We’re in Portsmouth, home of the British Naval Shipyard (still in use after many centuries) along with what must be several thousand yachts. The photo above is of the guest dock at Hasslers Marina, a huge complex, with a quarter mile walk (along the dock) to the marina office.

This lovely sloop came in shortly after us. We count nine crew on deck dealing with the mainsail. There is about 30 feet (9m) in the channel between them and the boat behind us. Leaving is going to be interesting.

The big attraction at Hasslers are the Open 60s being prepped for the upcoming Vendee Globe Race. And a couple of Volvo 60s from the last Race (one of which is shown above).

Now for some design school. That rounded bum (rear end, transom, arse) at which we are looking is a minimum wetted surface shape. The closer you can get to a circle, the more volume you get for minimum surface drag. The trade off comes in stability, or lack thereof. These boats depend on their keels for most of their stability as the rounded hull shape does not generate as much form stability as flatter sections with more wetted surface.

The opposite extreme. The Juan K designed Open 60 for this year’s event. This is a hugely powerful hull shape with stability taken to the limit. This is as close to a scow shape as we have seen. There is a canting keel and water ballast! And one guy to handle it (the Volvo carried a full crew). This is an even more extreme shape than PRB near which we were moored in Halifax at the beginning of the summer.

Rudders are buried under the hull for better control. Look closely at the outboard upper edge of the blade and there appears to be a hydrodynamic "fence" to reduce separation in turbulent conditions. Note the heavy pintals in stainless near the "R" for an emergency rudder.

Pindar has a wing mast with deck spreaders. Complex, but light and highly efficient, if you can control all of this on your own.

Inboard end of the deck spreaders. Can you guess why the ball joint? How about a mast system which cants to weather! Heeling the mast offers a huge improvement in performance, if you can get it all to work. The force vectors of the canted rig (rig cants to weather) tend to lift the boat, windsurfer style.

The rig is huge, requiring large dagger boards to generate opposing lift.

A detail of the rotating wing mast base. It looks like they are set up for 60-degree rotation.

Cockpit, twin wheels, winches powered by a pedestal grinder, and sliding coach roof.

Think about sailing this boat after a few tiring days at sea. Water ballast, articulating keel, rig cant and mast angle adjustments, asymmetric dagger boards, rotating mast, and what must be 30 individual control lines. Add in routing, tactics, steering, dealing with media requirements. What do you think the average level of performance will be?

An interesting comparison in bow shape. The Open 60 has a deep hollow in the forward area. This gives her a sharp entry, and then lots of reserve buoyancy once pressed hard. Reminiscent of how Beowulf’s forward sections were drawn. The Volvo 60 (black) has no discernible hollows, more power forward, but with more modest transom and beam overall less exaggerated entry angle. Our guess is that the Volvo 60 will be quicker and more comfortable uphill. But they are racing in separate classes (and this is an old Volvo rule design).

Elegant kick up rudders on Roxy. The theory is they kick up if you hit something, you can change blades if one is damaged, and the weather rudder can be retracted to reduce wetted surface. Reality is (on all these rudder systems) they are often subject to damage, hard to repair, and sometimes do not work as intended.

A conventional swept spreader rig on Roxy. Fixed, relatively simple (compared to a tilting wing mast), light, and easier on the single-handed crew. Which will prove faster?

Across Portsmouth Channel now at Gun Wharf Quay (Hasslers is in the background across the channel). A small marina attached to a huge shopping center, with several dozen restaurants, a theater complex, must be a hundred stores, and a couple of interesting boats.

We will start with this early 1960s North Sea trawler. She was designed to fish efficiently in awful weather. No arbitrary length or displacement rules distorted her shape. Hence the moderate proportions which are efficiently driven and sea-kindly.

Note the fine entry. Also, she is riveted and welded, a surprise to us. Terry, her skipper,told us that when she was built the yards in Britain were just starting to weld steel on trawlers like this, so she was riveted in case the welds did not hold.

Alec Rose circumnavigated on Lively Lady after Francis Chinchester, but without the stop which Chinchester made. It was a big deal at the time. This is a not untypical "cod’s head and mackerel tail" style of hull. In other words, full forward and fine aft. These hulls tend to be slow, especially uphill, but are easy to steer because their lines balance well with heel. This type has been around since the earliest days of sail (more on this later).

Lots of things to remind us of the States in the shopping center. Gap, Banana Republic, Bose Sound, and Ha Ha Bar and Grill, named no doubt after Latitude 38’s Bahaha Cruise.

And we just had to include this.

The reason we are on this side of the harbor is the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Home of Warrior (above) the first iron clad stinkpot. An 1850s battle ship, the most powerful warship in the world when she was launched.

The navy yard is patrolled by these mean looking police. They say their H and K machine pistols do not jam, have little kick, and are easy to target with their iron sights. Compact, reliable, good rate of fire – perfect yacht weapon.

This is the real draw of the Navy Yard for us. Horatio Nelson’s last ship, Victory. He died on her decks during the battle of Trafalgar (1805), a huge victory for the British over a vastly more powerful enemy. She was considered the ultimate fighting machine of her day. Quick, as three deckers go, maneuverable (of course a relative term) with lots of firepower (those are 32 pounders on the lower deck).

Keeping in mind Lively Lady, now look at this state of the art 18th century bow. Fat, but for a reason – hull balance.

The run aft from a full hull is quite fine compared to the bow.

And a tiny rudder. Consider that to aim the cannons they turned the ship. This small (in scale) rudder would be marginally effective. So a balanced hull had to be used so there was steering force left for course adjustment (none being wasted on lee or weather helm). Sail balance, and steering with fore and aft trim was also a part of the equation.

Now put yourself on deck, with that rudder, in a running sea battle, where tactics like crossing the other guys bow or stern would exert terrible punishment with little received in return. Throw in working the three decks of guns, and handling this hugely complex rig, and you realize there may have been something to the term "wooden ships and iron men."

A last Victory hull shape photo. Recall the rounded stern of the Volvo 60. Round equals minimum wetted surface. Check the bilge section here. Nice and round. The old-timers must have had it figured out.

Let’s drop back a couple of centuries, to cuddly old Henry Vlll’s favorite warship. These are the remains of the Mary Rose, which died in defense of England in a battle with the French in the Solent mid sixteenth century. Salvaged some years back, the hull is on display in a special environment where it is constantly coated with preservative. The point here is the naval architecture. We are looking at the stern, from about deck level and off to port. Note how fine this shape is compared to Victory. This ship would have been quicker for her size in light to moderate going, and probably easier on the helm.

Looking almost straight onto the stern section here. Nicely faired shape.Those 16th century shiprights had their act together.

We have been enjoying the big city lights for the past few days. The museums associated with the Dock Yards are wonderful. Going to our first movie in four months, and eating dinner out in the same night was fun. But the waterborne traffic here is almost beyond comprehension, and a little tiring. At least every hour there are a couple of ferries for the Isle of Wight rotating into their berth near us, big channel crossing ferries to France coming and going, a couple of tour boats, police launches, the pilot boat, and of course dozens of yachts.

All of this takes place under the watch of QHM or Queen’s Harbor Master. To enter or leave Portsmouth you call QHM on VHF 11 and request permission. This applies to all vessels (even for just crossing from Hassler’s Marina to Gun Wharf Key). Makes us think back to the good old days in Greenland.