Over the past four months, I've had numerous conversations with Scot here at SA about the newsworthiness of our latest endeavor. While the novelty of a hard-chined racer/cruiser may be interesting, we agreed that a far more important discussion, at the moment, might be to give you an insider's view of what it takes to commission a new design.

Why did we choose this route? Where do we intend to end up? And, how will we get there? We decided that I would write a series of articles, beginning with the decision-making process and the task of selecting a naval architect, and see where it goes from there.

I want to set out a couple of housekeeping items before I get into what I hope you're here to read:

1. There are two questions I'm not interested in answering:
a. How much will it cost?
i. The word "it," in this case, is universal and includes, but is not limited to: the boat, design fees, campaign/sailing costs, my wife's patience, etc. As Sir Michael Fay once said so succinctly to a group of American journalists, "I could tell you how much we spent on the new boat, but invariably my wife would read what I said and tell me, 'Honey, that's not what you told me it would cost.'"

b. How stupid am I?
i. Cannot be answered until we put her in the water.

2. I'm not here to flame the state of handicap or measured rule racing in the US, US Sailing or the US IRC Office either specifically or in general.

I have always been attracted to custom boats. Unlike production boats, they are not hampered by the fundamental production requirement of 'marketability." As a result, they are a far more pure representation of the designer's and owner's personalities and perceptions of a boat. It is a process that seems for owners, from the outside looking in, intimidating, difficult, and one that requires a great amount of talent and experience to complete. In reality, we've found it to be quite the opposite. Building a bespoke boat has been, up to now, a truly fabulous, rewarding experience.

Like many of you, we grew up in a sailing family. My father learned to sail in Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight (United Kingdom.) My brother and I learned to sail in Marina Del Rey. Over the past few decades we've had a number of boats including: Star 3850 (that's the Eichenlaub boat Ficker used to win the 1957 and '58 Worlds,) a Yankee 30, a Santa Cruz 40 and a plethora of dinghies. Currently, we own a Joubert-Nivelt designed ILC 40 (formerly Sprint 4) along with a Sabot and 2 Lasers.

We've done a fair amount of racing. One, two or all three of us have competed in: 3 Transpacs ('85, '93 and '03), 2 Pacific Cups ('98 and '00), 2 ARC Races ('92 and '05), 2 Double handed Transpacs ('89 and '91) along with numerous other offshore races. We've raced under: IOR, IMS, Americap, ORC Club, IRC and PHRF. Interestingly, we did both Kenwood '92 (the first major IMS regatta in the US) and Big Boat '04 (the first major IRC race in the US). Although we have sailed quite a bit and owned a number of boats, this is the first boat we've commissioned.

A year ago, I approached my wife and father with the thought that it was time to look for a new boat. I argued that: a) our current ILC 40 is almost 10 years old, and b) we cannot comfortably take her to Catalina for a fun weekend with our 9- and 10-year-old children. Of course, my wife saw right through my pitch and said, "so you want a different boat…fine." Of course, my father didn't argue in the slightest.

With that approval in hand, I took a look at the available market of boats. All of them fell into one of two categories: a) faster boats, but no interior (Farr 40, Farr 39ML, Schock 40 and Farr 36), or b) slower than the current boat, but with an interior (Farr 395, Sydney 38, etc.). What I really want is a boat with a moderate interior that sails about as fast as the current one. I should also add that I promised my wife, several years ago, that 42 feet was our upper limit on size. While she supports our family's sailing, she and I agreed that at some point there had to be a limit to the madness.

Having deemed all of the current inventory 'unacceptable' for our needs, I picked up the phone and called Jim Antrim, a naval architect with whom we had worked before, to talk about our options. A couple of weeks later we had a good chat over lunch and I decided that we would look at a custom boat.

Now to find a naval architect who could take our ideas and needs and turn them into reality…

I work in New Business at an advertising agency, so I've been through the "Professional Services Solicitation Process" once or twice before. Because of this experience, I realized that we needed 'new build' knowledge on our team.

I turned to Harry Pattison, of E/P Sails, who has been our sailmaker and advisor on all things sailing for almost a decade. I have always appreciated his counsel as being both pragmatic and effective.

Another lunch behind us, this time with Harry, we felt that the bespoke option would certainly have a better chance of giving us the boat we wanted. He gave us the same advice I've given advertisers on many occasions: "chemistry is the number one asset in a relationship like this." On more than one occasion, I've ended up regretting giving that piece of advice as the prospect has turned around at decision time and told me, "we felt a better chemistry with the other agency."

After meeting with Harry, we outlined our request for proposal -- a description of the boat we sought -- and we developed a list of potential designers we would include in the bidding process.

Initially, we thought about a fast racer with a modular interior for weekending. We wanted a boat that was more focused on inshore than offshore racing. We wanted a GRP boat instead of a carbon one (for IRC.) And we concluded that the geographic proximity of the designer was important. As we had never been down this road before we wanted them relatively close.

In the end, our list was whittled down to four, for the sake of convenience:

1. Alan Andrews: he has a tremendous track record for producing successful boats on the West Coast. Further, we had sailed a couple of thousand miles with his #2, Fred Courouble. Together, they are a very talented team.
2. Jim Antrim: we had worked with him before on a couple of appendage projects. His calm, nearly silent demeanor, while not so great for sales, has been a good foil for my mercurial, 'bouncing off the walls' approach to life. He also has America's Cup experience.
3. Jim Donovan: Scot suggested him to us. Now living in Hawaii, he has a great background and good experience. When the discussions began, he had recently finished "Trader," a boat I really like. Finally, Jim Donovan has quite a bit of America's Cup experience.
4. Nelson-Marek: They are, without a doubt, a tier-one design firm with tons of America's Cup experience. Additionally, they had worked with Harry before to produce some very successful MORC boats.

So, there we were, the first major step towards the completion of a new boat: we had an RFP and a list of potential suitors. As I was getting ready to send the packages out, my father stopped me. He thought it was a perfect opportunity "to take a step back and look, once more, at the current landscape and our situation with the added perspective of what we'd learned recently:

1. From our brief discussions all of the listed NA's were eager to bid and willing to share ideas.
2. The marketplace was completely stagnant. There were no TP41s, no IMS 40 fleet, no IRC boats on build or racing, and the ORC 42 was in its most embryonic stages of development.

As a result of this analysis we greatly opened up the RFP in an effort to see what creative ideas percolated to the top.

Two weeks later we began 'face to face' meetings with the designers that resulted in a number of very interesting discussions. But two of them really stood out. The first was that of Nelson-Marek. They presented us, upon arrival, with a sail plan for an ORC 42. They had really done their homework and were ready to discuss their vision. Greg Stewart was very persuasive, and we walked away from the meeting very impressed.

Jim Antrim took a very different approach. Of course he had the advantage of having worked with us before. He asked more questions than anyone else. He ended up making three suggestions.

The first was that we should look to going with an IRC racer/cruiser that favored the lighter displacement end of the spectrum. This would give us the dual-purpose boat we sought, while allowing it to be reasonably competitive in both Southern California and at Big Boat Series.

His next suggestion was an outgrowth of my concern over the resale value of our current boat. IMS 40s, even in good shape, aren't worth much. He was confident that we could strip the current boat for parts and come out ahead.

His final suggestion was what I would call a "triple espresso percolation." I won't forget that conversation for a while. It began like this: "Antony and Nick, I've got this idea. It probably isn't your style, but it could save a ton of money. I've been playing with a plan for building a hard-chined boat using flat composite panels. Let me send you a few images."

A hard-chined boat was an idea that took a while for us to get our heads around. Harry's first thought was that it was "waaaaay too risky."

We took the next couple of weeks to learn as much as we could about hard-chined boats. I even took a day during a vacation with my wife in England to visit with Thievpal, a fellow Anarchist and naval architect whose advice I highly regard.

In the end, the consensus was that a chined boat was a bit of a risk and would be slower than a 'round' one due to the additional wetted surface area. However, the cost savings could be significant. At any other time we probably would have taken a pass on the idea. But times are different. There is no real racing rule and no other 40s on build for the West Coast; so we decided to take the risk.

From the outside, and to the competing naval architects, our decision must have been a bit of a shocker. But it was not easily reached. Jim Donovan was great - we developed great chemistry. Alan's reputation is difficult to be overlooked. But I was most surprised by Nelson-Marek. They were creative, prepared and Greg was passionate about wanting our business. I'm sure each of them would have designed a great boat.

In the end, we agreed that Jim would not just give us a great boat, but also the one we specifically desired. And it will be different. Very different.

And that, my fellow Anarchists, is how we decided to commission a new boat and how Jim Antrim won the bid for our new 40.

I'll keep you up to date periodically as we go through the rest of the process and culminate with the christening of our new boat. I hope you'll enjoy the ride as much as I plan to. Comments?

02/10/06