That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there a thing of which it may be said, "Behold, this is new?" It has been long ago, in the ages which were before us. There is no memory of the former; neither shall there be any memory of the latter that are to come, among those that shall come after.
Praise be to Howard I. Chapelle for preserving the memory. Amen.
If that's a wave piercer, then so is the New Haven sharpie of the mid to late 1800's. When I first saw the hull shape, it struck me how similar the forward third is to a sharpie, particularly a vertical-sided Phil Bolger sharpie. Compare the attached ABN AMRO bow pic with these
New Haven sharpie pics and lines. The sharpie shown is a working boat with a deeper hull for hauling oysters. The racing boats had flatter runs aft, less rocker and huge centerboards. Comparing the hulls, the "wave piercing," or what previous generations of designers called a "wet ride," looks more a matter of low freeboard and no flare coupled with the higher speeds associated with a high length to beam ratio, extreme shallow draft and a righting ballast gimmick. The 35-ft racing sharpies at the turn of the previous century were capable of an excess of 20 knots with an L/B of 5, a draft of about 10 inches and about 10 guys out on a plank. And now it looks like SA has replaced the plank with pods.
Perhaps in another 10 years or so, Phil Bolger will be vindicated when these V70 boats have vertical topsides and hard chines.
