Classic IOR: Dick Carter, an exceptional penciler

With the resounding victories of the Rabbit, Tina and Optimist, the second half of the 1970s saw the meteoric rise of a new designer, a figure who was brilliant in his own way but appeared on the scene for no apparent reason.
After all, he himself would never have been a designer if it had not been by pure chance.
We are talking, as you may have guessed from reading the previous article (
HERE) of Dick Carter, phenomenal penciler of the ’65-’75 period. Between the great cult and his participation in writing the IOR (International Offshore Rule), Carter is undoubtedly a key figure of the period, one of the masters behind the standards that made the IOR the Golden Age of Sailing.

Cult signed Dick Carter | Part 2.

After the successes of the Rabbit and his first two commissions, Tina and Optimist, respectively, which became microseries, Dick Carter is officially focused on his new role as ship designer.
It’s a period that will open the door to some of his most famous designs, ranging from Red Rooster to Catherine, from one-off commissions to series, including hulls that, magics of history, would become part of Soviet sailing beyond the Iron Curtain.
Here is Dick Carter and his achievements of the 1970s decade.

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Dick Carter – Toward the end of the decade

1966 was a busy year for Carter: the foundations for the IOR, the Optimist project and, among other things, his personal preparation for the 1967 Admiral’s Cup.
Despite his commitments, in fact, Carter decides he wants a new hull of his own, a boat dedicated to racing at the AC the following year: the Rabbit II, a 42-foot (12.8 m) out and out faithful to the lessons learned with Rabbit and Tina, here, however, with skeg, as defined just earlier for Optimist, which that very year will win the One Ton Cup, with Tina immediately second. Rabbit II will perform well atAdmiral’s, but a series of mishaps, mistakes and protests will not make her shine as well as hoped.
Even more bitter was her end, abandoned in the Atlantic after a storm in 1972.
She was spotted later, dismasted but in good condition, by an American destroyer that same fall, never to be seen again.

From late 1967 to early 1969, no specific project came out of the hands of Carter, who was busy renovating what would become his residence and studio, a waterfront tower in Nahant, just north of Boston. With the beginning of 1969, however, two major projects would begin to take shape: Red Rooster e Noryema (VII) VGX.

Variable geometries and tilting drifts

The major commission in 1969 was a, Noryema (VII) VGX, Ron Amey’s seventh boat (hence the name, simply spelled backwards).
Here, Carter was left free to experiment, a notion we find carried over in the name: VGX, an acronym for Variable Geometry Experiment.
The focus of this?
One key element, the tilting ballasted fin.
Just as in the case of a dinghy (think 470, for example), the concept involved an internal casing that could allow the fin to rock on the oblique longitudinal axis, taking it from the “correct” position until it was fully retracted.
The advantage?
Increased draft and upwind performance, reduced drag, and higher speeds in carrying swells.
Before arriving at the Noryema (VII) VGX, however, Carter opted for direct experimentation, testing these theories on a boat designed for himself, the Red Rooster.
The project, needless to say, proved a resounding success.
The boat, with a greater draft than its competitors, was more bolinier, to be then unbeatable under spinnaker, very fast, with the friction of the daggerboard were completely nullified by the “shrinkage” of the same.
A skeg, here, became essential to help the rudder, otherwise overstressed by the direct thrust of the water.
Surprisingly, once in glide it became further stable, just as it does in drift (barring cross seas).

RoosterRed Rooster would win the Cowes Dinard in both Class II and Class III, and then take second in the Channel Race, third in the Britannia Cup, and then win the Fastnet Race and then theAdmiral’s Cup, both as Top Points (boat with the most points scored) and as a member of the winning team, the American team. Little to add.
Noryema VII VGX would thus be built accordingly, but would fail to earn the same fame as her predecessor, being accepted at the 1969 Admiral’s only as a reserve hull for the British squadron.

Early 1970s

The 1970s became the peak for Carter’s career.
First big news, plans for the series, with the birth of the Carter 33, a small Half Tonner as capable of racing as it was of offering the ultimate in cruising comfort. Based on the hull of Blue, designed for the ’70 Half Ton Cup, the 33 was a minor success for Olympic Yachts, later followed by the Carter 37 (derived from Ydra) and the Carter 39.

The big star of 1970, however, was another design for Carter, commissioned by Baron Rothschild, Gitana V.
First Class in aluminum, built by Abeking & Rasmussen, it was a very fast hull at the carriers, slightly hampered upwind by a mast that was initially too “soft.” This will then be followed by another large hull, more sui generis: Vendredi Treize, a 39-meter three-masted designed specifically for the Single-Handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR, 1972) commissioned by Jean-Yves Terlain.

After a second phase of experimentation with keels, including a rotating one, the 1970s would then bring perhaps the most famous designs of this phase.
One among them, Ydra, synonymous with victory in the Giraglia (in real and in compensated), victory in the 1973 One Ton championship, and, above all, synonymous with Marina Spaccarelli Bulgari, iconic in that photo, smiling and exhausted after the race, in the company of Straulino (but that is another story you can read Here).

After Ydra will then come the big, well-known names in the Mediterranean:
Benbow,
Orca e Naif (both for Gardini), Aggressive e Antelope, e Christine, the 25.6-meter Maxi, in her time the largest IOR in the world.
But these are other legendary stories.

Dick Carter and the USSR

More than an integral part of the development of sailing history, a colorful note.
In 1973, under Carter’s approval, the Polish shipyard Teligi began production of the Carter 30, basically, a Carter 33 panto in small and already originally built by Northshore Yacht Yards.
The Polish version, identical except in the Cyrillic name Картер 30, was produced in over 400 examples.
So far, so normal, until the People’s Republic of Poland ceded hundreds of Картер 30s to the USSR as payment for its state debts, hulls that the party distributed for sailing clubs in European Russia, thus creating an immense class of Carter 30s, as of 2010 still more than active.

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