine, but not as deep as some of her competitors.

The deck plan for Allegiance - courtesy Andrews Yacht Design

Allegiance was built by Dennis Choate's Dencho Marine from carbon fibre inner skins and unidirectional S-glass outer skins laid over a Divinycell core, while an aluminium H-frame was designed to accept the mast, keel and engine loads. Allegiance was also one of the first boats with a composite rudder stock. The weight savings achieved through her exotic construction had to be offset by ballast to achieve the necessary rated displacement figure, and this contributed to a high ballast ratio of 56 percent that, along with powerful mid-ship sections, provided excellent upwind performance. Andrews noted that while Allegiance could carry as many as 12 crew for the SORC, in One Ton Cup competition they were limited to eight which would place a premium on inherent form stability.

 Allegiance approaches a weather mark during the 1984 SORC (Sail magazine)

Sail magazine observed that, beyond the refinements in her hull design, Allegiance's performance stemmed from being a lightweight boat, and having an adventurously light Sparcraft mast, although it was not dissimilar to other fractional rigs emerging at this time. This was a thin, three-spreader spar tapered over its top 12 feet, controlled with jumpers and two sets of runners. Her "maximum depth" boom (whereby the limit to depth was a function of the 'E' measurement) was chemically etched to shave off some 10 pounds. 

Interior plan for Allegiance

Allegiance was launched and sailed in California in December 1983 which made the Age Date cutoff, and enabled an IOR rating just below the One Ton limit, at 30.4ft. Early in 1984 she was trucked to Florida and re-assembled for SORC, the first attempt at this regatta for Ostermiller. Andrews recalls that the sailed at least the pre-SORC regatta, "before launching into that marathon of distance and day races". Allegiance went on to be a stand-out performer in the 1984 SORC, and was an impressive IOR debut for Andrews who had previously been known for designs to the MORC rule. Andrews recalls that he was well pleased with the boat, and that her performance benefited from a good crew for the series.  The crew (with some rotating in and out for parts of the series) included Olympic Soling sailors Robbie Haines (helm) and Ed Trevelyan (mainsheet), as well as Andrews himself (headsail trim).

Allegiance during the 1984 SORC (photo Larry Moran)

Allegiance during the 1984 SORC (photo Seahorse)

Allegiance had a close contest with the French One Tonner Diva for overall and Class E honours - each manged to beat the other three times. Included in that was the Miami-Nassau race, when, after 26 hours of hard reaching, beating and countless sail changes made in darkness, Diva managed to dive across the Nassau finish line just 3 seconds ahead of Allegiance. The differences between the boats were subtle, Allegiance was a bit heavier but carried more sail. Diva was light, but also a bit fuller in her stern sections. In the end, Allegiance won Class E, but Diva took out the overall fleet prize, the Governor's Cup.

Allegiance during the 1984 SORC

"As the series developed we had quite a battle with Diva that went down to the last race", says Andrews. "Allegiance pointed a bit higher and when truly upwind had better VMG but Diva had greater sailing length and could jib reach/fetch faster. We didn’t learn early enough about playing to our strengths versus boat-for-boat covering. We beat them in class but they beat us in fleet for the overall". 

On the strength of these performances, Allegiance was selected to the US Sardinia Cup team (alongside SORC Class C yachts Secret Love and Scaramouche). Following the SORC, Allegiance went on to race the One Ton North Americans in Annapolis (April 1984) where Haines and Trevelyan had to leave to prepare for their Olympic Soling campaign, and Lowell North, David Miller and Peter Stalkus joined the boat. She finished fourth overall, behind the J-41s Smiles, Road Warrior and Dazzler (with placings of 7/4/2/4) 

Allegiance during the 1984 One Ton Cup (photo Histoiredeshalfs)

Allegiance was then shipped to France for the 1984 One Ton Cup in La Trinite Sur Mer. "Some factors of the rig tune were inadvertently adjusted/lost in transit and we didn’t get up to speed until near the end of the series" says Andrews. Allegiance finished in 11th place in the 24 boat fleet (won by Passion 2), with results of 11/19/7/7/12. 

Allegiance during a leeward mark rounding during the 1984 One Ton Cup

Allegiance can be seen here to leeward of Nuova, Fair Lady and Cifraline 3 at a start during the 1984 One Ton Cup (photo Histoiredeshalfs)

"Most of the crew stayed the same for Sardinia but Lowell and Peter left and were replaced by Dave Ullman, Steve Benjamin and Rob “Magellan” Vaughan. Sardinia was a tough series with the Argentinean Red Rock clipping our backstay and bringing down the topmast in a day race. We fixed it in an all-nighter and started the distance race the next day in 20+ knots of building Mistral. That was one of the windiest races I’ve sailed with the wind instruments blown off the masthead. We know it was really windy when the boatspeed went up after we changed to the storm trysail from three reefs in the main". Allegiance's overall place is not known, but the US team finished the series in fifth place, of 16 teams.

Following Sardinia, Allegiance returned to Southern California and was fitted with a new rig. After another year or two of racing the boat moved on to a new three-person partnership of owners who had great racing at the top of the Long Beach/LA fleet for many years competing against the Dubois One Tonner Victory. "We helped them with a major refit that opened the transom, reduced interior weight, a new rudder, reduced deck hardware, etc" recalls Andrews. "After a few other owners the boat is now in San Diego named “Sugar Sue” and club racing there. Not bad for a 31 year old boat!"

Andrews also notes that Allegiance has a near sister Impact, which was ordered after the owners sailed in Allegiance’s sea trials. The main difference was Impact had a masthead rig and slightly wider stern. Impact has won many California races including the San Francisco Perpetual Cup match race in which she defeated Irv Loube’s Beneteau One-Tonner Bravura and the SoCal IOR Championships. 

Allegiance more recently (One Ton Facebook page)

One Ton Cup 1984

Sirius II, third overall

The One Ton Cup series experienced something of a renaissance in 1984, following the decision of the Offshore Racing Council in 1983 to increase the One Ton rating from 27.5ft IOR to 30.5ft. It also benefited from a central European venue, with 24 entries attending the regatta run by the Societe de la Trinite sur Mer on the South Brittany coast.

French yacht Passion 2, designed and skippered by Philippe Briand, was the outstanding boat of the series, and marked a general dominance of the event by the French, not just French-crewed yachts but in terms of designers, builders and riggers, and followed on from the success of Diva, the Joubert/Nivelt 40 footer that was top boat in the Admiral's Cup a year earlier.

Passion 2 had won the French selection series and dominated the One Ton Cup, although she had only a modest start in the first race in light, fluky conditions over an Olympic course in which she finished fifth. She won the next race in perfect 12 knot breezes, but only after some very close racing, mainly against the German yacht Sudpack, a new Judel/Vrolijk design.

As elegant as she was fast, the 1984 winner of the One Ton Cup, Passion 2

The third race was the short offshore, which was started in a near calm and Passion 2 was able to overhaul Super Stroumpf, a First 40 Evolution, soon after the first mark. Briand held the lead from there on to the finish, while mid-fleet placings changed constantly throughout the day and night. The racing was so close that 22 of the 24 yachts finished the 26 hour race within 30 minutes.

Close downwind action during the 1984 One Ton Cup, with Coyote leading Cifraline III

Passion 2 to weather of competitors in the 1984 One Ton Cup (Coyote to leeward and Regardless ahead to the right)

This win put Passion 2 at the front of the overall results. She lead from Sudpack, but the next race was the windiest, with up to 21 knots and Sudpack ran into difficulty when rig tension began to crush the composite construction beam supporting the mast. Sudpack was the most extreme of the new boats, with a measure beam (B) of 3.8m (right), and was finished only four days before the start of the series and competed without a full sail wardrobe.

The 1984 One Ton fleet head downwind (Sudpack leading from Passion 2, Sirius II and Jade)

Sudpack, the widest of the One Tonners in 1984 - construction problems in the fourth race forced her out of the final race and she finished 12th overall

The distinctive topside flare and curved sheerline that borrowed much from Briand's earlier winning Half Tonner Free Lance

The increased breeze suited the new Farr design Sirius II, owned and crewed by the Spanish Navy and assisted by Geoff Stagg, and she went on to lead the race from start to finish, to make amends for only average placings of 7/4/9 in the previous races. The win was all the more impressive for the margin of one minute, over another First 40, Coyote. Passion 2 finished fifth.

Passion 2 chases Sudpack downwind during the 1984 One Ton Cup

Sirius II (above and below) - enjoyed the breezier conditions of the fourth race

Passion 2 - above and below

The surprise boat by the end of the fourth race was the vintage Holland design, the masthead rigged Regardless which had been a top contender in the 1979 Admiral's Cup.  Regardless was lying a remarkable second overall and had put together a solid series with placing of 3/7/5/4.  The boat had benefited from a new mast, rigging, deck gear, carbon rudder and new sails to bring her up to 1984-standards. Experienced observers were heard to mutter, "if Regardless wins, she will set IOR design back five years!". 

The last race, the double points long offshore (255 miles), began with the overall result still wide open and the promise of more light weather. Passion 2 came again to the fore, rounding each mark consistently ahead, but with Coyote in close company. After 40 hours of racing, Passion 2 took the gun, and a clear 24 point lead to win the One Ton Cup. French yachts filled four of the top five places, with only Sirius II getting in on the act in third. Cifraline 3, a Daniel Andrieu design, finished second. Regardless finished a lowly 17th in this race, and had to settle for seventh overall.

Another view of Sudpack, from astern and showing her wide beam

One of the four First 40 Evolutions in the 1984 One Ton Cup, Fair Lady, and seen below to leeward of Sudpack

It was also notable that, with the series being the first under the new 30.5ft IOR rating limit, that the top Admiral's Cup and SORC yacht of 1984, Diva, finished tenth, and the second Admiral's Cup boat, Sabina, finished 18th.  In addition, series production yachts did reasonably well against the custom boats, with Fair Lady, Coyote and Super Stroumpf, all First 40 Evolutions, finishing fourth, fifth and ninth, and Alliance, a new X-Boats One Tonner from Denmark, finishing eighth. Diva, in German hands for the series, finished tenth.

The Danish X-Yacht Alliance (above and below) - finished 8th overall (placings 10/8/14/13/4)

 

Cifraline 3 rounding a windward mark

Stern view of Passion 2

Entries from England had disappointing results. Jade, the Humphreys masthead One Tonner, won the opening race to raise English hopes, but 11th was her next best result. The new Jade would make amends, however, in the 1985 series.

Jade rounds a windward mark ahead of Coyote