Southern Cross New Sail Plan

Designer Ben Lexcen (1936 - 1988)

Date1936-1988

Object numberANMS1543[386]

NamePlan

MediumPencil on tracing paper

DimensionsOverall: 1030 x 770

ClassificationsMaps, charts and plans

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds

Terms

DescriptionA Ben Lexcen preliminary sail plan design drawing for a 66-foot ketch rigged racing yacht. HistoryWorld renown Australian yacht designer Ben Lexcen was born Robert Clyde Miller, on March 19th. 1936 at Boggabri, in New South Wales, Australia. His early years were tough, being abandoned by his parents as a child. He spent time at ‘Boys Town’ Engadine but luckily went to stay with his grandfather at Newcastle, New South Wales. He left school at fourteen, after only five years formal education, to become an apprentice machinist at the New South Wales locomotive works. As a boy he sailed extensively on Lake Macquarie, often spending nights camped alone in his first small boat. In 1952, at the age of 16, Bob Miller (later Ben Lexcen) designed and built his first sailing boat THE COMET with his friend William Bennett. It was not long before he began to make a name for himself at local sailing competitions. In 1960 he entered his boat ‘TAIPAN’ in the 18-Footer World Championships, and later winning the World Championship in 1961 with his design, the 18-foot skiff VENOM. In 1962, together with his friend and sailing companion Craig Whitworth, he founded a sail-making company in Sydney called ‘Miller and Whitworth’ while continuing to design boats. Bob Miller became a friend of Ted Kaufman in the early 1960’s and stayed at his house in Sydney. At the time Kaufman was interested in building a new Admirals Cup racing boat and asked Bob Miller to help. The result was the fast and very successful ‘MERCEDES III’ later referred to as a Kaufman/Miller designed yacht. Launched in in 1966, it was part of Australia’s winning team of three yachts in the 1967 Admiral’s Cup series in England. Bob Miller’s (later Ben Lexcen) first large yacht design was the 51-foot VOLANTE designed in 1967/1968 for a New Zealand client. Built by Max Carte with a hull of double skin kauri and cedar, covered with fibre glass, the yacht was launched in 1968. With a length of 51 feet overall (12.5m), 47 feet (14.32m) waterline, a beam of 12 ½ feet (3.28m) and a draft of 9 feet (2.74m) it was an immediate winner and the fastest Division One boat in 1972. At about the same time ‘VOLANTE’ was starting to win races, a young Western Australian building developer from Perth called Alan Bond, was looking for a fast light-weight boat to race on The Swan River. He commissioned Bob Miller (later Ben Lexcen) to design a boat specifically to win races in the sheltered waters of the Swan River, Western Australia. With an overall length of 58-feet, the Bob Miller yacht ‘APOLLO’ was considered an advanced design and an extremely modern yacht at the time. The hull lines show a revolutionary design for a light-weight racing yacht, with a shallow hull, narrow forward sections but with wide, flat underwater shape aft. Built by ‘Griffins Boatyard’ in 1969 the hull of APOLLO was cold moulded with three layers of Oregon pine on laminated wooden frames. The yacht took part in the 1969 Sydney Hobart race, was second three times in later races. By 1972, Ben Lexcen (then Bob Miller) was 36 years old and one of the world’s top offshore racing yacht designers. At the time Bob Miller was still in ‘Miller & Whitworth’ partnership and two yachts were designed using the same hull lines and sail plan. The first to be built was GINKGO, the cold moulded wooden yacht made by ‘Halvorsen, Morson & Gowland Pty Ltd. for Garry Bogard. ‘APOLLO II’ was built of aluminium, also by ‘Halvorsen, Morson & Gowland Pty Ltd. and launched in 1972. Two smaller derivatives CEIL III and RAMPAGE won handicap honours in the Sydney to Hobart race. In 1973 Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) designed the 72-foot maxi racer BALLYHOO for Jack Rooklyn, which was built by the ‘Halvorsen, Morson and Gowland’ boatyard, and launched in November of that year. At the same time, he designed the 12mR Australian America’s Cup challenge yacht SOUTHERN CROSS for Alan Bond. This yacht would later be shipped to the USA for the races at Newport Rhode Island in September. Following the America’s Cup race in 1974, when SOUTHERN CROSS failed to win the cup for Australia, Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) left the ‘Miller & Whitworth’ partnership and moved to Cowes, Isle of Wight in UK. He later joined forces with Dutch naval architect Johan Valentijn and on designed the 12mR AUSTRALIA for Alan Bond which raced in the 1977 America’s Cup races. He re-designed the yacht for the next challenge in 1980. Bob Miller changed his name by deed poll to Ben Lexcen in 1977 due to the fact his name was still being used by ‘Miller & Whitworth’. Following three earlier attempts, Alan Bond’s dream of winning the coveted America’s Cup came to fruition in 1983 when the Ben Lexcen designed 12mR AUSTRALIA II won the cup for Australia. Follow the success AUSTRALIA II Ben Lexcen achieved international recognition. The Ben Lexcen Design team went on to design other 12mR yachts, fast racing and cruising yachts, as well as large motor yachts up to his untimely death on May 1st, 1988, at the age of 52. SignificanceThis preliminary sail plan by Ben Lexcen, showing the hull profile of a 20.22-meter (66-foot) sailing yacht, is an unusual and unfinished work. With no date, owner, or additional information indicated on the work it is likely a concept design drawing. The hull appears to be a combination of an International12mR at the front, with long overhang and rounded bow, but with the short aft shape of an IOR yacht with the rudder at the extreme aft end on a support skeg. The stations, marked on the designed waterline from ‘0’ at the bow to ‘44’ near the stern, suggest a hull lines plan might have been made for this yacht. The position of the two masts, together with the dimensions of the fore sail, mainsail and mizzen sail, further suggest the design was quite advanced.