Hi

We have sitting at our club a boat which looks a lot like a MR - flared stern, lots of bits of string, buoyancy bags etc...

However there are no identifing marks on it, and it has a smooth outer hull (all GRP) without the clinkers.
If it's not a MR, does anyone have any idea what it might be ?

Thanks

Matt

Maybe an MRX

Sounds a daft suggestion but a national 12?

There was 1 4-plank Merlin built in the 1970's & a very few if any smooth skin boats in the first 3 or 4 years of the class when permitted by the rules but all in wood so clearly not that, so not a Merlin.  Get your tape measure out & see if Chris is right, bet it's 12' long.

Harrier single hander designed by Keith Callaghan??

Maybe. Back in the mid 1940s the first two boats 'Kate' no. 1 and 'merlin' no. 2 were clinker built by Jack Holt. However the original committee intended that future 'Merlin' hulls would be moulded to facilitate speedy delivery and the original construction rules clearly allowed this. They would have been required to attach 25lbs of lead under the thwart. The committee's problem was to find an experienced manufacturer with sufficient enthusiasm and January 1946 they agreed to encourage clinker construction. They did not ban smooth skin construction and 'Hazard' no.64 was described in the 1947 Year Book as an 'Experimental plywood boat'. In 1947 a Christchurch sailor G. George O'Brien built a boat without ribs 'Mercury' no. 75. She might have been smooth skinned, I'm not sure. He was 2nd in her in the 1947 championship and built a second one 'Mercury II' in 1949. I believe she was destroyed in an accident.

Any chance of a picture(s)?  This would greatly help identification.  What is your club?

If you don't have a tape measure handy, the untrained eye can differentiate between an N12 and a MR by looking for evidence of spinnakers! Sheaves in the after deck?

Here's a photo of the only ever four-planker - see link.

I have a photo of Mercury II but do not know how to copy it into this reply.  She has an interesting mast step arrangement of a wooden stub finishing about 2ft above the sheerline supported by "lowers" and what looks to be a rotating metal mast mounted upon it.  The boom appears to have guys attached to small speaders at the base of the mast to control rotation.  Oh, and the tiller is a hoop affair and the hull is clinker

email me a photo and i'll publish it here.

Not an MRX - they hve built in buoyancy so, no bags...

Here's the photo of Mercury II.

Didn't Rowsell Bros build a MR for Graham Pike with a smooth skin 24" back from the stem?

Barry, you are I am sure right. 
I had left the class by then but yes, I think it was a David Thomas design and the boat is still sailing in East Anglia I seem to remember seeing it at Warsash at about the same time as the infamous Shaft was about, (I did sail Shaft with David Robinson in an HRSC evening race.) it was I think painted silver and was called Nitro and had a sail number in the late 2900's, I am sure the loophole that allowed this which was in fact just a big stem piece was blocked,all about the same time as you were thinking of a dagger board! A great time of experiementation and knowledge aquisition compared with today.

You are still allowed to go smooth in the 550mm from either extreme end of the hull. Technically, the Rules remove the restriction on rebating the inboard plank only in these areas, so this allows the planks to have a nice smooth transition to flush at the bow. Not sure if anyone has done this over a number of planks at the aft end, although Enchantment (3386) had one plank that went flush (ish) at the chine at the transom. Dave Lee was thinking about doing something on 3660 when he did his bilge keel mods a few years ago.

Of course if you can get a measurer to consider the stem piece being 14' long - there is no restriction on the length of this part - then there is no "planking" to speak off, so you could have a smooth hull. How you could make it is beyond me at the moment. Not quite cricket though.

Sorry, keep thinking it is a Friday afternoon .....

David, shame on you...  Of all people, you should know that Nitro is at WOBYC!!!  And indeed I crewed her last year, and you met the owner at Hunts last year!!!  I crewed him in his other Merlin!!

jon

Ref that photograph of Mercury II....

Isn't the crew on the wrong side of the boat?

No, because in those days the spinnaker was only flown on the run, with the guy AND the sheet to windward of the forestay so the crew is sitting to windward.

'Mercury II' is obviously not smooth skinned however I have come across more information about her in Ian Proctor's article describing the 1949 Championships at Cowes published in 'The Yachtsman's Annual' - 'MercuryII' which has a beautifully built glued up hull with no ribs etc." She also had a self draining hull!

The article also describes another boat 'Gurgle' no 165 which had a "home-built glued-up carvel hull". So there definitely was at least one smooth skinned boat racing in the early years.

Hi Andy

I went a bit further than thinking about rebating the planks at the transom, Nick T actually made this mod to 3660 some time ago ;) Hard to say if it's made any difference to performance, but certainly there is no evidence of plank disturbance in the wake just behind the transom.

There's one being built right now.

I have just found the following article which mentions Mercury (not Mercury 2) in an old copy of a page from Yatching World. I don't know the date but the next article mentions the prototype of the Cadet, which would narrow the date down:

Mercury was designed and built by O'Brien Kennedy, her owner and remarkable for her lack of ribs, for a bridge deck between helmsman and crew, and improved rigging. The Hull is somewhat flatter in the floor than the original merlin design by Jack Holt. Lack of ribs seems to be of rather doubtful benefit, for it does not appear to be difficult to build a Merlin down to the minimum weight when the boat is timbered in the normal way and their assistance towards maintaining the boat in its desired shape must surely be of importance even in a boat so much strengthened by decking. However, much sound thinking has gone into this boat and it is good for the health of the class that she should have diverged from the pattern followed almost exclusively by the Merlins and be able to beat them.

A photo on the same page is by Ian Proctor and I suspect he wrote this article.

G. O'Brien Kennedy also designed the "Yachting World" Dayboat. Any similarities?

G. O'Brien Kennedy also designed the "Yachting World" Dayboat. Any similarities?