Good thread on Gary Mull over on SA.

[John B]

I recall reading it the first time but its been bumped up today.

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=33505&hl=gary+mull


He was pretty influential here as a designer. He came to peoples notice when one of his smaller boats surprisingly won a race to Fiji or Noumea and with that profile then formed a partnership with a local boatbuilder to produce some production run boats.
The Chico 30 from the 70's is a great family cruiser for coastal( and offshore) and his Chico 40 and 42 models from the 80's are right up there as desired offshore cruising boats, they still sell for quite big money even though they're 30 years old.

[mike hanyi]

I raced on the IOR boat "gonna getcha" and she was a Mull design, I have respect for him and it is suprising he is a forgotton designer. he had talent.
the boat is current called "Carrot" in Middle River Maryland

http://www.rocketboats.com/about/garymull.html is agood read

[John B]

Funny how stuff happens , I was just looking at a couple of mull 40( Chico 40) boats with my mates yesterday at a marina, making the usual "now that would be the one to get for an islands trip" type remarks, then later over a quiet rum, I dragged out the 1976 boating magazine article on my Laurie Davidson boat ( I was given the magazine last week) to show them and in the context of the design brief process it says,
" the syndicate asked Davidson for a fast boat similar to the Gary Mull designs they had been looking over..."
Then the SA thread bumped up top.

Makes me think that next someone will ring me and tell me they've bought a Mull today LOL.

[bamamick]

but when I think of Mull I think of the part that he played in resurrecting the 6mR class. If I am not very much mistaken he did design the first of the 'St.Francis' boats and those builds and the racing that took place in the Aus-Am Challenge regattas pretty much got things rolling again after a long hibernation for that wonderful class.

We had some Mull designs around here for a long time. He was popular in the New Orleans area and we had a 1/2 tonner and a 3/4 tonner that we very popular boats. Crew killers, but popular boats.

Mickey Lake

[davidagage]

Mull did the 1964 Drawings for S&S of Black Spirit. :D
From what I understand, he was very influential in the development of the Spirits.

[John B]

Mull did the 1964 Drawings for S&S of Black Spirit. :D
From what I understand, he was very influential in the development of the Spirits.


You see , thats what I'm talking about.
I love that stuff, understanding the links and the paths , the evolution of the designs so you can see it as a picture.

I've said this before but back 15 or 20 years ago when I was a classic boat snob with eyes only for Fifes and Logans and Bailey Victorian and Edwardian gaff yachts( sailboats), my eyes strayed to a 'modern' boat. And then later I spotted another one of completely different size or purpose but it rang some sort of bell for me ,and another and another. It took 5 or 10 years to work out that they were all from one designer, Laurie Davidson. Then later again I saw another one that did the same but it was like a Davidson on steroids and when I investigated it it turned out it was by Brett Bakewell White. I then learned that BBW worked for LD for 9 years! A familial resemblence.

Arch Davis does the same for me with his open boat designs, I just see exactly what I want to see when I look at his penobscot boats.

[John B]

I have a parallel thread going on a local site and David L ( who lurks here from time to time) has some nice insight to some of the Gary Mull designs in NZ.


Visiting Auckland on my way to doing the Suva Race in 1973 in Castanet I rafted up alongside her former owner, Lin Carmichael, on Chico at Brown's Island and determined there and then that my next boat would be a sistership. Another boat intervened and I had to wait 5 years before ordering Bobby Shafto from Keith Eade.

The minimalist cabin top/flush deck arrangement - though reminiscent of Castanet's 'bubble' - was a signature on all Mull's racing boats - from Chico through to his famous Improbable and La Forza del Destino.

Chico was a racing relation to Mull's Ranger 33 design (very successful US production boat). I'm not exactly sure which came first.

Then what we know as the Chico 30 (which was the Ranger without it's counter but an outboard rudder) or, if you like, Chico with a longer coachroof. The first of these was the wooden Chubasco from which Keith Eade's Chico 30s (GRP hull - wooden decks and superstructure) evolved.

The Chico 30 - of moderate displacement by the late seventies - was still competitive offshore. In the 1978 Tauranga-Vila Race Bobby Shafto was second only (by 4 minutes corrected) to the current Fossil designed one toner Domino, with another Chico Auriga, 5th.

[bamamick]

in the UK for around 30K €. The boat has been refinished, has new teak decks, new rig, and a trailer! That is a very sweet deal for someone, though it's been for sale for a long time and with all of the Sixes in England right now it makes one wonder. Of course, since the World's is over now it looks like half the UK fleet is for sale.

It has long been a dream of mine to recover an older US metre boat and bring her home to race. Would be marvelous.

The thing about a metre boat that's scary, is that you might wind up buying a boat that's just not fast. Of course you could take it to a designer and modify it (and a number of 6mR's have different keels than the one's they were built with), but that's expensive and perhaps not in the spirit of the thing. You've just got to love the boat for what it is.

A Mull 6mR lost her mast this weekend at Port Townsend. 'St.Francis V' dropped her rig on Saturday in a reported 15-25 knots.

Mickey Lake