On Friday, May 24, let’s all go to pay tribute to the great designer Dick Carter!
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Dick Carter’s autobiography, “Dick Carter, Yacht Designer. The Golden Age of Offshore Racing,” edited by Francesco Gandolfi. A splendid volume with over 164 illustrations, including photographs and drawings. Published by Giorgio Nada and available in bookstores from May 27.
On Friday, May 24, at 7 p.m., the book will be presented at the Yacht Club Italiano in Genoa-a not-to-be-missed evening because Gandolfi and, of course, Dick Carter, one of the designers who made yachting history, will be there.
In the 20th Century two boats made the most profound mark on the design of those intended for offshore racing: Dorade in 1931 and Rabbit in 1965, and it is curious that both were designed by the person who was its first owner: Olin Stephens for Dorade and Dick Carter for Rabbit.
Dorade instantly made all other boats obsolete, and so did Rabbit, which put together three features never before seen on the same boat: the rudder detached from the fin keel, the medium displacement, and the generous width. The revolution was total and was immediately understood, so much so that Olin Stephens himself, 34 years later Dorade still the very undisputed leader among racing sail designers, sent two of his 1965 boats to the yard for their long keel with built-in rudder to be cut off and the blade repositioned at the end of the waterline.
The victories Rabbit achieved landed Carter his first client order; the boat called itself Tina and in 1966 won the One Ton Cup, then the World Championship for III Class RORC with a rating no higher than 22 feet, and from there for 10 years it was a crescendo of orders and successes: the mass construction of the Tina, one of whom, French, RORC champion for two consecutive years, victories in the One Ton Cup in Optimist (2), Wai Aniva e Ydra, still the Fastnet and the Admiral’s Cup with Red Rooster, and a long line of beautiful and winning boats: Benbow, Caligu IV, Chica Tica III, Coriolan, Esprit de Rueil, Frigate, Orca, Pharaon…, not to mention Vendredi Treize, 40-meter three-masted schooner for a solo sailor!
Then the management of the IOR tonnage in a way he did not agree with, with lighter and lighter boats that he felt were not sufficiently marine and safe, prompted him to cut back more and more on his design work. “I didn’t want to design boats that had a goal that I didn’t believe in, and it seemed to me that the IOR was not properly governed. For me personally, the Golden Age of Offshore Racing was coming to an end and it was time to pursue other interests and turn over a new leaf – that’s what I did.”
He did it so well that everyone, even those who had been his closest associates thought him dead; the preface to the autobiography reads:
“How the voice came about, I just don’t know. Of course I was a little surprised to learn that I had died five years ago! Funny, too. I forget when I heard it, it was still a bit before Ted Hood’s memorial service at the New York Yacht Club’s Newport headquarters on September 20, 2013.
Ted had been a legendary figure in the sailing world-exceptional sailmaker, designer, builder, and sailmaker. I had been so far away from the sailing world and for so long that I had not even heard about his death, I only learned about it by chance and decided to participate.
After the ceremony, guests were invited to a buffet in the tent next door; food had been arranged on long tables resting on trestles, and I was serving myself when I heard “Dick Carter?” – I looked up and right there on the other side of the table was Yves-Marie de Tanton, a star designer who had worked for me forty or more years ago.
He went around the table, visibly shaking so much that the phone almost fell out of his hand, “I have to take a picture.” Bob Perry, another planner also with me long before, then said, “What did you expect?” Yves-Marie thought he had just seen a ghost.
A couple of weeks later we had breakfast together at my house on Cape Cod, making up for lost time; as he walked to the door Yves-Marie turned and said “You should write a book.” So I did – this is my story.”
A story worth reading.
T.O
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