Fish Eye View (the orginal of this was on
Sailing Anarchy, but I can't find it to link to.

Is a term based on Freudian psychology. Similar to Porsche ownership but with out the social stigma.

Having a faster boat, which, usually, these days means a big, phallic, bow sprit. Siggy would have had something to say I’m certain.

 Those of the Brighton Sailing Club persuasion will see where this is going.  My mate Matt is looking for a new boat. His current yacht is not exactly a 4KSB but he has a bad case of bowsprit envy.

Orbit (Shaw 10, shot, I think, from "Karma Police"
(Shaw 9) Hence why its not being left behind.
Rob Shaw doesn't design 4ksbs

There are many tricks to getting a boat to go, and go fast. Some are obvious, like power to weight I.E. big sails light hull. Unfortunately boats like that fall over. Dinghies get around this by leaning, or trapezing out the side. Yachts can’t really do this, it’s a matter of scale. The traditional method is to strap a lump of metal to the bottom. Odd Yachtscome along with loads of trapezes. But its really not practical.

Other methods of getting around this problem, include catamarans, width instead of keel weight, that’s why they’re fast another trick is water ballast. Fit tanks to each side of the boat fill the upwind one with water. Adding a ton of water to the side will counter a lot of wind. But your still lugging an extra ton around. And Newton’s f=ma still applies.

Simple tricks include making the keel deep, for more leverage for less weight.

All of these can bend the cardinal rule, but its still the most important factor, size. All other things being equal bigger is faster.  My mate Matt’s been looking at the other method of boat speed improvement. Canting keelers.

"never  judge a man by the size of his prod"

And we’re not taking about just a canting keel. No, one of the boats he looked at, and yes it had a very large bowsprit. Was ultra light, big mast; carbon, all carbon – no bottle screws rope lashings, no wires carbon rigging. On top of the basics of light weight and high power its got a three meter draught keel that swings sideways. Think it might be a hell of a quick boat. Its baby sister “Karma Police”, good name, owned by its designer  appears to be quite capable of holding off, and get this, not just boats far bigger than it, but appears to be able to take a 50ft canter.

OOOh look at the size of that bowsprit

There’s another one for sale right now, same designer. I bit less extreme, it only has a 2 meter canting keel and is a bit more conventional. Shame about the ally mast. Still a nice boat, but no match for Orbit, Deep Throttle or Karma Police. He's looking at other yachts, more conventional ones. I normally slag of boats like these as being neither yachts or dingies but these shaws are nice boats. Want to see some class boat porn? Have a look at Rob Shaw's youtube channel.