A Tribute to Al Rapier by Dick Stoute
What do you do when an old friend passes? I often recall episodes, detailed little movie clips, which highlight good times and bad times. Here are some of them.
I am at a CSA Measurer’s meeting in Tortola, mid1980’s and Al is explaining his proposed new formulae for the Rule. There are objections, alternatives are proposed… after a while Al blows up, slams his fists to the table and stalks off. After a short while returns and resumes where he left off, with no further objections…
Al, John Knox and I are at my home in Barbados. Al and John flew up from Trinidad for the weekend. Al has prepared a list of yachts with target ratings and our goal is to find formulas that achieve those targets. I have prepared a Lotus spread-sheet to do the calculations. At the start we all suggest new formulas, but gradually Al dominates and we settle into a routine where he proposes the formulas while I key them into the computer and print the results. This goes on for two days and we get close to the targets we had set. Previously Al would have done all this by himself with a calculator, but the spread-sheet speeds things immensely.
The new rule is published, and performs so well that Al gets over confident and thinks that it can fairly handicap “bumped” boats. He brags “bump if you want the Rule will deal with it” – so boats are bumped – but then the rule does not perform so well and accusations fly. A storm in a teacup from this distance, but hot, hot, hot at the time.
Part of that storm played itself out at Antigua Race Week in 1991 with Bobby Simonette and Al leading the charge to penalize Legacy, Immigrant and Countdown by 2%, while ignoring inconvenient CSA and IYRU rules in order to push this through. As part owner and crew on Andrew Burke’s Countdown, I was upset, but Dougie was the most vocal and after a flare up between him and Al at Tobago Race Week, Al resigns and I become the new Chief Measurer. Al and I remain friends and much later, when he comes up with his Dynamic Rating Rule, we engage in a critical analysis of its performance.
Al was a brilliant mathematician, engineer and yacht designer. He combined these skills with a focused determination that got things done, even as it alienated some participants. In hindsight I think he had the ability to focus in detail on a problem, but while doing this he could not tolerate alternatives. He applied himself to the Caribbean Rating Rule from the 50’s to the 90’s and has had a major influence on the Caribbean Yachting Community. I learnt a lot from him and empathized with his goals and frustrations. I think that Al’s was a life well lived. I will miss him.
Tribute by John Knox, Former CYA Measurer – Trinidad
Al had been an excellent correspondent over the 26 years (yes!) since I left Trinidad and came back to the UK, and he kept me up-to-date with developments of the Rule, as well as sending me details of his proposed new boat, “Tierce”.
I first got to know Al back in 1980, when I was a young engineer working in various Neal and Massy plants, and had just graduated from the dinghy-sailors to own my own cruiser, “Andante”. You will remember racing against us at PSV and other gatherings.
In addition to developing the West Indies Rule (as it was known in those days) as Chief Measurer for the West Indies Yachting Association (as was), Al was at that time the only measurer in Trinidad, and when he had to go away for a few months to have a cataract operation, he asked me, at quite short notice, whether I would be interested in taking over that responsibility. After a few sessions shadowing Al, I was left in charge, and undertook most of the measurements in Trinidad for the next 8 years or so, as well as some interesting assignments in other islands – do your remember the weekend we spent in Martinique measuring their fleet for the first time – and the amazement of the onlookers when I asked for a snorkel and mask so that I could dive in a admire the handsome bumps that had been installed at the quarter-beam measurement points!
Al was I think a civil engineer by training, and he worked for Texaco, taking responsibility for the design of filling stations (gas stations) all over the Caribbean. He was also a very talented yacht designer with a very clear idea of what made a yacht move, as exemplified by his old boat “Maxixe”, a simple hard-chine plywood 26 footer which could fly on a good day. More recently he designed a larger successor, “Tierce”, on similar lines to Maxixe, although I don’t think anyone has built one yet – look at http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?124653-Rapier-41-Wooden-Boat-Magazine-Designs-Jan-Feb-2011
As you will recall, during the early 1980s yacht design underwent some radical changes, with new light-displacement designs like the J-24 and the Beneteau “Firsts” running rings around the heavy-displacement boats built to the IOR Rule. The West Indies Rule was conceived by Al to enable yachts from all over the world, built to all sorts of rating rules, to come to Caribbean and race together under a simple common handicap system at events like Antigua week. The original rule was developed by Al from first principles, based on a number of simple measurements that could be completed in an hour or so, and it worked well with the heavier-displacement boats, but the lighter designs, capable of achieving planing speeds when sailing off the wind, raised some challenges.
As you will recall, you, Al and I spent many weekends closeted away, attempting to develop Al’s original simple algebraic formula to encompass a wider range of boats from lightweight skimmers to heavy maxi-racers. Our work was quite leading-edge for the time, and I remember that you brought along your new PC that had a radical programme called a spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3, remember that!) which enabled us to make rapid calculations based on the measurements of the entire CYA fleet, to compare actual yacht performance against the performance predicted by the Rule. This helped Al to keep the Rule up-to-date. However, the success of the CYA Rule through all the challenges over such a long period, it is a measure of the respect in which Al was held all over the Caribbean sailing community. I suspect without that respect the “big beasts” of the sailing world (people like Jim Kilroy of “Kialoa” and Bill McAteer of “Immigrant”) would have contrived to bring the rule to an end.
Al’s wife Margaret was a lovely lady and a superb cook, and her final illness caused Al great distress as he nursed her through this time, until her death a few years ago.
Tribute by Richard Innis from Barbados
I first officially met Al at the T&T Sailing Association in 1974 or so. At the time we were all involved in developing the new premises the Club had leased in Chaguramus. Many years later in 1986 we again met in Barbados when I joined the engineering department of Texaco Eastern Caribbean Ltd and Al became my immediate boss until his retirement to Trinidad four years later. What started as a working relationship grew into a close friendship which lasted until his death last Tuesday 3rd February 2015. His early passion for sailboats began while he was still at school in his native Grenada, during which time he built and raced his own boat – a twelve foot dinghy.
After school he went on to study civil engineering in the UK, got his first job in Venezuela working to construct oil platforms in Lake Maracaibo. Then on to Trinidad where he worked on the Port of Spain Sewage Scheme, and finally with Texaco.
His job entailed travelling to most Caribbean markets where Texaco had petroleum retailing facilities and he developed many friendships over the Caribbean region as a result.
It was while in Trinidad that he resumed his sailing activity, first sailing with Capt. Hugh Mayers on the 30 foot Shark Class “Hammerhead”. He then ventured into designing and having constructed his own Maxixe, a 26 foot 3/8 inch thick skinned plywood cruiser / racer which up until ten years ago was still performing creditably.
He next graduated to the 30 foot fiberglass hulled Pioneer which he owned until he had to relocate to Barbados with Texaco.
In Barbados he remained active in yachting and was regular crew on Blazin, a Beneteau First 10.
It was while part of the sailing community in Trinidad and Barbados that Al became actively involved in yacht racing and the development of a practical system of handicapping for use in the Caribbean. Applying the knowledge of mathematics and fluid dynamics acquired during his professional training, he came up with what has become the CSA Rating Rule of sailboat handicapping – a system now widely accepted and applied in the Caribbean region.
Up until fairly recently he continued to tweak and develop the rule – His most recent innovation was utilizing the period of oscillation of a displacement hull to calculate it’s displacement. Unfortunately that concept never gained traction with the regional handicapping authorities, and the concept has been left for now, to die with Al.
Another of his pet projects in his final years was the design of a 40 foot stretched version of Maxixe for which he had produced a full set of working drawings and which design was reviewed and published in “Wooden Boat” magazine – his second most favorite monthly publication after “Yachting World”.
Al was married to Margret nee Attal of Trinidad and they had one daughter, Natalie. She had been teaching in UK until having to return to be with her parents prior to their death within two years of each other. The family shared a great love for dogs – particularly the miniature breeds. Al was an early riser and every day for him started with morning coffee – in later days always taken while looking out over Port of Spain and the Gulf of Paria from his apartment in Bayside Towers, Cocorite.
Another of his routines was the weekly Tuesday coffee mornings which himself and Sydney Knox, Rawle Barrow (deceased) and some other sailing buddies held at Rituals in Glencoe. The same group also regularly met at noon on Saturdays at the T&T Sailing Association for soup.
Needless to say he was an extremely sociable person, who particularly favored the ladies I might add.
He will be sorely missed by those who remain of his generation – friends he more recently complained were fast becoming few in number.
God Bless Him.
