The Maze

A few weeks ago  Constellation was still on the loft floor at Minneford's. There are huge sheets of plywood, covered with a maze of black crayoned curves and diagonals and, as Nils Halvorsen points them out with a batten, they begin to form three views the craft: to one side the sections, as seen from down and stern, a wine-glass with no base; the rest, nearly 70 feet long, the profile and plan view superimposed, which can be disentangled to look something like a boat or a bullet.

 

These are  Constellation's lines, life-size, as drawn by Nils Halvorsen from the architect's 3/4-inch-to-the-foot scale plans. It is a job for a craftsman, because no matter how accurate the designer is when he draws the yacht on a drawing table, there are bound to be places in the scale of 70 feet where one dimension will not coincide with another- where, if the boat were built that way, a rib might be too narrow by several inches or planking might be forced to take an "unfair" curve. And when he finds these gaps of an inch or two between one plane and another, points to where section and plan do not quite intersect, Nils Halvorsen either "fairs in" the curve between them, using his own judgement, or if it strikes him as an especially crucial spot, he calls up Olin Stephens.

 

Breakthrough

When Stephens talks about "breakthroughs" he is thinking in terms of changes of a fraction of an inch here and there. Fractions here and there are the difference between a winner and a loser. Bill Luders and David Boyd, the British designer, might be able to look at those lines and see in which direction Stephens has gone, and they would probably like to; but for most it is guesswork, with guesses based, perhaps, on  Gretel's down-wind ability and  Weatherly's stiffness-- has Constellation a little more flare in the topsides than  Columbia? Is there a triple more flatness in her run aft?

 

Once in a while, there is a reminder that you shouldn't take it too seriously. Yachting is a sport. Boats are boats, though this is very much an ultimate boat, designed to furnish not only the maximum of completion to any challenger, but the most response to wind and sea as well. Quite possibly a form of masterpiece, a work of art. To that suggestion Olin Stephens returns a shrug and a laugh. "I don't know. It's just a question of doing your best." Together with Paul Coble, Nils Halvorsen, and Walter Gubelmann, he hopes that his best is good enough to defend the Old Mug against the British Twelve, and that Constellation, if she is chosen, won't be the first in the long history of the match to let the side down.