Coutts Quarter Ton Cup moves to Royal Yacht Squadron

Coutts Quarter Ton Cup: 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of Coutts' title sponsorship of the revival Quarter Ton Cup. Since it was first run in 2005 the event has gone from strength to strength and Coutts' support since 2007 has been vital in helping to achieve that success.

The Coutts Quarter Ton Cup 2016 will be hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, from Wednesday 15 to Friday 17 June. As always the event will combine some of the closest and most exciting inshore racing anywhere in the world with a fun social programme and great class camaraderie.

Another new development for this year's event is the introduction of an additional class. Class Chairman Peter 'Morty' Morton explains the reasoning behind this. "What has occurred over the past few years is that the prototypes and past class winners have been upgraded considerably and in an attempt to encourage the production and older boats back to the event the organisers intend to run a second class provided sufficient numbers enter, known as the cruiser racer class. This will be for boats of a rating of 0.89 and below and for boats such as a GK24, Bolero, Quarto, Farr 727's, Eygthene 24's, Trapper 300. We know there are literally hundreds of those around and hopefully enough of them want to enjoy the regatta. They will be racing for the Roger Swinney Quarter Ton Trophy and it is intended that a round the buoys course will be set for them".

The refurbished Cobh Pirate competing in the 2015 Quarter Ton Cup

The Quarter Tonners have suffered two sad losses in the past year. Roger Swinney, a founding member of the revived Quarter Ton Class, first with the 1979 David Thomas designed Tsunami, which he renamed Ayanami, and then later with the 1986 McIlraith designed Innuendo, sadly passed away in November. His joie de vivre and love of the Quarter Tonners made him a hugely popular figure with his fellow sailors and he will be much missed.

Another much loved member of the class lost recently is the legendary Espada, a 1980 Bruce Farr design and winner of no less than three Coutts Quarter Ton Cups, which was destroyed in a boatyard fire in January. Morty is working closely with Espada's owner Julian Metherell to find him a replacement in time for the season.

In happier news Robbie Stewart has tracked down and bought Hellaby, the Laurie Davidson design that came second to Bullit in the 1980 Quarter Ton Cup in Auckland. Our photo above (courtesy Erle Williams) shows Hellaby on her way to second place at the 1979 Quarter Ton Cup with Johnny Lasher helming, Tony Bouzaid navigating, Erle Williams trimming and Joey Allen on bow.

Lacydon Protis, Bruno Trouble's 1981 Fauroux design which won the Quarter Ton Cup in Marseille that year, was found by Morty in Italy and has been bought by Diarmid de Burgh-Milne. She is currently undergoing a full refit at Casse Tete Marine ready for the 2016 season.

Lacydon Protis during the 1981 Quarter Ton Cup

Fauroux is very much the designer of the moment when it comes to boats changing hands. Tiger, his design from 1989, has been bought by Tom Daniel. Thomas Prower joins the fleet with his purchase of the 1981 Lancelot. Olly Ophaus has bought Howard Sellars and Mike Till's 1977 Bullet and Jo Roberts has acquired the delightful Menace, designed by Fauroux in 1981.

The Stephen Jones design Wings competing in the 1978 Quarter Ton Cup

The fleet is also very much looking forward to welcoming back Dutchman Berry Aarts with a restored Wings, which was built to a Stephen Jones design for the 1978 Quarter Ton Cup in Japan.

The Notice of Race, Entry Form and further information will be available shortly on the Quarter Ton website.

Addition information about the event can be obtained from Quarter Ton Class Secretary Louise Morton on louisemorton@me.com or +44 (0)7769 972979.

The Loss of 'Espada' (GBR-50R)

From the Quarter Ton Facebook page: There was a fire in the Medina Yard in Cowes on 25th January 2016 and very sadly the Farr Quarter Tonner Espada was lost.

Built in 1980 by Geoff Hunt for Michael Evers of West Mersea, she was one of five sisterships from Bruce Farr, another one of them being Anchor Challenge. Mike sold her and she became Silent Movie and lived down in the West Country before being bought by Terry Dinmore in Poole. Morty (Peter Morton) bought her from Terry in 2005 and started a complete restoration. 

Espada featured as one of the top Quarter Tonners of the fleet that contest the revived Quarter Ton Cup every year in Cowes - seen here in the 2014 edition of the series (photo Paul Wyeth, 1/4 Ton Facebook page)

Morty was running out of time to complete her for the Quarter Ton Cup in 2006 and fellow competitors Jim and George Webb, Tony Dodd and Spillers came over to Cowes to help out. Morty successfully compaigned her for two years, winning the Quarter Ton Cup in 2007 and lending her to Jamie McWilliam for Cowes Week 2006. Morty then found Anchor Challenge and passed Espada onto his wife Louise in 2008 who campaigned her for six years. Espada won the Quarter Ton Cup again in 2011 with Colette Richmond and in 2013 with Louise Morton. 

Louise Morton and the Espada crew winning the 2013 Quarter Ton Cup

She was sold in February 2015 to Julian Metherall who immediately prior to putting her away for winter storage had repainted the decks and smartened her up. She will be sadly missed. An iconic Quarter Tonner, much loved by all.

A full list of her results can be seen here, and she features in a previous post here on her original conversion to IRC by designer Mark Mills.

IOR to IRC conversions

After seeing the transformation of Swuzzlebubble in the previous post, I asked designer Mark Mills for some insights into the conversion of ex-IOR yachts into a race-winning IRC configuration, and he has provided an interesting overview of this process below. Mills was involved in the optimisation of Peter Morton's Farr-designed Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble, and this has followed a number of other successful conversion projects. The keel design used for Swuzzlebubble was also of interest, and so Mills has also explained the theory behind the concave section used in his Quarter and Half Ton projects. Mills' comments might also be helpful for the owners of larger One Tonners who are contemplating conversions to IOR for the 2015 One Ton regatta.

"Our first IOR updating project was in late 2005 for Peter Morton who was looking at some old Quarter Tonners with the plan of doing one up to join the newly revived Quarter Ton class to be run under IRC. Parked in a driveway west of Southampton we found the Farr designed Espada, and through the dirt and grime it was clear she was a beauty. To get her going under the IRC rule we designed a new rig and a new keel, both of which went on to be the templates for other boats joining that class. In the 2013 Quarter Ton Cup we had at least seven boats with our rigs, keels, or both in the top 11, including three-time winner Espada, as well as 2nd, and 4th. 

Espada as found in Southampton in 2005 (photo courtesy Mark Mills)

The revamped Espada being sailed by Louise Morton and crew

Swuzzlebubble's new keel

"IOR designs were very configurable for the location in which they were to race: for example the Italian lake boats tended to be very light and small with large rigs, while boats for windier locations tended to be longer, heavier, and with proportionately smaller sail plans. IRC at this size historically likes displacement and age and lower tech, so these larger boats tend to be better starting points. They now don’t have to conform to the IOR rating limit, and so the larger hull can have more stability and sail area than it might have had originally, while still being efficient in IRC terms, and enjoying a speed advantage up the first beat in any breeze.
 

Peter Morton's Quarter Tonner Anchor Challenge - winner of the Quarter Ton Cup in 2009

"So the first thing is to get rid of a keel designed to produce a high VCG (vertical centre of gravity) in IOR and replace it with a larger lead fin that offers a lower VCG and a more modern foil section. The new fin is probably larger to contain the 700kg or so of the Espada keel, now the class default - usually during the stripping out process of cleaning up the old boat enough junk weight has come out to allow this change with no major impact on overall displacement. The use of a ‘laminar flow’ keel section with a hollow trailing edge is widespread in high performance designs, promoting the attachment of flow over a longer percentage of the foil before turbulence develops. There is debate about how effective this is in practice, but with well maintained foils in clean water they are very capable, and they don’t suffer when conditions are less optimal. There is a health warning that goes with any modification that increases righting moment such as a new keel: this will increase loads on parts of the boat that were not originally designed to accept them, and so professional engineering advice should be sought before doing this.

Swuzzlebubble in the water for the first time after her rebuild - and the wide stay base is clearly evident (photo Peter Morton)

"The new rig design moves to a user-friendly swept spreader configuration that IRC encourages. These runner-less non-overlapping headsail rigs will be a bit taller than the original, usually to recover some of the area lost from the overlapping headsail, which helps firstly to get more sail area up higher in light airs where there is a velocity gradient, and secondly to get a taller spinnaker halyard exit (ISP) to allow the optimal spinnaker area and aspect ratio. New chainplates are not as difficult to add as you might think, often they can be bolted to a prepared area of the topsides with the addition of some additional laminate and a small amount of internal structure. Depending on the generation of IOR the boat dates from, the J measurement may be larger or smaller, and some of the later boats will require the rig to be moved aft to allow a reasonably sized and proportioned headsail.

Swuzzlebubble's deck layout is also part of her overall transformation, making her a truly modern racing yacht (photo Peter Morton)

"Peter Morton after Espada found and restored the Farr Quarter Tonner Anchor Challenge and the Fauroux Bullit and has now just launched the beautifully updated Farr Half Ton Swuzzlebubble - we can't wait to see how it performs."

- Mark Mills, 2014

Quarter Ton Cup 2013

The 2013 Quarter Ton Cup was sailed over 15-17 July and was the ninth edition of this series which is now raced under IRC (with ratings of between 0.860 and 0.916) - this accommodates a range of yachts that had originally raced under the three variations of the Quarter Ton IOR rule that ran from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s. The regatta was hosted by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club and attracted 26 of these classic IOR racers.

Fleet start on the first day, with Per Elisa starting well to windward

Racing was tight throughout the fleet and three wins by the 1980 Bruce Farr design and 2007 and 2011 champion Espada on the second day were of the narrowest margins. The races were delayed on each day while the fleet waited for the breeze and several of the teams were hoping that it would fill in early enough on the final day to run multiple races to catch up on Espada's 8 point lead, but it was not to be and only one start was possible before the 14.30 cut off time. Louise Morton and her crew aboard Espada had the regatta in the bag with a race to spare, although they still chose to come out and sail regardless.

Espada (left) and Alice II round a weather mark on the first day

Espada’s position might have been secure, but the battle for the remaining podium places was wide open. Rickard Melander’s Alice II, Bullit, helmed by Ashley Curtis (in Peter Morton's absence), Ian Southworth in Whiskers and Willy McNeil & Mike Pascall’s Illegal Immigrant went into the day separated by just 6.5 points so it was game on.

Illegal Immigrant flew off the start line with the others in hot pursuit. Blackfun was closest of the chasing pack and worried away at them like a terrier with a bone, but Illegal Immigrant’s crew did a text book job of defending their position. Behind the leading pair Alice II, Bullit and Whiskers were slugging away in the front of the pack, all desperate to make it onto the podium. It was so close on the line that the third to ninth placed boats finished within a minute of each other. Ashore it was confirmed that Illegal Immigrant was first with Blackfun second, Alice II third, Bullit fourth, Eric Reynold’s Magnum Evolution fifth and Whiskers sixth. A relaxed Espada cruised home in seventh place to win the Cup.

Blackfun works to windward on the first day

The recent winner of the 2013 Dutch Quarter Ton championship Pinguin Playboy, had their worst day, finishing 12th to end up in sixth place overall.  Former 2009 champion Anchor Challenge was not far behind, in eighth place. 

Windward mark action aboard Bad Toad

The ex-New Zealand yacht Blackfun had a very inconsistent series, opening with an eighth and a first, but was blackflagged in the third race and withdrew from the fourth after a collision at the top mark. On the second day she again showed her potential, posting a second and sixth, but a startline infringement in race 6 led to a disastrous 20th placing. Her second on the final day saw Rob Gray and his crew recover some ground on the overall table, but still finished a disappointing ninth overall.

Blackfun powers off the startline on the second day

Whiskers chases Espada downwind on the final day of racing

Alice II leads the pack downwind on the final day

A triumphant Louise Morton and her crew finish the last race in 7th place to win the 2013 Quarter Ton Cup

Detailed race reports from each day can be found on the Quarter Ton blog and the results and more photos can be seen on the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club site. Images are courtesy of Fiona Brown and Jonathan Hoare. A great video of the second day of racing is here: