The following information has been reproduced courtesy of Rob Legg from his website located at http://www.rlyachts.net/

I would like to thank Rob for allowing us to provide the information about his boats and I recommend all yachties keen on the RL boats to visit his website to see upcoming events.

I feel it is important to publish the history of such boats and their builders in Australia, as we are increasingly losing touch with our boat building heritage. Having recently fallen in love with an RL34 (which I hope to buy a year down the track from now), I wanted to glean as much as possible from Rob. His story is fascinating, so please read on below and make sure you visit his website.

RL24, RL28, and RL34 Trailable Yachts from Rob Legg Yachts

The RL24, RL28 and the RL34 were designed by Rob Legg on Queensland's Gold Coast. Equally at home in light airs of inland waters or out on the rugged coastal waters, these yachts have proven performance and safety features.

The RL Story

by Rob Legg

Episode 1

Swinburne Technical College was a miserable place in 1944. The quadrangle had been dug up for air raid trenches, and all the younger teachers had disappeared (probably enlisted) leaving mostly grumpy older staff.

I wanted out. I had never been happy there; it seemed more like a jail to me. I had been riding my bike from Doncaster each day, the round trip about 25 miles, and in the winter it meant leaving and arriving home in the dark. There was no street lighting for the last three miles, and my acetylene head light gave nothing but trouble.

During the last week of the year we were offered the opportunity to see the places that we could take up apprenticeships, and as I would be sixteen in four weeks time, I could leave.

I had been interested in becoming a marine engineer, and the only place in Melbourne taking apprentices was "Tynes Iron Foundry". As soon as we walked in the door, I changed my mind, this had to be the dirtiest noisiest place I had ever been in. There was a row of boilers with the apprentices inside, holding doleys, and men on the outside belting red hot rivets with sledge hammers. And this was where they started new apprentices! NO WAY!

What now? I could go looking for a job at something else. WRONG!

The war was in its fifth year and it appeared that I didn't have a choice. It was compulsory to register with "Manpower" and was told. "If you don't go back to school you will take up a job at "BGE ". They want some one to work at assembling telephone relays. OK then, anything was better than going back to school, or working in an iron foundry.

At British General Electric I was instructed in assembling telephone relays, at the princely wage of twenty five shillings a week, and that summer I spent most of my pay at week ends down at Albert park lake, and taught myself to sail (on Pop Hooper's hire boats). That was something I had wanted to do for a long time.

There seemed to be no future in staying at BGE, as all their top staff was brought in from England and it appeared that Australians just didn't get promoted there. I thought it most peculiar that a manager would wear a bow tie, carry a handkerchief up his sleeve and leave a leaf of toilet paper around the edge of the seat after he left the toilet.

At the end of twelve months I was allowed to leave, and I found a job with a chemical company.. They were offering seventy shillings a week, and to me seemed a much more enlightened crowd.

This photo of Trojen was taken with the first Telephoto newspaper camera.

Now with cash to spare I could at last afford to join a sailing club, and that was something I had been longing to do for a long time. Hanging around the St Kilda fourteen footer club on a Saturday and hoping to be picked as a bailer boy when the weather was rough was fine, but I wanted badly to belong and sail every Saturday in a permanent crew.

There was a boat in the club called "Trojen", owned by Bob Keeley, he had asked if I would care to join his crew (would I ever), and so it came about that I became the main sheet hand on Trojen .

On moderate days we sailed with four in the crew, but when it was blowing we picked another as bailer boy.

I got on fine with Bob Keeley. He was always trying something new and we soon became great mates. And we tried out all sorts of new ideas together.

Sailing now became the dominant thing in my life. My lunch times at work were mostly spent down in Flinders Street, wondering through Ingless Smiths or Burrows ships chandlery or finding an excuse to go in to Radin the sail makers.

The fourteen footers club had a junior class, it was eight feet long, cat rigged and carried seventy square feet of sail. These boats sailed on a Sunday morning, so if I built one it meant that I could sail both on Saturday and Sunday.

My parents had moved from Doncaster ,and bought a small mixed business near the corner of Hoddle and Johnston Streets in Collingwood. This was quite a culture shock for me, being used to the wide open spaces and a shed in a big back yard, however it did have the big advantage of being much closer to sailing and work.

Our new back yard was about fifteen feet by ten, this would be just enough to build a boat, so I bought a set of plans from the club!

I still remember most of the specifications. It was to have half inch Maple or Silver Ash planking, a half inch planked deck, and a 2x1" frame every foot. By today's standards this was ridiculously heavy, but that was quite normal then, and water proof plywood was not yet available.

Fastenings were copper nails and roves, and I still have some of the left overs today.

The instructions said, "All timber to timber surfaces should be coated with red lead before assembly". The finished boat weighed around one hundred and fifty pounds, and was quite a lift for two men. A friend with a small truck took the hull down to the sailing club where I could paint it, and I still had to make the 17 ft mast, that was a problem as the only space that had the length was upstairs in the hall way of the house, and after some wild promises made to my parents that was where it was built.

The mast complete, how to get it to St Kilda? My father solved this, (any thing to get rid of it) Dad bailed up the driver of the early Sunday morning Point Ormond 'bus and asked him if on his next early Sunday trip would he take the mast and me to St Kilda? The following Sunday the bus turned up. We tied the mast on through the sliding windows, gave the driver five bob, and off we went. I can't imagine the driver of a Tramways bus doing that today!

I sailed that boat for a season, and that winter built another boat, I had obtained some of the first water proof plywood available and against all advice, used it. I changed the shape by flattening out the floor and making the bow finer. At half the weight, it was a great success.

While constructing the second boat I had discussed with Bob the poor quality sails that were being made by the local sail makers, that was if they would make them for you at all, and we agreed that we could do as well if not better our selves.

We decided to give it a try, so I gave up my job. We pooled our resources, bought a second hand industrial sewing machine, and for a start took on repairing sails.

The two sail makers in Melbourne had been overwhelmed with work from the war. One Saturday I was asked to go and pick up a sail we had left with a sail maker in Elwood months before, it just needed a simple repair. I was shown in to a room packed with old sails and was told, "If you can find it just take it away".

The second boat built in the back yard in Collingwood had quarter inch bottom and deck. It caused some mirth down at the club, some suggested it would fall apart, or just bounce around on the waves.

In fact the boat was still over built and future boats were much lighter still.

In the skiff and dinghy classes the formula for more speed had been, "pack in more crew and put up more sail" This had reached a crazy situation where 14 footers were carrying two hundred and forty square feet of sail and packing five men out on the side, plus a bailer boy who either sat in the bilge pumping all day, or perched on top of some unfortunate crew member.

The boats were so unstable that they would not sit up in the water on their own without a crew member holding on each side.

Getting off the beach and in to deeper water was an art. It went like this:

• One of the crew on each side to hold the boat into the wind.
• Skipper in first and picks up the rudder
• Forward hand next and holds centre board up in slot
• Second forward hand next pulls the bow away, then jumps in and gets the jib on
• Main sheet hand swings in and gets the main on half way, the boat then had to be sailed out to windward just steered with the sails until it was deep enough to juggle the rudder in.

We had set up our sail making in a spare bed room at Bob's parent's house in Windsor, and had little trouble getting small repair jobs.

Life was slowly getting back to normal again after the war and demand soon outstripped the supply of most materials, and services. Small boats were being built again and there was a boom in the building of "Sabots",

So orders for new sails started coming in and we were kept busy. It was not unusual for us to work through in to the early hours.

The premier sail cloth available was Egyptian cotton and sails made with it were roped with Manilla rope which was hand stitched to the sail, and a lot of the shape in the sail was dependant on how much cloth was pulled down in to the lay of the rope during stitching. So the sail maker had to allow extra cloth for this. It was important for racing sails to be made using just the one roll of cloth, as the shrinkage varied a lot between rolls.

A wet sail could shrink six inches or more on a wet day and completely changed shape. This was a big problem when we experimented with long battens in mainsails, as when the cloth shrunk, it put a lot of pressure on the batten and the sail became impossibly full. No help at all on a wet day or after a capsize.

Light nylon cloth came on the market and we tried using this on spinnakers but it stretched so much that that it had to be cut back after every use.

Sailing clubs were very strong in this era. In the Fourteens club there were thirty plus boats and a membership of around one hundred and fifty. Not one owner owned a trailer and that meant that work done on boats was done in the club house, and on most Friday nights it was a great place to be. It was a hive of industry.

It is sad to note that years later when boats became lighter and were mostly taken home on trailers the clubs as such just disappeared.

Every thing was going well with the sail making until we were notified by our supplier that in future deliveries would be rationed. This caused us concern. We decided that both of us would go in to Melbourne and sort this out. Here we were told that all stocks had dried up, and that very little was expected to come out of Egypt in the near future, and there were no other avenues to try.

It is of interest to note that Bob Keeley persisted and kept going until supplies improved and continued making sails for many years. Today he is still in business but is mostly involved in the manufacture of spars and flag poles. He is still going strong after more than fifty five years in the industry.

Go back to Index | Go on to Next Episode

RL24 Features

The remarkable RL24 is still Australia's most popular trailer yacht with over 500 sold. Sleeping 4 in comfort, this yacht offers outstanding performance, easy launching, retrieving and rigging and particularly for the boating family the RL24 has many safety features and is the winner of the Good Design Award. The award features include simplicity of rigging, self righting and buoyancy, ease of launching, main and forward cockpits, performance and comfort, unique motor well, and maintenance free hand-laid fibreglass construction.

 

Designed to sleep 4, the interior is open and clear of unnecessary bulkheads to provide comfortable living. The midship toilet, galley and icebox areas are convenient and the cabin can be subdivided if required. Auxiliary power is provided by a 4 to 10 hp standard shaft outboard sited in a special well designed to prevent cavitation.

After the successful testing of a prototype in 1972, the RL24s were built between 1973 and 1987.  There were four models. Mark I : The first 10 had a slight chine mark up forward due to the original plug configuration. Altogether 100 Mark I's were built. Mark II from 1976 featured an upgraded hull finish and a heavier centreboard after some knockdowns Mark III built from 1980 had a new deck with increased headroom and interior alterations. Mark IV is a faster boat designed primarily for racing with a fully batterned main and a drop keel and was instigated by Peter Yeomans of Sydney in his third RL24. The RL24 was also built in Minnesota U.S.A under license and some 500 boats were constructed there. A dozen were also built in Western Australia. Brochure for the U.S. built RL24 (1MB) An original RL24 Price List (1MB) Tuning your RL for Best Performance

Dates of Manufacture

Note.The original list of owners and sail numbers was lost a long time ago, and this list will not be completely accurate as it is derived from snippets of information collected over the years.

Also. some sail numbers were issued in advance of their order by request to match the boat name, eg. "Calibre" sail No 303 should have been in the 200s.A block of sail numbers was allocated to the W.A. built boats but the builders concocted their own system, and some owners were just superstitious about numbers. The construction of some charter boats was delayed after numbers were allocated, but this list will give owners a reasonable idea of the manufacture dates of their boats.

A group of boats sent to Victorian owners during 1973--74 were allocated the numbers 101 to 105, and were well out ahead of order, and, for a period at that time sail numbers were not issued until the boats joined the association. See the RL website for dates.

RL28 Features

The RL28 designed by Rob Legg on Queensland's Gold Coast is the 'Maxi' of trailable yachts with 6 feet of headroom and six berths,. It features a hydraulically operated swing keel which is ideal for its home waters which are shallow with numerous sand banks and the 16 inch minimum draft enables the RL28 to be beached. But it is equally at home cruising the Great Barrier Reef where the shallow draft allows the craft in to explore the inlets

Many have undertaken long voyages .. One has sailed from Cairns to Port Moresby, then on to Lae. Another has sailed from Tweed Heads to Indonesia and back to Darwin and several have sailed at least half way around Australia and, although not designed to undertake trips of such magnitude, their rugged construction and comfortable accommodation, with full headroom, leaves little to be desired in family boating.

Internally the RL28 is built for comfort with a galley with stove, sink, generous ice box and ample fresh water storage, a folding teak dining table on top of the keel case and is fully carpeted. To enhance the extended cruising ability of the yacht, there are 19 separate storage compartments, shower, toilet and wash basin, and a hanging wet locker.

Read a boat test of the RL28 in Trailer Yachting Magazine

RL 28 test (380KB PDF file)

RL34 Features

The RL34 was designed with the Queensland Barrier Reef very much in mind. She is a boat that will sail well in the steep short seas that prevail in the area, be able to negotiate shallow entrances, and sail right up to the beach.

Her easy lines and clean run make her very easily driven in the worst chop, and drawing only 500mm (a little over knee deep) with the keel retracted, she can sai1 or motor into coves or creeks, where a conventional keel boat cannot go.

She was designed to be powered by a MD7B (17.HP) Volvo diesel conventional drive, which is located under the cockpit floor. The aft cabin can either be used for sleeping (two pipe cots), or as an excellent storeroom for extended cruising.

Her long flat iron ballast keel allows her to take to the bottom if necessary. The 3/4 rig is moderate, keeping in mind that winds all along the Australian coast are mostly fresh, and the Keeley KA10 mast with single spreader is very adequately supported by caps and lower shrouds and adjustable backstay.

Fitted with a storm cover and canopy over the roomy cockpit she will provide her crew with good protection when needed from rain, wind and sun.

Headroom in the main saloon is nearly 2 metres, and combined with her excellent accommodation makes the RL34 a very comfortable boat. Her sailing ability and overall concept has exceeded expectations and it is good to know when called upon, has proved herself capable of beating much larger boats offshore.

Accomodation

Comfortable accommodation from 5 to 8 Adults.

See: Modifications to an RL34 on the Tips and Modifications page

Here's my "crappy list" of things to watch out for when buying a production boat - particularly an express cruiser.

I will come back to this and add things to the list and include some photos, too. If you can think of anything on your boat to add, let me know and I will type it in here. These are characteristics common on many production boats - considered "throw-away boats" in the USA.

Now let's face it. These boats have to be pumped out quickly and in good numbers off smooth-operating production lines to justify manuafcturing costs. The boat builders are operating in competitive markets and need to keep their workforce going year in, year out. There is therefore very little if any regard as to how the boat is going to be maintained and serviced. That's not 'our concern once it leaves our factory,' they'd argue. But my line of thought is that you have marine mechanics, electricians, upholsterers, plumbers and other tradespeople working on your vessel. They are a form of marketing and what do they tell their friends at the pub over a beer about different brands of boat after a hard days work at the dock?

Here's a starters list of things to look out for and be wary of:

• Fuses located in difficult or near-impossible-to-access places: like hidden underneath a mountain of wiring up under the helm station, where you find yourself lying down on the deck in a contortionist act to test and or replace them!
• Cheapskate quality bimini, covers and clears: that will need to be replaced within a couple of years. You know when you can see the sun shining through them they ain't real crash-hot! Also be careful of using chemical cleaning agents on clears: they can actually do more damage than good! And zips...zips!!! Zippers do NOT belong on boats! A constant source of annoyance and guzzlers of vasoline, they are best replaced with any type of button or clip you can use as a more-reliable alternative.
• Lack of side decks: a big one on many express boats. You generally only have access forward through an opening hatch in the wind shield or forward deck hatches. But these can be cumbersome and somewhat more dangerous under certain conditions such as rolling seas or with wet decks.
• Fresh water pumps fixed on top of fresh water tanks and right up underneath decks where it is difficult or near-impossible to service the filter or the pump with any ease.
• Shower sump pumps bolted to bulkheads and again up and under decks in places where you simply can't access the filter without breaking it off or breaking something else!
• Stereo systems: with a myriad of wiring buried loosely in head liner and behind cupboards, ducting systems and bulkheads. None of it contained in wiring looms and all of it an absolute nightmare to replace. Then there's the speakers wired into radar arches etc. Have fun with that, guys!
• Cramped engine rooms: are perfect for midgets, but not necessarily the rest of us average folk. Production boats use every spare inch of space, which is great when you are trying to fit every conceivable appliance and gizmo known to mankind in the boat and market the advantages to buyers! But not so good for 'the chosen one' who has to venture down into "the pit" to help keep the boat running for your enjoyment.
• Wiring...wiring and more wiring. Honestly, is it just done to annoy the hell out of us boat-owners? It's never labeled, there are no wiring looms for anything and it's always a big bill if you cannot or will not do the work yourself. Man, just try tracking back 30 foot or more of electrical wiring throughout a boat and see how many expletives you utter before task-end.
• Windscreen wipers: are great when they work. But try replacing one on an express cruiser when its seized motor is mounted up under the deck, behind a cabinet, in the head compartment. Ask someone you really hate to do the job for you. 
• Lots and lots and lots and lots more vinyl. Those flashy new seats look fantastic! But in places like California or Queensland in Australia you seriously need to work hard and have good quality covers to protect them from the harsh UV rays of the sun. Once they start to deteriorate, it's an uphill grind to keep them in good condition.
• Plastic deck hatches. You gotta love plastic. Where would we be be without it? You could not imagine companies that make them running into financial difficulties. I mean, for such a small area of plastic they charge into the hundreds or even a thousand or more dollars! And that's before you pay someone to install it properly. They let good light in below deck, but once again the sun wears them down over time. They crack, they are difficult to reseal reliably, the seals wear out, the hinges, latches and gaskets need constant lubrication. You realise you didn't pay enough attention to what seems such a straight-forward, out-of-sight-out-of-mind item until a problem arises!
• Bow rails, deck cleats and other docking equipment bolted behind, underneath and up-and-under deck-to-hull joins etc. Great fun...for someone who knows what the hell they are doing! Agitating, mind-boggling, annoying, infuriating for anyone else trying to replace, repair etc.

OK, the market dictates what is produced in terms of all styles of boat. And the numbers of production boats indicate they have been a massive success for boat builders for the last decade or two. But has much changed in terms of attitude as to how they are constructed? It's a fine line to try and balance when you are in the business of building boats for a profit.

As a boat owner, you have these and many more issues to tackle that you weigh up against all the fantastic times you have out on the water and the wonderful experiences you enjoy. And all these little (or slightly big) imperfections have to be taken into consideration as part and parcel of being a boat owner.

New Look, New Name Melbourne Summer Boat Show

The Boating Industry Association of Victoria (BIAV) is in preparations to kick off the 2012 Australian boat show circuit with the launch of the new look – new name Melbourne Summer Boat Show (MSBS) at Docklands, Melbourne.

Previously known as the Melbourne International Boat & Lifestyle Festival – MSBS will continue to be held at Melbourne’s premier waterside location, Docklands between 3-5 February, 2012.

The Melbourne Summer Boat Show is Melbourne’s only on-water event featuring a colourful display of yachts, power vessels, trailerable boats, personal water craft (PWC’s) and more.

Also on offer both on and off the water is a myriad of family oriented activities, demonstrations and come and try sessions.

“The Melbourne Summer Boat Show is a great day out for the family, as well as being a wonderful showcase of all Melbourne has to offer in regard to watercraft and watersports,” said BIAV General Manager, Clyde Batty.

“With the Show celebrating its 16^th year of operation, the public can enjoy a wide range of events such as waterskiing & Wake boarding, PWC demonstrations, Dragon Boat races, the Yamaha Supertank Fishing Show and the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard and Westpac helicopter rescue demos.”

Also on display at MSBS is Ralphy V, Tradeaboat’s Mariner Pacer 760 project boat, valued at $70,000 which visitors can go into the draw to win.

The Alma Doepel, an Australian built and operated three masted topsail schooner with over a 100 year history will also be open to the public at Shed 2, Victoria Harbour – allowing MSBS visitors to come and observe the restoration of this vessel.

In promoting the boating lifestyle as a family friendly activity, a variety of “Come & Try” sessions will be held on the water throughout the weekend. One of the great advantages to this show is that many show activities are free to the public with only a small charge to access the boats on the marina.

With a variety of boats, activities, ski & wakeboard displays and accessories, fishing and scuba gear there is something for everyone at the 2012 Melbourne Summer Boat Show.

 

What will provide the US (and the rest of the world) with the next Industrial Revolution? And will the boating industry survive it all?

I think this is an interesting question. The way I see it, humans as an evolutionary creature have stagnated somewhat. Being a Gen X'er, I listen to all the stories the Baby Boomers tell about how good the 60's and 70's were. Indeed, I wasn't around to witness what I believe to be the pinnacle of human achievement - man's first steps on the Moon. Since then money has become the new God (yes, I've watched the Zeitgeist Addendum a few times!). Other than continually improving on technology we already had back then - like the fledgling internet, we haven't achieved much more.

There is still poverty and human suffering. There is still war. There is still the requirement for the economic slave - the wage slave, to get up and go to work. To go and work and create the money to repay the debts, issued by banking organisations for money that never actually existed. Okay, I've lost you? You better go to YouTube and watch Zeitgeist Addeundum right now. But one point is that the western world and particularly the United States, has never been in more debt. The USA is lending so much money from China to buy Chinese products that it simply cannot repay those loans. Undoubtedly China know it. It's a case of 'in for a penny, in for a pound' now. There's no turning back because that snowball is too big to stop. 

To get out of the hole that has been dug at an ever-increasing speed, the US and indeed the rest of the world needs a new industrial revolution. The USA needs it to get out of debt and repay its loans - and feed and house its own populace (many of whom have in recent years lost their homes). To some extent we are working on it. But not fast enough. However, the climate change argument is bringing with it change. Mind you, we're still using obsolete technology; petrol engines, upon which most boats still rely. But cars are becoming more economical, emit fewer emmissions and we are slowly but surely manufacturing more efficient home appliances and the uptake of biodegradable materials is increasing. We're trying to recycle and trying hard to clean up.

But the problem is that our bond to fossil fuels is hard to break. As with almost everything, the dominance of a few wealthy individuals and politically powerful corporations means that we are stuck using obsolete technology, despite the fact inventions such as the Orbital Engine were created to move us forward. Put it simply, the next Industrial Revolution is being held back to suit the never-ending and boundaryless greed of the few who benefit from continued use of fossil fuels.

Think about it for a moment. For electric cars to be produced en masse, it would require re-engineering of production plants worldwide and on an unprecented scale. Think about all the idle productive capacity in places like Detroit and Ohio right now. Workers would have to be re-skilled - particularly those employed in the industries servicing fossil fuel mining and production. And car manufacturing. The batteries powering the vehicles would have to be improved continually and at a rapid rate to enable our economies to operate at the level they do now. So R&D efforts worldwide would also have to triple or quadruple.

Now I'd argue that all of this should have happened a lot earlier. That it should have been done by now and a lot faster, too. Not that the oil companies would agree with me - or that they ever will. When you're making billions of dollars a day, who gives a damn about what happens to the rest of the world, right? 'Hey, they can burn! Just keep them burning our oil!' So we're still filling our boats with petrol (and a few of us with diesel) and most of us are up to our eyeballs in debt. And that is the legacy that will be passed onto future generations.

What will become of our boats? Sailors need not worry as much about this. But anyone who knows boats knows that they are very, very different to cars! It only takes your first encounter berthing your baby to arrive at the last-minute realization they don't have brakes! But seriously, the resistance of water against a hull is enormous in terms of pressure. We really ask a lot of marine engines when we get that hull on the plane or push that displacement hull through the water. An engine pushing something relatively small on wheels is completely different to propelling a one-tonne or fifty tonne vessel through water. Spare a thought for those 1,000-foot-long 100,000 tonne container ships bringing in all those goods from China! (Imagine those batteries!!!)

Sure the first genuinely electric cars and boats would be slow. Slower than what we have now. But think back to the first Ford motor car and think of how far we have come in such a short space of time. And think of how much faster technology will improve because we already have the basis to improve on it - computing power, knowledge and awareness, none of which existed when the first Industrial Revolution took flight.

So electric is just one option. We've got hybrid and we're doing solar power, looking into hydro and all sorts of other technology. But it's not happening at a 'Revolution' speed and time is money - certainly in America, where you can count the debt growing in the millions of dollars per second that you read this article. The point is that it is Amercia that needs the Revoltion most. And the rest of the world needs America to find and create that Revolution. The sad thing is that it will most likely be China who kickstarts the next Industrial Revolution. It will be China, mass producing electric and other sorts of cars, boats and appliances and selling them to an America that has no cash and no future. All for the sake of keeping a few Texans and a few more Arabs very happy. Zeitgeist it is.

Oh, I forgot! It can't be done right? Funny that. We developed technology that blast us through the stratosphere and put human beings on alien landscape we call the moon. That was July 20, 1969. And what have we done since?