Olin Stephens II - designer of Rainbow II

by Olin Stephens II on 13 Apr 2008
Today, 13 April 2008 is the 100th birthday of perhaps the worlds greatest designer, Olin Stephens II.

His involvement in the success of New Zealand sailing was limited but very significant.

Limited in that not many of his designs were built in this country for reasons which he describes below.

But his involvement was vey significant in that he designed Rainbow II which was the yacht, which really made New Zealand's mark on the international racing scene - in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Further Rainbow II and others from the Sparkman and Stephens office board, provided a very useful international benchmark for local designers to see at first hand, the latest from the top international designers and then design a yacht that wopuld beat them.

Of course, as Olin Stephens again comments, he was the antithesis of the New Zealand design type - long ends, medium to heavy displacement, where the New Zealand type was generally short ended, light displacement. These two types came together under the RORC rule and its sub sets in the One Ton, Half Ton and Quarter Ton raters.

Here we present two extracts from Olin Stephens' writing - the first from his autobiography published in 1999, and the second from the foreword to Noel Holmes outstanding 'Go Rainbow Go!' which inspired a generation of Kiwi sailors.


From 'All this and Sailing, Too'

Before ‘67 our activity in foreign countries had continued to grow. Several new clients were from New Zealand, prompting a visit in 1964. I soon recognized a concentration of skillful and smart sailors down there unmatched anywhere in the world. The three boats built in New Zealand could not have been more different. The last of these, built by her owner, a young man named Chris Bouzaid, was similar to Roundabout but much modified to benefit from the RORC scantling allowance which Chris had studied to greater effect than I. The first of our designs to be built in New Zealand, in 1960, was a boat named Sapphire, intended for racing in a local open class to an interesting New Zealand rule. With good luck she became a consistent winner. The largest of the three, known as T’aroa, was interesting but a shade disappointing, probably due to my own stubborn streak.Visiting New Zealand I had, of course, seen the general use there of the short keel and separate rudder.

In correspondence with Douglas Bremner, T’aroa’s owner, I had been advised how well some very light boats were doing locally. These boats were, in type, the forerunners of the Ultra Light Displacement Boats (ULDBs), the California sleds.
Perhaps if I had followed Doug’s advice I would have introduced that type to the U.S.; but I had been lucky with fairly heavy designs which I liked for their stability and windward ability. This was largely wasted on Auckland courses, although personal experience had persuaded me that most races were won on the wind. So we settled on a compromise which was fine when the course included a decent turn to windward. This seldom occurred. Shoreline spectators were important in Auckland, and the courses paralleled the shore. On those courses T’aroa was no match for the local sleds.

Doug invited me to Auckland for the first of three visits I have made, making it possible to see an extremely interesting fleet in which the underwater configuration was of the shape just discussed, and was the rule rather than the exception. I noticed that some of the outstanding fast and attractive smaller boats had been designed by a young Auckland man named Bruce Farr. I probably do not need to point out that Farr has become a blazing star in the firmament of yacht design, and Bouzaid has earned an enviable reputation as a sailor and sailmaker. I have seen them both recently and enjoy the ability to remember when.

The success of Chris Bouzaid’s Rainbow II in winning the One Ton Cup in ‘69 was naturally welcome, but the way it was done had much to do with killing the RORC Rule. It also illustrates an approach to yacht design that is hard for me to either condemn or applaud. The British rule incorporated a scantling allowance, intended to give heavily-built boats an even chance against more aggressive and lightly built competitors. In this Chris saw a loophole, because the allowance for the heavy structure was badly judged, offering too generous a bonus. As the result of the increased weight resulting from the installation of a steel deck over the wooden one and replacing a small auxiliary engine with a massive diesel, Chris was able, within the rating limit, to add so much sail area and waterline length to Rainbow II’s original dimensions as to be almost unbeatable by the more normally proportioned entries. For similar reasons, at about the same time, S&S had done a winning design for Arthur Slater with a better-proportioned but unmercifully heavy hull. We will soon discuss the replacement of the RORC Rule by the 10R. The unhappy scantling allowance was one indication to the RORC officers that there was need to change.

I should not leave Chris and his Rainbow II without saying that I have never been more impressed by sheer racing and sailing ability in a crew than when I went on a race with them in the Solent With Chris steering and Roy Dickson calling the wind shifts, the crew’s ability to take advantage of every slant, beating through the fleet in Cowes roads, was an experience I shall never forget It was true New Zealand style sailing, of which we have seen continuing evidence

Foreword to 'Go Rainbow Go!'
by Olin J. Stephens II

The publication schedule has made it necessary to write this introduction before reading the story. I hope the author and I are writing about the same person!

To me, Chris Bouzaid is one of the great competitive sailors and one to whom I am much indebted because of his superb handling of Rainbow, a racing yacht designed by my firm. The reputation and livelihood of a yacht designer, as well as his self-esteem, is won or lost by the people who handle his yachts, and Chris is in the forefront of a group of fine sailors who have sailed S&S yachts to win. I am fortunate to have had worldwide support in the field among the best sailors of the day, both inshore and offshore, but a sail with Chris and his crew in Cowes Week ‘69 opened my eyes to a degree of skill and coordination between helmsman and crew that I had not known to exist.

This happy course of events began sometime in 1966 when I received a letter from Chris asking about plans. Probably the reply was a little perfunctory but fortunately Chris was not discouraged as he arrived in New York during that summer. I recall that he was returning to New Zealand from Europe. He described sailing in his home waters and I was impressed by his enthusiasm, and by the understanding of sailing which I felt when he described the boats and conditions around Auckland. I didn’t see him at once against a map of the world although I said to myself and, I think, to my brother Rod, 'This is someone who should be sailing one of our boats.'

That summer is marked in my mind by contrasting the success, in England, of two similar new designs for One Ton Cup racing, Clarionet and Roundabout, with the disappointment of their failure to win in Copenhagen. Roundabout, the lighter of the two, was fast downwind in a strong breeze without needing to give much away under other conditions. She seemed to meet the requirements and sailing conditions that Chris described. I think he liked the drawings which I showed him, and I was well pleased when he decided to take the plans, but optimistic as I may have been, I had no idea of the record that would result when Chris took Rainbow’s tiller.

We can see here how the yacht designer helps to get things started in the construction of a boat which, however personalized, is only an instrument until the right helmsman and crew release