Dick Carter, the man who invented modern boats

The intuition of an unknown 37-year-old and a boat with unprecedented lines. A killer combination, a low-volume design, hull with tapered appendages and extremely pronounced maximum beam, amidships-no one had ever designed a boat like this before Dick Carter.

Here, if we were to trace the birth and evolution of what we now call Classic Boats, we might start with him, Dick Carter, the man who revolutionized the yachting world.

Dick Carter, the man who invented modern boats

The year was 1965, and the yachting world was about to be turned upside down by one of the most innovative designs of the time. The work of an unknown, a small boat, barely longer than ten meters, had just won overall victory in one of the ‘Everests of sailing,’ the Fastnet race. An epic date in the world of sailboat design, because Dick Carter and his boat, the
Rabbit
, changed its history forever.

Dick Carter’s Olympus: in Europe he beats everyone

Dick Carter was a revolution in boating, a sacred monster who was able to bring a totally unconventional approach to the entire industry. A much-needed fresh breath, perhaps the result of an atypical training, carried out not with other masters, as is customary, but derived from a personal fascination, combined with an academic background in engineering. A combination of elements that led Carter to understand sailing in a way hitherto unheard of, designing hulls so radical that, in ten years of mad design flair, they were able to change the history of yachting forever.

And it all started with the
Rabbit
, a project so radical that-Carter’s biographer Sandy Weld reports-as soon as the boat was launched, Carter himself expressed his surprised delight that it floated “just like a boat.” Phrase that surprised Frans Maas, who had just built the Rabbit, in no small part….

Rabbit
was disruptive because of a number of features, starting with the water lines and the shape of the hull, equipped with tapered appendages and a very pronounced central maximum beam, 3.15 on just 10.20 m overall. But it was only the beginning, a prelude to the strength of the designer’s insights, which well demonstrate their validity in subsequent projects.

The year after winning the Fastnet, a new project is born,
Tina
, immediate winner of the second edition of the 1966 One Ton Cup, the most prestigious regatta in Europe at that time. And again it was a surprise, because Tina was one step further, she had the lines of the boats of the future (as well as having “launched the fashion” of the keel separated from the rudder), lines that sent so many yacht designers of the time into premature retirement.

Tina was then followed by
Optimist
, helmed by the excellent Hans Beilken, a slightly larger Tina that won the One Ton Cup twice in a row in 1967 and 1968, also finishing second in 1969, the year Carter won a second Fastnet instead, with the
Red Rooster.

Boat with movable drift and internal ballast, the
Red Rooster
was a private project, for himself, but so successful that it finally made Carter famous even at home, the United States, where he had instead remained a complete unknown. In 1972 he would win again, with
Wai-Aniwa
.

In 1973 a design built for Marina Spaccarelli Bulgari, with Italy’s greatest sailor, Agostino Straulino, at the helm, won the One Ton Cup in Porto Cervo after an exciting challenge with Doug Peterson’s Gambare. The boat is called
Ydra
and has harmonious shapes combined with good speed in all sea and wind conditions, qualities that make it the “prodigy” boat of the day. In the same year
Ydra
became a production model, built in fiberglass by the Greek shipyard Olympic Yachts under the name
Carter 37
. The boat is also very successful throughout Europe for cruising use. It is one of the earliest examples of the widely used cruiser-racer.

The meeting with Raul Gardini

During these glorious years, another big name in Italian sailing, Raul Gardini, fell in love with Carter’s designs and, in 1971, had the
Orca 43
. In 1973 the time was ripe, Gardini abandoned mass-produced boats and commissioned the design of a yacht expressly conceived for racing only: the Naif, a laminated wood hull built by Carlini, destined to amaze the entire Mediterranean with its three independent cockpits and split wheelhouse.

With the
Naif
, Dick Carter reaches probably the highest point of his career, a year of success and incredible projects, including the wonderful 65-foot
Benbow
, built of steel by Royal Huisman in the same year.

It was only after 1975, in fact, that his design flair embarked on a downward curve, though without overshadowing what he had done in the previous ten years: the Red Rooster’s moving drift became his signature achievement, but the new Rules of Tonnage, the IOR (International Offshore Rule), turns the tables and puts him offside.

Over the entire course of his career, some 1,800 hulls have touched the water with his signature imprinted on them.

• 
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• 
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• 
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