1988 Flying Flipper is finally a family member.

[lars]

Hallo fellows, many of us are looking around at all the nice boats that's offered for sale these days. It is like a candy store. Don Tamm called me the other day and we had a good conversation. He's looking westward at the moment, got to leave it like that. I myself couldn't help going all the way east to Liverpool, England to find my dream girl. She was ordered by racer John Baker for the 1989 European Offshore Championship Series. He took first in class II. She took part in a few more races, but in 1990 was bought and stored in Maurice Williamson's collection. Steve Hutchinson was finally able to buy her two years ago and decided to rig her with all new equipment. After he got her ready he entered her in this years Round Brittain Race, but the team had some personal issues and Steve cancelled their adventure after three stages. I wanted my friend Steve Scahill's 1975 Larry Smith 9 Meter, that I showed a few photos of in a thread below, but my situation changed and this Swedish girl came my way. Hope You like her as much as I do.
Lars

[lars]

Link; http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthread.php?66383-1981-Schiada-20SS-OB-rigged-serviced-by-Al-Stoker&p=620268&viewfull=1#post620268


Link to VIDEOS; http://www.myspace.com/lasse_lindroth/videos

Photo links; http://www.myspace.com/lasse_lindrot...itle_ViewAlbum

[gcarter]

Lars, I'm intruiged!
The outboard "sponsons" seem to be removeable, are they fuel tanks?
What other functions might they have fulfilled?
I see the rearward located step, does that play the same job as a notch?

[Conquistador_del_mar]

George has the exact same questions as myself. Lars, you always like the unusual type boats than the norm which I share with you, but your knowledge and quests far surpass my own. Bill

[Greg Guimond]

Ok Lars, I am officially stumped!

[lars]

Dear George, Bill and Greg.


Glad You All find the Flying Flipper hull interesting. As You can see in my photo and video links the hull is quite strange, but in it's day

accomplished it's objective; to deliver out-most seaworthiness in the 50-60 knots range, (boat is extremely pitch stable boat in rough

conditions), without compromising fuel efficiency and ability to jump out of the hole. Provide room on-board for family outings or

commercial patrol use, (has aft cabin with bunk for two adults. Additional four bunks in forward cabin!).

The twin Evinrude V8's took the boat beyond it's handling limits, whereas the previous boats had ran twin 200 hp Yamaha motors and the

boats then topped out at 60 knots and would do 52-54 knots with 10 passengers on-board. With the 300 hp V8 Evinrudes, she did 70 knots,

but became flighty and ran on the chopper props only.


The key to the hull's abilities are the following design features;


1. 28 degrees dead-rise at transom.

2. 'VERY' warped dead-rise, so whilst deep at the transom, the bow has an extremely fine entry.

3. Unusually shaped notched transom.

4. The notched transom plus high transom, creates the possibility to mount 20" motors very high.


The benefits, in addition to above mentioned, are that she carries her bow well, but also that the after-most section of her hull will contact

the water as the boat rise onto plane and force the bow down for better acceleration and also make her less prone to launch off waves.

Worth noting is that with the extra long modern trim tabs, Steve 'Hutchy' Hutchinson was able to stabilize her at her new 85 mph top

speed and the stabs., ("sponsons" seen in photos), were deemed to be an unnecessary addition. Many modern "non- ribs" have different

type of stabs. added to their hull sides to give a more stable ride in really rough conditions.


Bottom line; she's a remarkable extreme rough water boat with great comfort, practicality and fuel economy, but at speeds above 80 mph

there are are much better choices out there :wink:

[Greg Guimond]

The key to the hull's abilities are the following design features;

1. 28 degrees dead-rise at transom.
2. 'VERY' warped dead-rise, so whilst deep at the transom, the bow has an extremely fine entry.
3. Unusually shaped notched transom.
4. The notched transom plus high transom, creates the possibility to mount 20" motors very high.


Lars, that is pretty darn unique to say the least. Do you actually have the boat now in your garage and have you run it? How long is it overall and what is the beam? Is there any other boat in its length ever to have a 28 degree transom? WOW :cool!:

[lars]

Flying Flipper specs.

Length 9.05 meters
Beam 2.60 meters
Draft 0.80 meters
Weight 2,900 lbs

Construction; Divinycell sandwich core, deck and hull.



Here's a little more about the fearsome Skagerrak Across Offshore Race, round trip Norway-Denmark. Only the MTI Team, (Speedracer), had video coverage, so there's unfortunately no fotage showing the Flying Flipper taking on the rough sea during the race and trailing the MTI. Everybody else, (about 15 boats), threw in the towel with the exception of The Ugland Groups' Fabio Buzzi designed mono-hull, which just in time before the finish line, passed the Flipper during the last section of calm water at the end of the race.

VIDEO; http://www.klikk.no/motor/baat/article313889.ece

P.S. Greg my boat, which is in Gothenburg, Sweden, is currently being rigged and prepped for the 2012 season. Due to the offshore racing events in Scandinavia coming season, I do not yet want to elaborate on what power I will use, but one of the main challenges is actually to choose and correctly mount the best possible steering available. The top of the line IMCO steering, for the twin 300XS Mercs, did not hold up during The Round Britain 08 Race and I want to avoid any steering related reliability issues at all costs. D.S.

[lars]

To answer Your question Greg about other hull designs with 28 degrees at the transom, I would say that Swedish racing boat designers in the 1960's and on were like most others world wide in awe of Indian-Italian Naval Architect Dr. Renato 'Sonny' Levi, (link; http://www.surfury.co.uk/design.htm ). Many of his designs had a transom of +25 degrees and when the two Swedish S.A.S. pilots, Henriksson and Ebbekke designed their Smuggler boats, (link; http://www.smuggler.se/history.htm ), from the mid 60's to the mid 70's, their boats mostly had 26 degrees at the transom.

However, the Swedish boat design and manufacturing family who followed closest in Dr. Levi's wake was the Boghammar family, (link; http://www.boghammar.se/ ). They showed up with aluminum offshore racing hulls with 28 degrees at the transom from 1966 through 1968. They made a series of four boat with length of 22'-27' and participated on the World Offshore Racing circuit. Tage, the father and his two sons Lars and Anders, but also the daughter Pia, all raced on the circuit. The Boghammars' raced in Viareggio, Italy in 1967, the Bahamas 500 and the Cowes-Torquay etc. and it was during these races that they made close friends for life with Don Aronow and John Crouse among many others and Mr. Tage Boghammar was able to secure the rights from Don Aronow to manufacture Magnums at the end of the 1967 race season. Don's outboard 'No. 4 boat' was sold to Mr. Boghammar and that was the beginning of the manufacturing of all the Boghammar Magnums in Stockholm, Sweden.

I also here include a few videos, mainly from the 1967 and 1968 racing season and in the first video You can see one of the first build Boghammar Magnum 28's, (24 degrees at the transom), 'Senorita Mercedes'(owned and raced by Aje Philipson, future inheritor of his parents family owned Swedish MBZ automobile distributorship), being backed down on a trailer next to the Boghammar aluminum racer 'Speedy Gonzales', (28 degrees at the transom) around the 50 second mark in the video. I then list a few more videos from races where the Boghammar boats took part, mainly 'cause there are plenty of other well-known race boats from the period appearing in the rare films taken by the Boghammar family members.

VIDEO LINKS;

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sx5ERPfbgE

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY-s0ytrUgI

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiwViisZAD0

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=one7h0IIyG4

[Sweet Cheekz]

Very interesting pictures, stories and boats. Congratulations Lars

Parnell

[Greg Guimond]

Very cool post Lars, thanks. I think I am partial to this one ..........

[gcarter]

Sonny Levy was (and still is) an original thinker. In his book "Dhows to Deltal" he talks about the trial-and-error methods he used to develop his "Delta" hull form. You can always tell a Delta as it has no distinctive hull sides as the hull sides are simply a continuation of the bottom as you can see in the picture Greg posted. No outdrives in those days, Levy would run very flat Vee-drives extended beyond the transom using surfacing props and outboard rudders. Sometimes the rudder would extend 3'-4' beyond the transom and be offset 6" to the port side.
Today, everyone simply copies successful hull shapes, Levy would try anything different. He built a 28' record attempt boat w/30* deadrise. It was run a number of times in Lake Como but was very unstable. After that, you could say w/justification that 30* deadrise might be too much, but someone had to try it.