In recent articles in the media a number of factual errors have been made.

"Ben designed the towing method used at NSMB for the Australia II tests"

MARIN employs the world’s best instrumentation engineers and to think that someone not familiar with towing tank practices can simply do what is claimed here is impossible. For an account of what actually happened see here.

"Ben used winglets long before Australia II"

When Ben arrived at the tank on 28th April 1981 he told us about some of his earlier experimentation referred to above. In the first meeting in which Joop Slooff was present as well, a few days later, Joop convinced him that the winglet idea was nothing like the small end plates he had tried before. End plates try to stop the flow from the high pressure side to the low pressure side (in generating a tip vortex) by forming a “fence” and is thereby only marginally successful, while winglets act as wings in that they develop considerable lift which, in turn, induces a flow counteracting the occurrence of the natural tip vortex flow at the wing tip. Ben was convinced, after the first few days, that we were on to something important and left us very much to do what we had started to do before he arrived in Holland. He followed everything that went on but he spent most of his time working on the 2 drawings depicting the changes to the conventional keel (keel II and keel III) and on the construction plans of the boat. This latter item was important since he had made appointments, during his stay in Wageningen, to visit Lloyds in England to discuss this – for which he needed the construction drawing to be finished.

Letter dated 9th February 1981 from Ben Lexcen to Warren Jones, stating "I have some novel ideas I would like to try in the keel area".

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009

I am aware of this letter. Ben told me that he needed to convince Warren Jones and Alan Bond to spend the extra money on a project such as we had proposed. The fact of the matter is however that when Ben arrived in Holland he didn’t have anything prepared for further testing other than his idea of looking at 2 variants of the conventional keel as adopted in 1980. If he had put forward any novel ideas we would certainly have tested these. We “took the lead” with respect to the “radical” approach as described on page 67 of our final report.

Telex from Ben to Warren Jones, dated 22nd May 1981, stating: "Keel III a big advance. About to take yachtdesign (sic) into space age. Darth Vader looks good in computer in 3 Dimension."

We refer to this telex in our documentation. Keel III was the thicker version of the conventional keel on “Australia 1980”. Darth Vader refers to Keel IV (the first crude upside-down keel with winglets) which by then had only been looked at by Joop Slooff in the computer, see here.

"At this stage Ben had already been at the NSMB for four months and the design program was already six weeks behind schedule."

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009, as a comment on a letter by Peter van Oossanen dated 2nd June 1981.

We have provided documentation about when exactly Ben was at the NSMB (MARIN), comprising a total of 21 days only, see here. The programme commenced a week late, no more than that, and the planning thereafter was strictly adhered to. When Ben left on 17th June, we had just finished testing of keel IV which showed potential but was not capable of winning races. Considerable work was carried out after that with many refinements necessary to the concept, see here.

"These telexes clearly show that Ben was in Holland through all the critical stages of the breakthrough keel's design and testing."

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009.

"These telexes" John refers to are a telex from Warren to Peter dated 9th June 1981 ("Agree that Lexcen must remain until final configuration agreed thus leaving you to complete your formal report which is required by Alan Bond by earliest possible date.") and from Ben to Warren dated 15 June 1981 ("Going to Germany to meet John Bertrand's Professor.... Be back at tank Thursday and Friday, come home Saturday.").

Warren wanted very much for Ben to stay till the very end of the design process but Ben refused, see here. Ben left on 17th June while the test programme went on to the middle of August 1981, and the remaining drawing work went on for another 4 weeks after that. The most critical phase of the testing was that of keel V and keel Va. The results thereof gave us the “Eureka” feeling – to use a term used by the media - see page 67 of our final report showing the time trace of what went on.

Telex from Peter van Oossanen to the Head of the NSMB, Dr M.W.C. Oosterveld, dated September 21 1983, which was mid way through the America’s Cup finals off Newport, RI. In it Peter van Oossanen advises his superior how to respond to Mr R Latham (representing the NYYC).

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009

I haven’t yet addressed what actually transpired during the America’s Cup in Newport itself – but I will as soon as I have a chance. The fact of the matter is here that Warren Jones drafted the message and firmly asked me to request Marin to send this – which I did. Warren told me that this was the only way to get the NYYC to stop their interrogations and attempts at getting to the truth. I will re-visit this in due course and provide a copy of Warren’s draft.

In Barbara Lloyd's book Upset she quotes Ben who acknowledges the role of the NSMB personnel: "They (the staff of NSMB) were just doing what I told them."

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009

Anyone familiar with the process at any research laboratory will know that it is always the designated project leader from the laboratory organization that is in charge of the project. The client is only able to express his wishes with respect to changes or anything else to the project leader and it is the latter who decides on the action to be taken. Ben was friendly with all concerned and everyone liked him but he was not in charge of anything at the tank.

"Finally when the full scale lofting of the boat arrived from Holland and was laid out on the floor of Steve Ward’s shed in Cottesloe, I and Steve watched as Ben spent days crawling over the lofting floor fine tuning the lines. Later he did the same with the keel lofting before the plug was made."

Source: John Longly, Scuttlebutt, October 19, 2009

This I can believe, but I too visited the building of the keel mould and Steve Ward’s shed where Australia II was built and I couldn’t find anything that represented a noticeable change. Ben would have told me if that was what he had done.

Back...