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POSH: much more than a
replica of a masterpiece
POWERBOATS
BY ERIC SORENSEN
J
ohn L. Hacker was a top speedboat designer and builder in the
early part of the last century, and he knew a thing or two about
planing hulls that many designers today have either forgotten
or never knew. The speedboats and commuter craft Hacker
created may have been necessity-driven designs, but they were
beauties to behold.
Theres no question that long, slender boats are more comfortable
at speed, easier and more economical to propel, and have more gentle
motions at rest than shorter, wider hulls assuming that the hull
shape, propulsion choice and center of gravity are all on target. And
the fact that they are long and low makes them sleek and, therefore,
more pleasing to the eye. So why arent boats today designed with
these proportions?
One answer is simple: Today we can make boats as fat and hard to
push as we please, thanks to powerful, lightweight power plants. In
fact, the only reason we can get away with building boats that are as
much as 35 to 40 percent as wide as they are long is that engines are
compact and powerful enough to push them to any speed owners
want, as long as theyre happy to pay for the machinery and the fuel.
When boats such as the one that the Huskins Boat Works built,
based on a Hacker design, were all the rage in the 1930s, engines were
heavy and took up a lot of space. So the best way to get a boat to go
fast was to make it easy to push, which meant giving it a long and
skinny hull. In those days, if
you wanted to go faster than
20 or 25 knots, thats how you
designed them.
Hacker learned a lot about
planing hulls when he designed
the floats for the Wright Broth-
ers plane in 1911, going on to
win more than 20 world speed
records. But there were also
some things he may not have un-
derstood things that modern-
day designers such as Bill Prince
do understand and are able to
correct after a little reverse engi-
neering, thanks in large part to
computer-aided design.
As youve read here before,
good boat design is based on
moderation in all things not
too wide or heavy, or too deep-
vee or flat aft, and neither too
full nor too sharp forward. For
a given application, everything
should be like Goldilocks por-
ridge: just right. On the inside,
simple is better than compli-
cated. Complexity leads to problems with reliability, and having too
many problems steadily erodes the enjoyment of owning a boat.
In addition to getting the hull proportions and shape right, the most
important efficiency factor is weight, and the less the better. There are
60- to 70-foot yachts out there, specifically several convertibles, that
have chine immersions aft of well over 1 foot. This points to extreme
bottom loading and proves the axiom that you can make a brick plane
if you push it hard enough. On the other hand, boats can be too light
and too reactive to wave gradients and uncomfortable as a result.
Bill Prince Yacht Design in Port Washington, Wis., is not one for
making bricks plane. The companys tagline is Naval Architecture
Designer Bill Prince has been called on
to create a 21st century interpretation
of the 52-foot commuter yacht POSH,
designed by John L. Hacker in 1937.
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+ Award Winning Design = Elegant Engineering (billprinceyacht
design.com). I like what Prince has done during his 20-year career
as a designer, especially his ability to combine the discipline of an
engineer with the eye of an artist. The result has invariably been well-
performing boats that look great. You appreciate them equally when
watching them from the dock or standing at the wheel maneuvering
around the docks or at night offshore.
But although Prince balances art and science, including the science of
unbroken arcs of horizon visibility from the helm, others take a much
less balanced approach to yacht design. There are many boats out there
that look as if they came from the pen of a stylist who has never run a
boat, with no consideration given to situational awareness.
Many of these are impractical and unsafe to be aboard once they
cast off from the dock. So its marvelous when someone really un-
derstands the possibilities of intelligent boat design, who can balance
operational capability with gorgeous looks in other words, highly
functional eye candy.
It turns out that these long, narrow boats of the 30s, with their
modest weight spread out over a long bottom, have so much to offer
when done right. To pull this off, one needs a talented and aware de-
signer and a customer who understands and appreciates what these
old girls had to offer. Such is the case with Prince and his client F.
Todd Warner, and the 52-foot commuter yacht known as POSH.
POSH is a reimagination of a 1930s art-deco commuter yacht but
bristling with superyacht tech under the surface, Prince says. Its
really something unique.
With todays technology, originals can be greatly improved. Why
in the world would you play Bach on a harpsichord when the grand
piano has been in production for almost 200 years? Rather than build
POSH plank-on-frame using mahogany over white oak, as many
boats were in those days, its a simple matter to fashion her with
epoxy cold-molded wood. This creates a far stronger, waterproof,
low-maintenance boat that will last indefinitely with reasonable care.
The epoxy bonds the wood planking strips and frames together
to create a monocoque structure, with the hull skin doing much of
the structural work of supporting the boat longitudinally to resist
wracking and providing transverse support. Of course, these boats
also have stringers and bulkheads for support, but hull skin that is
welded together by epoxy reduces the stringer and frame scantlings
required, offering both weight and cost savings during construction.
In fact, POSH will be built of mahogany to give her the look of the
original but with all the advantages of cold-molding.
You could build this boat out of cored fiberglass or even make
it plank-on-frame, which adds an authenticity that some people
would value more than they would be concerned about the extra
maintenance required to keep the boat in good shape. I am as fickle
as anyone I know in these matters. A staunch partisan for compos-
ites, I lose all my resolve when I see and smell an honestly crafted
cedar-over-oak lobster boat. I no longer care a whit about the extra
maintenance, which may not be significantly more than it takes to
properly maintain a fiberglass boat, by the way. But on balance, the
point is that we have so many more and better choices now than we
did in John Hackers time.
Another bonus with the new POSH is the choice of propulsion, with
inboard gasoline power provided by twin V-12, 453-hp Rolls-Royces
or V-10, 725-hp Ilmors (good for 60 knots if you dont profile well as a
Type B). Or go with diesels, with a selection of FPT, Volvo or Yanmar
power from 435 to 570 hp each. Then there are the electrical, plumbing
and mechanical systems that completely outclass those of 80 years ago.
The modern POSH will be 52 feet, with a beam of 10 feet, 9 inches,
[ POWERBOATS ]
Hackers POSH (above, when she was known
as WeeJoe II) and Princes computer-generated
take on the classic commuter.
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and a displacement of 20,800 pounds at full load. With all the water-
line length and low displacement, she should climb on plane with
very little fuss or bow rise. (By comparison, a typical 52-foot by 17-
foot, 6-inch production convertible weighs slightly less than 80,000
pounds.) The original version of POSH was built in 1937 for $75,000
and was featured on the cover of Rudder magazine.
The new boat is largely true to the original, although Prince has
tweaked the hull to reduce resistance aft, flattening the buttocks
by eliminating rocker and taking the convexity out of the section,
which might reduce rolling a bit while cleaning up water flow
at speed. Compare the drawing showing the before and after
designs (see Page 120), and youll see what Im referring to. The
waterlines curving inboard aft indicate the convexity in section
(as seen transversely from keel to chine) and in the rocker cre-
ated aft, which creates negative pressure, raising the bow.
POSH has fore and aft cockpits, with a forepeak cabin in the bow.
The saloon is just abaft the forward cockpit and is fully enclosed for
those inclement transits. The open bridge has its own large wind-
shield. Nothing makes a boat look so pretty as its length, and this one
has it in spades. The raised bridge deck stretches to the aft cockpit,
with its U-shaped settee near the stern.
The engines are under the bridge deck, which balances the boat
nicely, with the longitudinal center of gravity about 40 percent of the
waterline length forward of the transom. The fuel tanks are forward
of the engines, below the helm, and centered just forward of the
boats center of flotation, which happily results in the bow coming up
slightly as fuel is burned and speed increases.
The net effect of the engine and fuel tank placement is that LCG is
39 percent forward of the transom, or 61 percent abaft the stem at the
waterline, which is perfect for a boat with this ones speed capability.
Hinckleys tumblehome has nothing on POSH, and there is nary a
straight line to be found topside.
Back aft is a U-shaped settee thats two steps down from the
bridge deck. A gate closes off the area, which can be flood-
ed to create a spa tub. Although you dont want to flood the spa
with water in a seaway, theres plenty of form stability to
[ POWERBOATS ]
If it aint broke,
make it 21st century
By Chris Landry
F. Todd Warner, an authority on classic wooden powerboats
who owns the original POSH, approached designer Bill Prince
roughly two years ago about building a 21st century version of
his 1937 classic.
I am starting my 40th year specializing in the restoration, sales,
service, design and construction of vintage boats and vintage boat
design, says Warner, CEO of Mahogany Bay and RetroModerne
Yacht Design in Mound, Minn.
Warner, by the way, says he has owned more than 1,000
classic boats. In fact, he also owns Guy Lombardos 44-foot
Tempo. He is a walking, talking encyclopedia of classic
boats, Prince says.
Warner acquired the original John
Hacker-designed POSH in 2005. His
company has restored the yacht, and
she has been on display at major boat
shows. I am starting my ninth season
with POSH, he says. After a thousand
boats, [POSH] is the one that rings all
the bells and lights, all the fires, and
gets all the juices flowing again. That
gets harder to do when you have had so
many boats to play with.
Warner is enthused about the atten-
tion POSH has brought to the slender-
hull design. He has driven his classic
600 nautical miles on the east coast of
Florida. I am out there in 4- to 5-foot
waves in my long, skinny boat, and its
amazing how well it performs in these
big chops, Warner says. You get out
in something long and skinny that slides
through the water and doesnt pound,
and it is a great experience. A lot of
people dont understand these old
hull designs have some merit to them.
Prince, who was featured in a May 2013 Q&A in Soundings,
has many projects under development, including a 75-foot alu-
minum catamaran, the new 45-foot Huckins sportfisherman, a
70-knot carbon-fiber sport yacht for a Kuwaiti client and alu-
minum patrol boats built by Metal Shark in Louisiana. Even so,
Prince considers POSH among the most notable yachts hes
designed in his 20-year career.
The new POSH is still in the engineering phase, but Warner
and Prince are in discussions with one of the worlds foremost
yacht builders to launch the project, Prince says. They expect
construction to begin late this summer, with completion in the
summer of 2015.
The project certainly has captured everyones imagination,
Warner says. Its a way to take the past and pass it on to the next
generations.
continued on Page 120
POSH incorporates the latest
technology, including a
custom touch-screen helm,
a concealed waterproof
television and an aft cockpit
that converts to a spa.
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counter the free surface effect of that spa water at anchor or at the
dock. Making this arrangement even more decadent is a hydrauli-
cally activated waterproof television that emerges from the deck
aft, along with waterproof surround-sound speakers.
Farther aft we have a lazarette deck that slides on tracks for ac-
cess to the storage space below. Look closely at POSHs transom,
and youll see a rectangular outline in the o and s of her name.
This is the aft end of the hydraulic passerelle, lest you think guests
would have to exert themselves getting on or off the boat.
Below that, at the boot top, is the outline of the hydraulic swim
platform, which projects when its needed and tucks away
out of sight when its not. And that boot top is made of inlaid
brushed stainless steel, rather than being painted on in the
usual lowbrow way.
If you are fretting that people sitting in the forward cockpit
sipping cocktails are neglected, you can relax. A canvas soft top
above the forward saloon slides out to cover your head, torso, legs
or whatever degree of shade you wish to have. That precise shade
angle is then maintained automatically as the boat swings on the
hook at anchor, so you can tan the right knee but not the left, or
whatever you fancy. And although your tan line is precisely main-
tained by digitally controlled machinery, you do have to walk to the
wine locker abaft the galley to replenish your 1992 Screaming Eagle
cabernet because the one thing this boat does not have is a bell with
which to summon the butler.
While you are below, your needs have been seen to, as well. For example,
the old boats had finely crafted hand cranks to lower and raise the wide
windows. With POSH, you just touch the crank, which looks identical to the
original jewelry, and the window glides up or down with no further input.
I cant think of another boat that combines the glories of the past
with the marvels of the present as this one does. Its certainly to the
manner born (as its owners also will have to be), with a long length/
beam ratio, light bottom loading, a clean run aft for low resistance at
speed, a sharp waterline forward to tame the chop, and a layout that
allows for three or four conversation areas or activities.
You may not be able to fit a king-size berth and his-and-her lockers in
the forepeak, but who cares? POSHs owners will have a boat that, for
its size, will take a fraction of the power to push along at 30 knots, while
being coddled and pampered by all those amenities and a silky smooth
ride. Youre special, like everyone else, but POSH is really special.
Visit mahoganybay.net for more about POSH. n
21 Padebco 2006 Center Console .................... $74.9K
25 Parker Marine 1998 Pilothouse ................... 32.5K
25 Rosborough 1997 Cruiser .............................. 45K
26 Back Cove 2005 Hdtp. Exp. ............................. 99K
27 Maxum 1992 Sport Cruiser .......................... 16.5K
27 Rietschans Beaver 2001 CC .......................... 89.9K
28 Legacy 2001 Express ...................................... 79K
28 Albin 2003 Tournament Fish .......................... 68K
29 Back Cove 2007 Hdtp. Exp. ........................ 129.9K
29 Sea Ray 2005 Express Cruiser ......................... 69K
30 Pursuit 2000 Express .................................. 59.9K
31 Tiara 1995 Open Express ............................. 59.9K
34 Atlantic 1989 Sport Fisherman ....................... 59K
34 Silverton 1985 Convertible ......................... 24.9K
34 Cobalt 2007 Cruiser ....................................... 99K
35 Regal 2004 Commodore Express ..................... 99K
36 Little Harbor 1997 Expr. Cruiser ................. 179.9K
37 Four Winns 2006 Cruiser ........................... 129.9K
37 Silverton 1985 Convertible FB 2 ..................... 9.9K
38 Sabre 2007 Sedan .................................... 359.9K
39 Carver 2001 MY Aft Cabin ......................... 149.9K
40 Sea Ray 2006 MY ......................................... 269K
40 Windsor Craft 2009 Cabin Cr. ........................ 399K
42 Bristol 1981Trawler ................................... 54.9K
42 Webbers Cove Downeast Exp. ....................... 459K
44 Sea Ray 1993 Sundancer ................................ 86K
44 Viking 1983 FB MY ..................................... 99.9K
55 Hatteras 2002 FB Conv. ............................... 689K
POWERBOATS from Page 68
The original and revised lines show the warp in the hull sections
reduced for cleaner water flow at speed, reducing drag.
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