Roger is right on point. I have owned mediocre designed boats that were
solidly built- Island Packet; a very well designed, well built- J/32 and a
brilliant design (by Bob Perry), but not very well built- name witheld to
protect the guilty. The J is the overall winner in my opinion, but the
Island Packet is close behind. Only the Bob Perry designed boat was built by
a builder with little financial interest and control by the designer.

Perhaps the lesson here is to look for boats where the designer has a
financial/operational interest in the building. Alas, Roger's analogy
doesn't hold water here- authors/playwrights make lousy directors.

David



"Roger Long" wrote in message
.. .
The yacht designer has about as much to do with the success of a boat
as the playwright has to do with the success of a Broadway production.
The author produces a stack of paper maybe half an inch thick. The
costumes, the scenery, the casting, the lighting, the music, the fine
tuning of the actors delivery, are all in the hands of the director.
This is 99% of what the audience sees. Doing all these things right
won't turn a bad script into a good one but it is very easy to turn a
good script onto a disaster.

BTW I'm a former yacht designer and current commercial boat designer.

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Boats.htm


--

Roger Long



"engsol" wrote in message
...
My "new" boat is a 1974 Yankee 30 Mk III, desiged by S&S.
It's a srong hull, and a good sailing boat...so I've been told.
But what I'm finding are construction details that I've never
approve of, even being a newbie. My biggest complaint is
that things such as teak trim, power panel, etc are "held" in
place with self-tapping screws into raw fiberglass. You can
guess how well that holds. I'm planning on fitting backing
blocks.

I got to wondering...how much does the designer have to do
with the construction of a boat? To what level of detail does
the designer specifiy the construction? Does the designer
shape the hull, spec the rigging, armwave where the bunks,
head and galley go, and the implementation is left up to the
builder?

Just curious....Norm B