Peter Cole
1963-4
Nationals and States
$200-$800
Download the Cole Super Moth plans (PDF - 54Kb)
Phil Stevenson's comments....
These were all built by hand in moulded ply. Could also get a professionally made shell and finish it at home. Soon after there was a fibreglass hull which was rounded all over, not even a sharp gunwale. It also was the first with a hollow bottom. There were almost two tiny bows at either side of the front and the hollow bottom went back to about the mast. These hulls were solid glass, no foam, and went very soft. After that they went multi chines with thinner and thinner ply.

This was also an era of rig development. At Seaforth there was a family of Bowens who I believe were credited with the pocket luffs and hockey stick masts. The variation was the square top mast which has a fixed aluminium out rigger which held the leach of the sail up. The hockey stick or square top effectively reduced the roach which meant the dodgy cloth did not stretch as much. They did not have camber inducers but there were varius means of attaching the battens to the masts. It got easier in 1968 when the first fibreglass battens were released.

Peter Moor's comments...
I think it was Greg Marshall from Seaforth that modified the Cole mouldie to be double chine plywood to simplify construction. Having built 2 cold moulded moths myself I can confirm that this was a major leap forward greatly simplifying the construction process. My first was moulded using 3 layers of 1/16" Australian red cedar veneers, as was the norm, laid diagonally keel to gunwhale, with thousands of staples, all of which had to pulled out again after the glue had cured. The 2nd used 2 layers of 1/10" cedar veneers.

The double chine moth was then modified again by David "Shorty" McKay to produce the Imperium, with the hollow sections forward. Peter Holmes stuck with the cold moulded Cole mouldie during this period. I then modified the Imperium with less rocker in the chine line and compensated the nose diving with greater rocker in the keel line produced by increasing the bow section hollows. The bow also was given a chisel like bevel like a Fireball bow which made nose diving almost impossible. The deck near the bow was higher above the water level maikng it harder for the water to get on top and force it down. The reduced rocker made the boat much faster I thought especially reaching in breeze. The introduction of the wings in the early 70's coincidentally assisted the reduced rocker as the boats were now faster. When slightly healed the boat had fairly straight chine rocker, pulled flatter the rocker increased! Around 1974 the WA sailors started laying the bottom ply at 45 degrees to the keel line increasing bottom strength enormously.