Open Transom, a (nearly) 40-year-long evolution

Open Transoms, quite simply, what we might call the “trend” of the past two decades, if not more. Sterns open to the water, C-turned, with a flat cockpit running from the hatch to the sea and, why not, recently also strong with a recessed swim platform, convertible into a beach area and access to the tender garage. But when does this phenomenon arise, or rather, how does it come about? To understand this trend, which seems to permeate more than 80% of recent boatbuilding, it is actually necessary to go back in time, once again, back to the world of Classic Boats. Because, yes, open transoms are nothing more than the fruit of evolutions explored over the past 40 years, popularized and made more fashionable than ever, in the past 20 years (it doesn’t seem like it, but it is). Whether you love them or loathe them, there is little you can do about it, they are a reality and you might as well understand their reasons and backward evolutions.

Open Transom, the decades-long history ofopen transom

An initial, trivial and perhaps superficial index emerges from the glance. Today’s stern beams are very wide, often almost corresponding to the maximum beam, and the cockpits are correspondingly huge. Freeboards, to provide comfortable and airy interiors, are themselves high, thus offering capacious volumes even under the cockpit itself, and not exclusively at the sides of the cockpit, as may have been the case with the classic bench lockers of the past. Conditions that simply allow the new cockpits to be particularly spacious, avoiding those particularly narrow recessed areas of the past (think of the classic 1970s and 1980s cockpits). It is thus almost logical to offer a footwell layout capable of exploiting the entire surface area, protected at the broadside by relatively thin deck extensions and wide open at the stern. And the advantages are obvious: larger spaces, freer movement and easier access to the water. But these are “mundane” reasons, and the conditions and reasons for this are, in fact, the real interesting factor. But, indeed, to get there, one needs to take a brief leap back to the 1970s to find, absurdly, the same reasons that see the cockpit of today’s IMOCAs changing.

Maximum beams before open sterns

The starting point, as is often the case, is in the 1980s, the boom of sailing, racing and extreme solutions. There are, as with everything, solutions that are certainly forerunners, such as theAlpa Esse (image below), a dinghy designed in 1956 by Vittorio Lombardi with a completely open stern, but these are not the canon, and are therefore lacking, although, partially, they are true forerunners of the reasons that led to change. But, in proportional terms, it is the 1980s that gave the La to this trend.

Indeed, with the end of the 1970s, the design philosophy that dictates racing hull trends changes, leading to repercussions for the resulting series production. Maximum beams, which had increased during the decade drawing to a close, begin to recede and, with them, the sterns are reduced and their design changes. Already with the 1977 One Ton cup we have a foretaste of this, with Smackwater Jack which introduces a huge inverted and particularly wide transom. Reflected, less so in the extreme, even in production hulls such as the Polaris 33 by Holland (1977) and theOyster 37 Holman & Pie’s ’78. A not inconsiderable leap when we think of similarly set but reduced sterns like that of the 1976 Ziggurat. The 1980s would take this trend to the extreme.

The further we move forward with the decade, in fact, the further back the beams go, increasing stern volumes and, at the same time, we observe “flatter” living works, hulls, basically, more planing. This is the big key. By increasing the aft beam, the surface area of the stern increases and the volumes and, consequently, the buoyancy reserve increases. A big contribution, as always, comes from the racing world, where flush decks are now all the rage and sterns look more and more like large “chutes” to the water. But it is not so much these large sterns that are driving the change as it is the deck evolutions and the cockpits themselves.

Question of weights

The Whitbread Round the World Races of the 1980s are an important example in terms of, precisely, the changes mentioned above. The major change (materials and technologies excluded) in common among the most innovative hulls at mid-decade (WRWR 85-86) can be reduced, succinctly, to the incremental adoption of back beams and flush decks, i.e., totally flat, clear of anything but hardware, from bow to stern, except for the cockpit, which is still recessed.

The 1989 edition exemplifies even better the point being made: Fortuna (1989), Fazisi (1989), Gatorade (1989), Charles Jourdan (1989), to name a few, emphasize even more flush decks and cockpits that either are limited to the center of the boat-with the aft section descending to the transom-or encompass the entire central volume of the hull-from the center of the boat to the stern, ever wider, more extreme. The goal is simple: maximize freedom of movement and retain as little water as possible on board, translating, simply, into weight. In this sense, we have the first major hint of change in Martela O.F (1989) e Rothmans (1989). Both, in fact, have the cockpit running all the way to the transom, not yet fully open, but sectioned off to facilitate water drainage.

Here is how they come toward the adoption of the “open” solution. Increasingly recessed beams and the disappearance of high deckhouses, in favor of increasingly flush decks and increasingly planing hulls imply greater amounts of water on board and less “dry” cockpits. Just think of the videos of the recent Ocean Races and the waves running over their decks. Just like today’s Imoca, with the cockpit covered almost to the extreme stern, the goal was in fact one: to reduce the weights on board, and at the extremes of competition, the greatest weight on board is precisely given by the water. Thus, initially, the need to “break through” the sterns is created.

Toward the open stern in the large series

As with the great extremes of Whitbread, the concept also applies to more humane “standards,” though always pulled. Indeed, perhaps here it actually appears even earlier. One need only look to a cult Vallicelli, Brava 30.5 (image below). It is 1983 and the transom is open. The beams are not yet so backward, but the criterion is the same. And it will be the same for Springbrook, in 1986, to cite two homegrown examples. The same is true for the big series. As early as 1982, in fact, Fauroux and Finot were already experimenting with the concept in small, with their First Class 8 for Beneteau, but the concept is still limited to practical practicality and far from its present-day implication. It applies, in fact, to racing hulls.

The great distinction now begins to be in the practicality of the complex. Until now the applications are for racing hulls. Large cruisers still offer enclosed and protected volumes, and the reason is simple. Beams are not yet what they are today, they are not yet as set back, and freeboards are still relatively low. Regardless of the type of deck or deckhouse, there simply is neither the need nor the space. The need does not arise. Not until the 1990s. Here, the revolution.

With the last decade of the century, hulls are increasingly planing, IMS is changing the rules of the game, and open sterns are exploding in the racing world, in monotype as well as open classes. Just look at the Farr 40, the Farr 30 or the Salt Tea of Ferns. Huge, continuous cockpits, wider sterns and “Open Transom.” The hulls are almost drifts, if we want to pass the comparison. Inevitably, performance cruisers will follow closely.

Open sterns: from necessity to comfort

Triumphing perhaps above all, really opening us up to the trend that is to come, is thus the Baltic Yachts/Bill Tripp pairing, which in 1997 churned out a performance-cruiser that is standard and still modern and relevant today. It is the Baltic 50. The maximum beam is set back, not nearly to the stern, but there we are … the deck is flush, with a hint of an anvil deckhouse for the benefit of the interior, and the cockpit, the cockpit is almost contemporary: huge, terraced and completely open. This is the design breakthrough: the open sterns, aided by the new beams and the overall set-back volumes, are no longer tied to the needs of racing alone; they are no longer useful only for the practical purposes of competition.

The open sterns thus became, in the late 1990s, an element destined to grow and, as the beams continued to recede, to transform into what they are today: a patio on the sea, a huge convivial space that, not only drains what little water a cruiser -for the uses made of it- can take on board, but also transforms the entire volume aft of the hatch into a versatile terrace, ideal for relaxation and comfort in the roadstead. Certainly, a solution not necessarily appreciable, and not necessarily without its flaws or criticisms, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

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