Roger Long Marine Architecture, Inc.

[Venchka]

Am I the last person on the face of the earth to find out about the designs of Roger Long?

Chad, Friendship sloop warning. Roll of Bounty paper towels mandatory.

Dingo, cutter and Eastport pinky warning. Ditto on the towels.

JimD, by golly he did a 21' sloop that is the spittin image of Sam Crocker's Stone Horse. Cute critter. A Sardine stove to boot! No, it's a two burner Little Cod.

There's a canoe yawl and a beach cruising dory and a skipjack.

Very very nice work.

21' sloop

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/21sloopGA.jpg

Friendship sloop

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Rita.jpg
Roger Long Designs (http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Boats.htm#Rita)

Enjoy!

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[ 01-05-2005, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Venchka ]

[rbgarr]

I sailed the 17' Quoddy Boat quite a bit when I was at the Maine Maritime Museum.

His story about designing the 'Corwith Cramer' is interesting. I sailed aboard the smaller 'Westward' that preceded the 'C.C.' in SEA's fleet, and the professional crew I've talked to say the the smaller schooner has much more 'feel' under sail than the larger one. They said that could be just a function of the one boat being larger than the other, and not a reflection on the design.

[Billy Bones]

Thanks for this posting! He's new to me too.

I assume rbgarr is referring to this passage (about the Cramer):

Years later, the marine superintendent called up to see if I would be interested in being considered for designing the next ship. I said that one ship in a lifetime for SEA might be enough. "Well, you weren't a very strong candidate anyway.", he said.

"Oh?", I asked.

"You have a reputation for being a tempermental artist that has to have everything exactly your way. Besides, there are a lot of things about the 'Cramer" that we don't like."

"And what might those be?"

He went on to list all of the features that I had fought so hard to prevent from being included in the vessel!
...which had me laughing and laughing! He seems to have a good sense of humor.

[Venchka]

Updated image of the 21' raised deck clinker sloop mentioned above...

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/21FtSloop.jpg

That is a boat! With a transom, even.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[Garrett Lowell]

Though it's not his design, I love that 7' catboat.

[Roger Long]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Venchka:
[QB]Am I the last person on the face of the earth to find out about the designs of Roger Long?

No Wayne, you are not one of the last but you may well be among the first.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the traditional boat world for virtually ignoring me in my youth so that I would eventually find my true calling designing boats like these:

Woods Hole Coastal Research Vessel (http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/WHOIrv.htm)

I still do have a soft spot for traditional boats though and a renewed interest in sailing with our recent purchase of a 32 foot boat.

BTW there is now a wallpaper version of that perspective drawing of my 21 footer on my web site.

[Roger Long]

I’m sure “Westward” does have more feel underway. The “Cramer” is not only longer but is a larger vessel for her length. Much of that increase in size is in greater beam which makes her much stiffer. Larger size and less response to wind variation would make her seem less responsive.

Truth be told, “Westward” was born softer than a “sneaker full of (you know what)” as Jack Gilbert likes to say. There is a letter somewhere in my files from the builders to her original owner that caught up with him somewhere on his voyage around the world. The yard evidently finished the final stability calculations after delivery and sent out an urgent message that is a real hoot in the English translation. It says something like, “If your vessel is not currently lying on her side, please add ballast immediately as after 40 degrees she don’t come up any more.”

People have been dumping ballast into this vessel for most of her life. She is now about 14 inches below her designed waterline from decades of attempts to stiffen her up. My first involvement with large sailing vessels was putting in 12 tons of lead trying to get the minimum stability her operators felt it was responsible to send students to sea with. I did the calculations and helped load it.

The captain thought all this was poppycock and was determined to show this wet behind the ears hippie who had showed up with the inexplicable support of the management a thing or two. He did it by sailing the ship harder (with me aboard) to Bermuda in a nasty stretch of October weather than I have ever seen a ship sailed since. Straight through a Gulf Stream sea with just two masts sticking out of the water (a story for another time). We blew out a sail every night and the foremast was found to be cracked after arrival. It was my first time offshore and I was some impressed. It was a disappointment to learn later that no one else sails like this in the school shop world. SEA never sailed like that again either. The captain didn’t last long after this trip.

I wondered for years why this ship was designed so soft. I ran across some of her designers original calculations years later. A crucial number was off by a foot, representing about 33% in amount of stiffness. It was a simple mistake. There is no question that, if the mistake had been discovered before construction, the designer would have made here about a foot wider. This gave me a good laugh because I was locked in a battle at the time with the ship committee about whether we should photo copy, enlarge, and reuse the lines instead of drawing a better one for the “Cramer”.

Soft as she is, “Westward” does feel very responsive but slow. I’ve heard almost universally good things about the “Cramer”. The same superintendent mentioned in the story in the post above waxed almost poetic describing her going to windward at nine knots in 40 knot winds. The only complaint I have heard is that she pitches a lot more than “Westward”. Well, in conditions where “Westward” is going four knots, “Cramer” is going eight to nine. I guess she would pitch a little more!

[JimD]

Very nice, thank you.

[rbgarr]

Roger,

That was a very interesting explanation about the WESTWARD's design. I sailed aboard her from Lisbon to the Cape Verdes to Barbados to Puerto Rico when I was twenty years old in 1972. The captain limited water use a lot and we sailed most of the time with a reef in the main. I assumed this was because the tanks were not really large enough for a crew of twenty six, and that we would run into occasional heavy weather and he didn't want to be caught out with a greenish crew trying to reef that main, which was a good distance off the deck. But the tradewinds never got much above twelve knots, and I seem to remember that the water tanks didn't need much filling at each port of call. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

However, one day when I was on the helm as we sailed downwind between two of the Canary Islands we got a bit of excitement that may have been related to her stability. She had an eighteen foot Boston Whaler for a tender, on davits outboard on the starboard side amidships. A series of swells set the ship rolling, and one of the waves washed right over the Whaler, filling her and knocking her partway out of her slings. I yelled to the bosun and the crew scurried about in order to bring the boat inboard, empty her and turn her over on deck (where she was evermore in the way). When the Whaler was full of water in those davits, and I was steering, the WESTWARD had a noticeable list to starboard.

Edited to add: In response to your PM, I don't remember the 17' Quoddy Boat having a lee helm and can't comment about why the mast was moved, but the vortex you mentioned was noticeable. I guessed (not being a designer) that it had something to do with the leeway the boat made.

[ 03-06-2005, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: rbgarr ]

[Roger Long]

Originally posted by rbgarr:
[QB]Roger,

That was a very interesting explanation about the WESTWARD's design. I sailed aboard her from Lisbon to the Cape Verdes to Barbados to Puerto Rico when I was twenty years old in 1972. /QB]That would have been just a couple years before I put the last 12 tons of ballast in her as well as the deckhouse for the lab. She still would have been pretty tender then.

The vortex so visible on the Quoddy is present on all keels to some extent as well as on airplane wings (that's what started the sequence of events that brought down that airliner that lost it's vertical stabilizer over Long Island).

Boats that have long straight keels allow the vortex to form along the full length and become very tight and well established. I saw the same thing on the friendship sloop at the top of this thread.

BTW, if anyone thinks the story quoted above from my web site is funny, they should click the picture of the "Corwith Cramer" on the site and read the one on the next page. More pictures of the ship as well.

[ 03-06-2005, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: Roger Long ]

[rbgarr]

Roger-

That's a great story about the search for your new sailboat. There's a lot to be learned there. Good luck with your cruise to Maine. Are you familiar with this book? http://www.landfallnavigation.com/ben002.html It may help with the Erie-Maine portion of your trip, if you need any.

I see you are a Harbormaster. Do the regulations shown under 'Things You Should Know' regarding moorings, permits, etc. pertain to all harbors in Maine, or just yours?

By the way, I don't get anywhere by clicking on the picture of the Cramer at your website. Is it supposed to take me to a defunct SEA webpage?

[Roger Long]

Partly because of the Harbormaster job, which has turned out to be a huge clean up task, the new boat is coming on a truck. The canal may remain on my wish list forever but we'll see more of Maine and Nova Scotia.

Most of the stuff on that harbormaster page are based on federal and state law. A couple of details are specific to our town ordinance.

There are two copies of the "Cramer" picture on the web site. The one in the research vessel section links to S.E.A., the one in the other designs section was the one I was referring to.

Here's a direct link to it. (http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Cramer.htm) (Scroll down for the story.)

[ 03-06-2005, 07:48 PM: Message edited by: Roger Long ]