In his article on the repowering of classic designs with modern electric motors (see page 20), Ben Parson presents us with a range of distinctly different hull shapes that are all classically beautiful. On the cover of this issue and on page 20, we meet VEGA, a launch from Maine’s Cranberry Islands built in the 1930s. Her round-bottomed displacement hull differs markedly from that of WOMBAT, which appears on pages 20 and 22. WOMBAT was cold-molded in 1992 to a 1915 design by William Hand, who pioneered the concept of V-bottomed hulls for powerboats. These boats could reach semi-displacement speeds and thus exceed theoretical hull speed. With their hard chines, angular hulls, and broken sheerlines, they ushered in a new level of performance in powerboats—and challenged conventional notions of beauty in boats in general
Further along in the article is TOODLIN’, a 19′ Glen-L runabout that recently had her 5.4-liter V8 inboard motor replaced with a 40kW (about 53-hp) electric outboard. As the photograph of her toodlin’ along at speed on page 32 attests, she’s a pure planing boat; she can reach 24 knots with her new electric powerplant—a modest speed by runabout standards but an achievement for an electric powerboat.
These three boats are from varying eras of design and are quite different from each other. I find each of them beautiful—and in keeping, more or less, with the standards for beauty set forth by Harry Bryan and Maynard Bray in their article “Beauty in Boat Design,” beginning on page 72. But when I turn to Tad Roberts’s review of the 14′ center-console powerboat Crispy 440 on page 98, I’m challenged. This boat is different from the three presented above and does not conform to the parameters of beauty laid out by Harry and Maynard. The sheer is dead-straight. There is no complexity to the bow profile. The stern reverses. And yet, I find the shape to be compelling. And alluring. And, dare I say, beautiful in its expression of ability.