Perry Design Review: The 49er

For as long as I can remember, the fastest monohulls were the Sydney Harbor 18-foot skiffs. These boats were raced professionally by men with broken noses, often with bettors following in ferry boats. The early boats were big, with towering rigs and large crews.

The 49er sailing dinghy blasts off.

As development in the class began to incorporate more modern design concepts and materials, the size of both the boats and the crews gradually diminished. Today the typical 18 crew consists of three people with nice straight noses, although the speeds and crashes are still spectacular. If you get a chance you should take a look at one of Ronstan's videos on the 18s. Designers Julian and Frank Bethwaite have both literally and figuratively written the book on skiff design.

Designed by Julian Bethwaite, the 49er is a two-man version of the 18 and is enjoying accelerated acceptance in many dinghy-racing fleets. We already have over a dozen 49ers in Seattle. The concept is simple: The 49er gives the ultimate combination of horsepower to weight in a boat that two people can almost handle. By design, the 49er is overpowered most of the time. It may be the ultimate two-man dinghy.

The sail area-to-displacement ratio of this design — if you assume a total crew weight of 350 pounds — is 50.1. There is a large asymmetrical chute that adds an additional 410 square feet. The boom is high for ease of movement, and the mainsail tacks to the deck. The mainsail appears to be a combination of dinghy and sailboard technologies. The mainsheet dead-ends on a fixed four-line bridle and depends upon the vang for boom control. The boom vang is a ram type and attaches to the mast above the boom, pushing the boom down rather than pulling it. With the vang in this configuration, it is almost impossible to invert the mast. This also opens up room for the crew during tacks and is made possible by the unique mainsail sleeve arrangement at the tack. Both main and jib are transparent for visibility.

The hull is very slender and, with the wings removed, is only 5 feet, 7 inches wide. With the wings extended the beam is 9 feet, 5 inches. The wings are fixed while sailing. In order to guarantee equalization of performance with varying crew weights, the wings are adjustable at five increments of 50 millimeters. The class is now working on rules that will allow wing settings to compensate for different crew weights if required.

The highly shaped, single-chine hull form of the 49er is a direct development from the 18-foot skiffs and features a hull that will make the transition from displacement speeds to planing speeds without any bumps as the boat moves back and forth between the two dynamic conditions. This design feature is at the heart of the characteristic that the 49er and the 18 both share — that they are not sensitive to crew weight differences. The theory is: "the lighter the boat the less the crew weight problem." Both skipper and crew will live on wires. You never sit in this boat. The wings are solid platforms, not the pipes or racks that allow your feet to slip through. As the brochure says, "they are great to stand on when the boat is upside down."

This is a boat for experts who will give everything for boat speed and sailing thrills. It is the ultimate two-man dinghy.

Boat Specifications