Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/07/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]C. Raymond Hunt was one of the most prolific boat designers of the last century. He designed a wide range of powerboats and sailboats that were often highly innovative and almost always widely admired. Many of his boats are considered classics. The Concordia Yawl and the Boston Whaler are just two that come to mind off the top of my head. The classic deep-V powerboat hull is also his. The owner describes Huntress as a Ray Hunt "one-off." It's very much in the tradition of the plywood slab-sided 110's and 210's that Hunt also designed in the post-WWII era. Those were intended to be fast, low-cost, racing sailboats. they were to be cheap and great fun to sail. Like those boats, Huntress is long and very narrow, designed for maximum speed and sailing pleasure. She appears to be strip- planked, a build method that would have been very new at the time Huntress was designed. We were anchored off the Weepeckets in Buzzards Bay having lunch a couple of weeks ago when Huntress sailed in and anchored next to us. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rtaylor/PICKS/2009_boating_pad/300_4337.jpg.html or http://tinyurl.com/ldz944 Huntress Bow-On You can see just how narrow she is by comparing her beam to the height of the guy standing on the bow. Her maximum beam looks to be about four feet. That's astonishingly narrow for a boat about 30-feet long and very much the opposite of most boats today that are built beamy to maximize the available space below. Huntress was designed for speed. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rtaylor/PICKS/2009_boating_pad/300_4340.jpg.html or http://tinyurl.com/m4ho7r The Boating Party The cockpit was is very long and narrow making for a tight squeeze if more than a few people go along for the sail. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/rtaylor/PICKS/2009_boating_pad/300_4352.jpg.html or http://tinyurl.com/mud6ff I've not been able to find out anything more about Huntress on the web, but more about Ray Hunt's boats is available here: http://www.huntdesigns.com/about_ray_hunt.htm D300 etc. C&C always welcome. Regards, Dick