Maxprop wrote:
.... quite
often boats of beauty are great performers as well. Conversely ugly
boats--those that have been optimized for interior volume rather than hull
design integrity--are most often terrible performers. Take the Morgan Out
Island series, as an example of the latter.

Or most (not all) center cockpit boats.

... And the CCA yachts of the 40s
and 50s as an example of the former. The Hinckley Bermuda 40 is still one
of the finest performing, best handling boats in existence. It still wins
handicap races, and it's drop dead gorgeous. So are the 6 Metres and
Etchells 22s. Even the latest America's Cup yachts are beautiful in design
and appearance. Dame Ellen MacArthur's B&Q, while quite modern in design,
is quite attractive.


Any boat that wins is pretty. The more she wins, the prettier she gets!

L.Francis Herreshoff wrote that the sea may be considered to have an eye
for beauty, that hulls which just 'look right,' especially to an
experienced sailor, often are the best.

It's true that computational dynamics have replaced the experienced eye
in naval architecture, and boats have become enormously faster (largely
because of advances in materials IMHO), the experienced sailors eye
still has a feel for what the sea will approve of. Ugly race boats are
usually optimized to some measurement rule rather than for performance.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King