Design number: 38 Year: 1982
For any racing yacht designer the Admirals Cup represented a huge milestone, and it is to Larry and Debby Wooddell that gratitude must be expressed for creating that first, all-important opportunity. For Jade was the first Humphreys design to be built to this level.
Jade, built by Neville Hutton in Lymington, was inspired by Roller Skate. Larry and Debby had been racing their She 36 Chevalier in the same class as Roller Skate, and had been impressed by her. Some IOR rating help for Chevalier furthered Humphreys’ case and the decision was made to go for the Admirals’ Cup. Although Humphreys had carried out a huge amount of rating consultancy work for a number of eminent Admirals’ Cup owners, it is never quite the same as the complete design responsibility. For obvious reasons the whole package, including the boat in fact, was green. For the Wooddells it was a jump in experience, as of course it was for Humphreys, Hutton and just about everyone else involved.
Jade did not in fact make the British Admirals’ Cup team, but she did come extremely close and was a natural choice for the British Southern Cross team the following winter.
For all participants the Jade experience was exciting and extremely useful, with seeds sown that were to blossom in a big way two years later.
Jade herself was sold to Peter de Ridder and became Mean Machine, first in a line of Admirals’ Cup yachts for the Dutch sailor
Below some words on Jade from Ewan Blair:
One Tonner Jade
Built: 1985
Design: Rob Humphreys:
The Admiral’s Cup was the perfect testbed for design experimentation, typified by the One Tonner Jade, which won the 1985 One Ton Cup and came second in the Admirals’ Cup of the same year.
Designer Rob Humphreys remembers: “She was designed to compete in what, with hindsight, was one of the most competitive One Ton Cup world championships ever. If I remember correctly there was a fleet of about 40 boats, counting probably 30 brand new ones.
“She was a very committed racing yacht – no compromises, which I was sometimes prone to do in order to add some value – and won the event.”
Owned by Larry and Debbie Wooddell, Jade’s talented crew included David Howlett and Rodney Pattison.
“She was a particularly good reaching boat but could hold her own in an upwind/downwind context,” adds Humphreys.
“The former characteristic was important because the Ton Cups then retained a strong offshore element and often one would sail with cracked sheets, and in this respect we tended to romp away from the competition. We were also leading our class in the same year’s Fastnet Race as part of the British Admiral’s Cup team, but lost our mast in ironically benign conditions in the Irish Sea.”
“With Jade’s [design] I sacrificed some draught against stability, and although it hurt a little upwind, in terms of VMG the power we had on a tight fetch was pretty awesome. The keel was heavily elliptical with a very short root-chord, commonly referred to as ‘Mickey Mouse’s ear!”
