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Reprinted from:
Northern Breezes Magazine
Brad Robinson's New A
Scow
by Sammy
Behr
 Scows
have been racing the inland lakes of America for
over 100 years. For nearly that entire time
A-Scows have ruled the waves as the premier
class of inland lake racing. In the alphabet
soup of Scow racing, C’s, X’s, M’s, and E’s all
have their attributes, but the A-Scow has always
reigned as the place where the big boys take
their big toys and put their big egos on the
line.
At 38 feet the A-Scows are the largest and
fastest of the scows. It’s not unheard of for
A’s to hit speeds of 25 knots. Historically, the
fleet has been considered a “development class”
with a “box rule” that allows any design that
stays within certain parameters. During the last
decade, however, the fleet began to depend on a
single boat builder and began to lose some of
it’s reputation for being a fleet that
encourages and rewards innovation.
Last year, long time Lake Minnetonka scow
sailor, Brad Robinson built a new class legal
A-Scow that’s been making waves in scow racing
since it’s debut. The boat is not radically
different from current A-Scows, but it
demonstrates what you can accomplish with a
clean sheet of paper.
Designing the Next Generation Scow: In 1995,
seeing the drawbacks of a design that was
decades old, Brad began the process of
evaluating the current boat designs and
considering designs that would re-invigorate the
A-Scow fleet. Along with his own ideas about
rigging and deck layout, he enlisted the help of
several east coast designers with ties to
America’s Cup design programs.
One of the original designs included a radical
carbon fiber hull that would weigh a scant 1200
lbs. for a 38’ boat. But these designs did not
conform to the existing rules and were radical
enough to immediately outdate the entire fleet.
 In
2001 a builder was found who could make molds
and a hull for the boat. This is no small task,
and the fact that PAR Systems in Shoreview,
Minnesota was a local company made it too good
of an opportunity to pass up. A conservative
hull shape (based on the existing hull shape
most racers currently used) was chosen and the
building of the hull commenced in December of
2002.
Robinson choice of a conservative hull shape was
part of his long-term plan to donate the hull
tooling to the Inland Lake Yachting Association
(ILYA) A-Scow fleet. With this, the fleet could
own a hull shape for their fleet and be able
license it’s use to suitable boat builders.
These licensing fees could be used, in turn, to
fund fleet promotion. Furthermore, most A-Scow
owners have wanted to see the fleet rules
tightened up to make the fleet closer to a “one
design” fleet, and this would be one way of
accomplishing that goal.
In 2000, preliminary design research had
included taking an existing Melges A-Scow and
measuring the hull with a laser inferometer.
This created precise digital drawings of the
hull that included all the bumps and
non-symmetric idiosyncrasies of the hull.
The basic shape for the new hull was decided to
be the same as other A-Scows. The only
noticeable difference is approximately 6cm of
additional hull width at the bow and stern of
the boat. While this increases drag in light
air, it slightly increases waterline length up
to the point when the boat starts to plane in
moderate to heavy winds. It’s a trade-off that
avoids potential copyright infringement of
another boat builder’s design while insuring
that the fleet can move toward tighter design
rules.
The Building Process: The first step was to
build a plug for the hull molds at PAR Systems
in Shoreview, minnesota MN. They operate a huge
computer driven five-axis milling machine that
was able to precisely create a rigid Styrofoam
plug.
While this Styrofoam differs from the stuff you
might find in your beer cooler, it’s ideal for a
large plug because it’s light enough to operate
in the milling machine, it’s easy to cut, and
it’s shape is very stable. These resulting plugs
provide exact copies of the intended hull and
deck shapes with which to create molds.
Not all molds are made this way. Some molds are
called “splash molds” because they use an
existing boat has a hull plug. While this method
saves money, it also reproduces any waves,
twists, or manufacturing errors from the
original hull.
Molds are next created for the hull and deck
using the plugs. These are made of heavy
fiberglass and can be used over and over again.
To keep the molds in their proper shape, heavy
steel frame are built around them for
reinforcement and support.
To create the actual boat hull and deck, the
materials are layered within the mold from the
outside moving in. The deck is eventually
attached to the hull, and then both hull and
deck are lifted out of the hull mold. From this
point on, it’s a matter of drilling holes,
mounting hardware, and painting a name on the
side of the boat.
Details Make The Difference: The real
differences with Robinson’s new boat are the
accumulated benefit of many small changes to the
rigging of the boat. He’s been racing and
tinkering with scows his entire life and this
was Robinson’s chance to start from the ground
up with his own ideas. So let’s take a tour and
see some of tweaks that prompted Robinson to
name his new boat The Victory.
 Bow
sprits and asymmetrical spinnakers were
introduced to A-Scows about ten years ago and
are now filtering into other scow designs. But
there are problems with this because the low
profile of scow hulls place the foot of the
spinnaker so close to the water that it’s
difficult to see other boats. This is a big
distraction when you’re sailing at 20 kts.
Robinson’s solution was to point the bow sprit
skyward placing the spinnaker tack over four
feet above the water.
On an A-Scow, it’s a stomach-crunching crew that
replaces the keel’s job of keeping the boat
upright. While Robinson couldn’t eliminate the
work of holding your head out of the water, he
was able to slightly round the edge of the deck
and make the whole ordeal more comfortable for
everyone’s backside.
Because of their width, A-Scows have two
rudders. A single rudder in the center of the
hull would often be out of the water when the
hull heels over. Robinson moved his twin rudders
further outboard, which improves
maneuverability.
On an earlier A-Scow, Robinson had begun using
foil shaped rudders, which were a significant
improvement over the previously flat and
shapeless rudders of a by-gone era. Robinson was
the first to use foil rudders back in the mid
90’s.
On the back of any scow with twin rudders,
you’ll notice connected twin tillers with the
leeward tiller not in use. Victory eliminated
this mess with a commonly found single tiller on
the deck that uses below deck tie-rods for
controlling the two rudders.
The jib on Victory is self-tacking. A curved
track on the foredeck allows the sheet to
auto-tack from side to side with one line lead
to the cockpit that controls the tension on the
sheet. There’s no pulling an armful of jib sheet
during a tack, you simply trim to account for
acceleration out of the tack.
The single track means that you can’t adjust the
angle of the sheet like most of us do with our
typical jib layouts. For Victory, the jib sheet
attaches to a clew that allows for different
attachment points. Attach it low to add sail
twist, attach it high to allow depth in the
sail. A future design of this sail will
incorporate an adjustable lead on the clew board
so the lead can be adjusted while sailing.
A-Scows have several different variations of
boom vangs. Most noticeably, the vang on Victory
doesn’t lead from the boom to the base of the
mast. Instead it leads straight down to a track
that runs across the deck similar to the
mainsheet track.
On most sailboats, you tighten the vang to force
the boom to bend the mast, which flattens and
de-powers the mainsail. On an A-Scow, you use
the backstay and running backs to control mast
bend while the vang is mostly for keeping the
boom low while sailing downwind.
The end result of Robinson’s numerous tweaks has
been a boat that’s easier to sail and manage
around the racecourse. The biggest challenge of
sailing an A-Scow has always been to simply keep
the boat from breaking or tipping over, so any
improvement in ease of handling allows the crew
to focus less on mechanics and more on winning
races.
 An
easier boat to sail also helps keep sailors
competitive later in their careers. The Victory
crew’s average age is 50+. They are all in good
shape, but these guys aren’t muscling the boat
around the course.
On The Water: Of course the boat is only part of
the equation when it comes to racing. Robinson
has recruited experienced sailors who’ve owned
and raced A-Scows for decades. They were
successful with their previous A-Scow program
and managed to win an impressive 12 of 21 major
regattas they competed in.
In their first year of competition with the new
hull the Victory program has seen some success
on the racecourse. In their first season, they
finished second in the A-Scow Inland
Championship on a tiebreaker, and managed a win
at the ILYA Invitational.
While the Victory didn’t win many individual
races at major regattas, they consistently
finished in the top three and rarely had a bad
race. This indicates a boat that might not have
dominant boat speed, but a boat that allows to
crew to sail well, keep their head out of the
boat, and not make mechanical or tactical
mistakes on the racecourse.
The very idea of a newly designed A-Scow has
been intimidating to some sailors, so Robinson
elected to forgo receiving trophies at the
regattas he entered in his first season. But for
2004 the racing will be for real.
Scandal in Scow Country: Anytime someone
succeeds at something new in racing, you’re
going to end up with both fans and critics.
Robinson has no shortage of either.
There’s a general trend in the A-Scow fleet to
tighten up the rules and limit the potentially
expensive development of new boat designs. Even
though the cost of building Victory was
comparable to a factory-produced boat, it’s a
difficult and intimidating process for even
A-Scow owners to undertake.
 Within
the past year, the ILYA A-Scow class has refined
their rules to restrict any new boats with
modified hull shapes; this includes the Victory
hull, which will be “grandfathered” under the
new rules. Most measures consider the hull shape
differences to be inconsequential. But this
clause has caused enough controversy that some
owners have moved to form a new racing
organization that bypasses the century old ILYA.
The newly formed National Class A Scow
Association (NCASA) is closely affiliated with
Melges Boat Works, the dominant manufacture in
the class. Like the updated ILYA rules, their
class rules are also significantly tighter than
the old ILYA A-Scow rules. For Victory, the most
important difference is that they effectively
outlaw the Victory from competing against Melges
boats.
The class is currently in a struggle to decide
it’s future and the Victory has become central
in that struggle. On one hand, the fleet can
attempt to make their fleet a strict one-design
rule that’s designed around the Melges boat, and
that boat only. The other option is to stick
with the newly tightened ILYA rules that are
similar to the new national class rules except
that they are overseen by the ILYA.
 Regattas
for the NCASA have been scheduled for the same
dates as traditional ILYA regattas in 2004 in
direct competition with those races. What will
come of all this remains to be seen. Many of the
current Melges boat owners have been willing to
band together. For many of them, it’s about
preserving the resale value of their boats.
But the ILYA A-Scow sailors have no intention of
just drifting away to allow the national class
to take over its operations. Many people view
the Robinson boat as central to the spirit of
scow racing. It’s new, it’s fast, it’s well
designed, and it’s a natural evolution of the
fastest, most advanced, and fun design around.
There’s a long and successful tradition of the
A-Scow fleet that’s survived many challenges
over it’s 100 year history, and it’s often been
a bellwether of the future for other scow
classes.
Although this is a chapter that’s still being
written, we already know it’s one that will be
remembered for years to come. It’s going to be
an interesting summer in Scow Country.
Robinson has created a web site that goes into
great detail with photos regarding all these
features of the boat and the process of building
the boat. Check it out at
www.VictoryByDesign.org.
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