RS900 looking good?

I must admit I do suspect trolling, but just in case its a problem with english idiom and the subtleties of the language, which doesn't appear to be Maria's first language...

Maria,

There is a difference between influence and copying. Intellectual property in Sailboat designs, like a lot of such things is a complicated affair.

In general believe you will find that we sailboat designers regard it as copying if what we produce is exactly the same as someone elses's design to millimetres, and that is unacceptable.

We regard it as influence if we look at other peoples designs, try and understand how they work, and use aspects of that understanding in our own work. I think we all regard that as being perfectly acceptable, and I think we all believe ourselves to be to a greater or lesser extent standing on the shoulders of giants.

If you read Frank Bethwaite's books you'll find a whole list of other people whose ideas they have been influenced by, most notably the late and very, very great John Spencer.

Of the boats in the trials - the Mackay is of course hull wise a straight rip off of Julian Bethwaite's 49er. Mackay have rights to build that boat of course, so I'm sure JB gets design royalties, but I have never heard he was involved in the design or even whether or not he approves of it. So in one sense of all the boats in the trial that was the most blatant copy of another person's work, and in another sense its quite legitimate.

The 49er itself of course was very heavily influenced by the team work of 18footer sailors over the years, with Bethwaite a significant but just one of the contributors. The Bethwaite design line has influences from a number of sources, most notably the NS14 line and the Cherub class, and especially some clever lateral thinking by Mark Bethwaite, but ultimately an awful lot of it goes back to John Spencer who was a family friend of the Bethwaites. The Bethwaite line is unusual in these days in retaining a partial V section in the middle of the boat, somthing that goes back through Spencer and ultimately back to Uffa Fox. Most other designers now favour a flatter floor in that area, and in that aspect they could be argued to be more like Uffa's predecessor Morgan Giles. However we are back near enough a hundred years now... But to finish the job perhaps we should honour Theo Smith of Oxford, whose racing canoe "Snake", back around 1890, seems to be the first recorded planing sailcraft.

The Rebel is rumoured to owe an awful lot to Kevin Ellway's SK4 design of a few years back, which in turn builds on UK Cherub development, which as well as Englishmen like Chris Forman includes Australians like Iain Murray and New Zealanders like Frank Bethwaite, Buce Farr and, originally, John Spencer.

The Arup is a Kevin Ellway design and shares ancestry with that I've suggested for the Rebel.

The RS900 is quite a bit different, being more of an English line with influences from Merlins and National 12s as well as the Australian 18s. Its not really very much like a Bethwaite boat at all. For whatever my opinion is worth if it were more of a Bethwaite shape it would be faster but harder to sail, perhaps with a tad more strong wind bias. Ironically if they had made it rather more like the 49er than it is, then based on my interpretation of what features the ladies liked, it may well have gained the nod over the MacKay.

I don't know enough about the Aura to comment very much, but the bow shape is clearly influenced by recent catamaran and International Canoe ideas.

The 29erXX is a copy of the 29er, which also goes back to the Bethwaite line, but with relatively much more NS14 and Cherub influence and less 18 footer influence than the 49er.

So all of the boats at the trials are heavily influenced by others, but only the MackayFX and the 29erXX are copies of other classes, but they are copies where the designer of the original class gets the design royalties, which is perfectly legitimate.

Edited by JimC - 02 May 12 at 5:54pm

 

Originally posted by mariarainbow70 Bethwaite was the first to put hard wing on a skiff, RS re-designed an almost identical wing system

Other than being solid, there's actually very little resemblance between the 49ers wings and the RS900s. They're not "almost identical" at all.

And I think it was the Laser 4000 that claimed the term Gnav  (he says showing my age)...

And if you would like a more interesting perspective on copying vs influencing you should check out the excellent mini-documentary by Kirby Ferguson

http://vimeo.com/14912890

Its in 4 parts and worth watching all of it.