Fairey Atalanta – More than the sum of her parts?
The following paper was conceived in the cabin of an Atalanta during the East Coast Cruise in 2021. New owner Jim Sumberg was reviewing the innovations within the Atalanta and its part in commercial and social development after the war. As part of celebrating the life and works of Uffa Fox this year the ideas have been developed.
Seventy years ago Fairey Marine built an experimental 20’ sailing cruiser by extending an Uffa Fox Swordfish dinghy. With a centre cockpit and twin lifting ballast keels, Sujanwiz proved the concept of a lightweight, ballasted cruising boat based on a dinghy hull form. Three years later Uffa developed the idea further in his design for the Atalanta. Fairey advertised it as the “most versatile, tractable, roomy cruiser afloat”.
This new paper considers the innovative aspects in the Atalanta design and argues that the boat’s special place in UK yachting history owes as much (if not more) to the way that a number of pre-existing design ideas and engineering advances were brought together than to innovations that were altogether new.
We hope you enjoy reading the paper. You can download a PDF here.
Please do provide the authors with feedback if you wish.
Introduction
In 1957 Fairey Marine announced that with Uffa Fox’s Atalanta 26, then in its second year of production, ‘at last we have a solution to the problems of family cruising’. While the exact nature of those problems was not made explicit, a picture emerges from the company’s annual marketing materials covering the Atalanta’s 10-year production run. The family-oriented features that were repeatedly highlighted included comfort and accommodation, safety and ease of operation, and the opening up of new cruising grounds. The Atalanta was probably the first small production yacht to be so overtly marketed as a safe, towable ‘family cruiser’.
Fairey’s marketing was just one aspect of the boat’s novelty. The Atalanta brought together design, engineering and social innovation in a unique package, at pivotal moments in British social history and in the development of British yachting. Following WW2, the social moment was characterised by rising expectations and living standards, pent-up demand for leisure activities and increased mobility. At the same time, boat building was about to be transformed from small yards, traditional skills and wood, to factories, industrial methods and glass-reinforced plastic (GRP). In effect, the Atalanta had a foot on both sides of this transition: she was made of wood but incorporated the aviation industry’s approach to hybrid materials, precision engineering and mass production.
However, despite pre-dating the GRP revolution, the considerable innovation that went into the way the Atalanta was designed, constructed and marketed was not enough to secure it a place in what by the mid-1960s proved to be a very rapidly expanding market for small cruising yachts.
It is undoubtedly the case that seen as a complete package, the Atalanta was unique and highly innovative, and represented a radical departure in the design and manufacture of small cruising yachts. It is also the case that many of the innovative aspects of the Atalanta were either already known and proven, or represented incremental improvements of existing design ideas or engineering technology. In effect, the boat’s special place in UK yachting history owes as much (if not more) to the way that a number of pre-existing design ideas and engineering advances were brought together than to innovations that were altogether new. The result is that the Atalanta was very much more than the sum of its parts.
The Atalanta 26
The Atalanta is a 26-foot (7.92 m), centre-cockpit, Bermudian rigged yacht with twin lifting keels, constructed from hot moulded agba veneer (Figures 1 and 2). She was designed by Uffa Fox and developed, manufactured and marketed by Fairey Marine. The direct antecedents of the Atalanta were the 22 ft Sujanwiz (featured in Yachting World in December 1952) and the 24 ft Mark 1, A1 Atalanta (built in 1955). The brief for Sujanwiz was a boat similar to a Firefly dinghy, but larger, with ballasted keels to keep it upright, minimum draft and light in weight. She was built by Fairey by lengthened and widened the Swordfish dinghy, and adding twin lifting keels and small sleeping compartments fore and aft of a centre cockpit. A1 Atalanta was further enlarged, resulting in somewhat improved although still quite cramped accommodation.
Production of the Mk 2 Atalanta began in 1956 – it was longer, and had more sail area and better accommodation than A1. After just a few boats, the coachroof (or ‘blister’) was enlarged to the ‘three-windows each side’ format we recognise today, improving the interior even more. In the Mk 2 version, accommodation included a navigation station and small galley, plus two berths in the forward cabin, two quarter berths under the cockpit benches and two berths in the rear cabin. Between 1956 and 1964 when production ended, some options became available, including a masthead rig, aluminium spars and different auxiliary engines. In total 186 boats were sold (mostly Mk 2s), three-quarters of which were delivered during the 5-year period 1956-1960 (26 of these were sold as partially completed kits).
These were not inexpensive boats. In 1956, A3, with engine installed, cost £1,580 (equivalent to £41,965 in 2021), while the advertised price including engine and trailer in 1964 was £3,630 (equivalent to £78,272 in 2021). Those purchasing Atalantas were from the professional classes, including for example, retired military officers and bank managers. Some of these individuals came to the Atalanta having first sailed and raced Fairey dinghies. For their money they got a yacht that was designed to aircraft standards (as amply demonstrated by the surviving archive of detailed technical drawings) and was built with quality materials.
Atalantas have amply demonstrated their seakeeping qualities. In addition to many races, rallies and challenging cruises, some of which are documented in the Atalanta Owners Association (AOA) Annual Bulletins, three boats made successful Atlantic crossings (A113 in 1960, it then continued on the Galapagos; A115 in 1975; and A146 in 1976 as part of the single-handed OSTAR).
The AOA estimates that as of 2021, 26 boats were sailing, 23 were being restored and 11 were potentially restorable, with most of the remainder having been destroyed or wrecked, or presumed lost (the association has no information about 19 boats).
Figure 1. The Atalanta 26 (Mk 2)
(Source: Atalanta Owners Association)
Figure 2. The Atalanta 26 (Mk 2), cutaway(Source: Atalanta Owners Association)
From fighter planes to dinghies and cruising yachts
It is nearly impossible to conceive of the Atalanta emerging from anywhere other than the Fairey facility on the Hamble River. Indeed, the construction method and engineering for which the Atalanta is known are inextricable tied to the industrial heritage, skills, plant, location and personnel of Fairey Aviation.
As WW2 drew to a close, Fairey Aviation was positioned as a highly successful, diversified aviation engineering and manufacturing company dating back to 1915. Its aircraft – including the Swordfish, Firefly, and Gannet – had played important roles in the war effort. One of its several manufacturing facilities was located on the Hamble River, where hot-moulding of wood veneers was used to produce airplane components that were both strong and light in weight. The location of the Hamble facility on the Solent, the historic centre of British yachting, would eventually be highly significant. But even before Fairey moved into the manufacture of boats, the cross-overs between aviation and yachting were evident: for example, Sir Richard Fairey, the co-founder, managing director and chairman of Fairey Aviation, was a renowned helmsman; Colin Chichester-Smith, who was the Managing Director of Fairey Aviation and was to become MD of Fairey Marine, was an International 14 dinghy racer and a friend of Uffa Fox from the 1930s; while Alan Vines was a shipyard apprentice before joining the company (he was to rise to the position of Chief Executive).
Like many other firms that directly supported the war effort, Fairey Aviation emerged from WW2 needing to adapt to overcapacity in the aviation sector and government’s changing industrial polices and priorities. While much of the company’s efforts to re-invent itself were directly related to its core competencies in aviation and aerospace, the creation of Fairey Marine based at the Hamble facility represented a somewhat more radical departure.
Fairey had the motivation, capability, capacity and location to take advantage of a moment of massive social and economic change. But the design and marketing magic came through the link it established with the dinghy and yacht designer Uffa Fox, who was also based in the area. The idea was to help meet the huge pent-up demand for leisure activities, expressed in part as an explosion of interest in dinghy sailing and racing, by using hot-moulding and industrial methods to capture a significant part of the dinghy market. This move proved to be nothing less than inspired as Fairey boats including the International 14, Firefly, Swordfish and Albacore were produced in their thousands and dominated the dinghy scene through the mid-1960s. This success supported Fairey’s claim to be the ‘largest builders of small boats in Europe’.
Someone looking to purchase a new, small cruising yacht in the mid-1950s would typically have approached a boatyard with the ability to produce a handful of yachts each year. There were a number of designs available – including the Vertue, South Coast One Design (SCOD), Athena 26, Hillyard 6 or 8 ton, and Cherverton Caravel [designed 1949, but not built until 1958]. These were all long-keel yachts, although Athena had bilge plates. The Vertue was widely recognised for its exceptional seakeeping qualities, while the SCOD’s reputation as a performance racer-cruiser was yet to be established. The Athena does not appear to have made much of an impression, but seems to have been the precursor of Maurice Griffith’s very popular Eventide dating from 1957/58. The Vertue and SCOD were built of wood using traditional methods (while the Athena and Eventide had hard chines and were designed to be constructed from plywood, with the amateur builder in mind): both the Vertue and SCOD were heavy boats with relatively deep draught.
It is in this context that in the early 1950s Alan Vines nudged Fairey toward the sailing cruiser market with what would become the Atalanta. As Vines told the story:
‘As the children got bigger we had to have a larger boat than a Firefly, so I decided the ideal solution would be a big Firefly with ballasted keels to keep the boat right side up, instead of aerobatics with minimum draft and altogether very light. The result was that Fairey Marine built Sujanwiz, named after my three daughters. The general specification was: 22 ft. overall, 9 inch draught with keels up, hull of moulded plywood 3/16ths inches thick, deck of 1/8th inch ply, ballast in the form of twin retractable loaded dagger plates, and sloop rig.’
To that point the company had focused solely on, and succeeded in dominating, the market for racing dinghies, and without the growing Vines family, that is where its ambitions in regards to sailing boats might have remained. The company moved into the production of motorboats in 1957.
Innovation
As Sujanwiz evolved into the Atalanta the contrast with the other available boats could not have been more striking. Although comparable in LOA to the Vertue and SCOD, owing to the hot-moulded construction method, the Atalanta was very considerably lighter (her displacement was only 41% of that of a Vertue), while the lifting twin keels greatly reduced her minimum draught to 0.38 m (compared to 1.6 m for the SCOD). These significant reductions in weight and draught allowed the Atalanta to be towed by a large car. While not quite having all sail control lines led back to the cockpit, the Atalanta was designed to eliminate the need for deck work, including during mainsail reefing, foresail handling and anchoring. Her relative lightness and keel profile allowed her to tack easily and accelerate quickly compared to long keel boats.
Table 1 shows three design ratios – Ballast to Displacement, Displacement to Length and Sail Area to Displacement – for the Atalanta and a selection of contemporaneous British yachts. In Figure 3 these ratios are shown relative to the Atalanta (ratios for the other boats are divided by the Atalanta ratio so that the Atalanta always has the value 1). Three points jump out. First, the Displacement to Length ratio of the Atalanta is very low: a 26 ft boat weighing only 2 tons was exceptional. Second, The Atalanta has the second highest Sail Area to Displacement ratio. Taken together, these two ratios suggest the Atalanta may be faster than the comparators (certainly in flat water). This is born out by the Atalanta’s high rankings in the Round the Island Race in the late fifties and early sixties. However, the Atalanta has the smallest total sail area (apart from the much smaller Silhouette) and is generally considered to be under-canvassed in winds under Force 5. Third, the Atalanta has a comparatively low Ballast ratio (the proportion of displacement as ballast), which would suggest she would be less stable than the other boats. However, the low Ballast ratio is offset by the ‘righting moment’ of the Atalanta ballast and her hull form. All of the ballast is in the keels and is therefore low when the keels are down. While perhaps heeling more than the heavier long keel comparators, the Atalanta is generally considered to be very stable. The hull form of the Atalanta is discussed on more detail below. Table 1. Characteristics of British cruisers available in the 1950s
Figure 3. Fairey Atalanta compared to British cruisers in the 1950s
(Note: all ratios indexed to the Atalanta)
Hot-moulded construction.
Hot moulding (also known in the US as ‘bag molded plywood’) refers to a construction method in which a veneer of wood is laid over a (male) mould, with subsequent layers of veneer being laid in different directions. Glue that cures at an elevated temperature is applied between the layers which are held together temporarily with staples. A shaped rubber vacuum bag is then stretched over the veneers on the mould and the whole is placed in an ‘autoclave’. The vacuum is applied and high pressure steam introduced, with the pressure being held for 45 minutes at 100oC. Through this process complex shapes and curves can be created in what is essentially plywood. In addition to a high strength to weight ratio, depending on the wood and glue used, the resulting structures can be waterproof and highly resistant to degradation.
The basics of hot-moulding wood veneers were established in the 1930s, when they were reportedly used for airplane manufacture in Switzerland. Fairey Aviation used hot moulding extensively to fabricate aircraft components including wing assemblies. In the immediate post-war period, hot-moulding was the basis of Fairey’s entry into boat building – it was used to mass produce a number of very successful Uffa Fox designed racing dinghies. While wood remained the basic building material, hot-moulding of hulls and decks both fundamentally changed their physical characteristics and allowed the construction process to be organised more along industrial lines.
The fact that hot-moulding allowed the creation of curved surfaces that were both lightweight and strong had important implications for boat design. Specifically, it permitted movement toward more monocoque-based designs, a structural system in which loads are supported by an object’s external skin (eliminating the need for heavy internal ribs and bulkheads). The monocoque system was used successfully in ‘sewn boat’ construction (e.g. in Egypt in 2500 BC), and in airplane construction from 1912, and was the basis of Uffa Fox’s Firefly dinghy, built by Fairey.
The Atalanta is not a pure monocoque: nevertheless, the boat’s iconic shape, linked in no small part to the pronounced convex curvature at the join between the hull and deck, delivers some of the benefits of monocoque construction. To support the significant loads from the keels and the rigging there is some light ribbing as well as four bulkheads. The central bulkhead is fabricated to take keel and mast loads and is up to three inches thick – the mast is stepped on the top edge and the bulkhead then slopes down aft to carry the keel supports. This engineering solution prefigures the space frame structures used in racing yachts in the 1980s. The Atalanta’s keels are hung on L shaped steels which put all of the gravitational, dynamic and twisting loads stresses into the bulkhead rather than the keel case sides or hull.
While the Atalanta was the first production cruising yacht to be based on hot-moulded construction, it was already a mature, proven technology, including for marine use. Indeed, as early as 1956, Fairey’s marketing material for the Atalanta indicated: ‘Thousands of boats built by these methods have been in service for long periods in all parts of the world’. And the 1961 marketing brochure stated boldly: ‘Fairey hull – hot-moulded under pressure – next to nil maintenance’. The use of hot-moulding, combined with the weight advantages realised by the movement toward monocoque construction, and some clever engineering made it possible to construct a 26 ft towable cruiser.
Hull shape and associated features.
As indicated above, there was a direct line between the Firefly and Albacore dinghies and the Atalanta, which passed through Sujanwiz and A1 Atalanta. This pedigree is apparent in the Atalanta’s dinghy-like hull shape (Figures 4 and 5). Key features of the hull include a slightly raked stem; fine entry combined with full sections forward; shallow V bottom with a long, flat run aft; slab sides and tight bilges; and a distinctive rolled (turtleback) deck with pronounced reverse sheer aft.
Without doubt, the Atalanta represented a significant departure from the hull forms of other small cruising boats available in the mid-1950s. It has been suggested that the design of the Atalanta might have been influenced by Robert Clark’s 1936 design for ‘Buttercup’, but while there are some superficial similarities (e.g. in the rolled decks), the much stronger link would appear to be to the Uffa Fox dinghies.
Figure 4. Hull forms: variations on a winning theme.
Source: https://www.faireyownersclub.co.uk/boats/fairey-marine-other-boats/
Figure 5. The Atalanta: an enlarged dinghy hull
The Atalanta can be seen to be very closely related to Uffa-Fairey dinghies, particularly the Firefly and Swordfish. The Atalanta’s shallow hull with its long flat run aft, provided little reserve buoyancy in the stern, and thus necessitated other design features. The centre cockpit, for example, far from a common feature of small cruisers, helped distribute more weight forward. It also provided easier access to the keel raising and lowering mechanisms, allowed the cockpit to be self-draining, and created an independent rear cabin with two full length berths. The Atalanta marketing brochure for 1964 used the two-cabin lay-out to reinforce the idea that it was an ideal family cruiser, suggesting that ‘The youngsters enjoy the independence of their own cabin’.
But the centre cockpit also created a need for an alternative approach to rudder control, as the aft end of the cockpit is a full 2.3 m forward of the rudderpost. Fairey solved this by combining the age-old idea of a whipstaff with clever engineering. While the whipstaff had been a common feature on older ships and fishing boats it was (and remains) very uncommon on yachts. A bonus was that as the whipstaff did not sweep the cockpit like a traditional tiller, its incorporation greatly increased the usable space in the Atalanta’s cockpit (the 1957 marketing brochure stated there was ‘room for six without crowding’).
The Atalanta hull form was undoubtedly a development of the family of light, fast dinghy hulls that resulted from the collaboration between Uffa Fox and Fairey Marine. The innovative element was to adapt this basic form to a light family cruiser with seagoing capabilities. This necessitated the incorporation of other previously known design elements including the centre cockpit and whipstaff steering, which then enabled the self-draining cockpit and two cabin layout. The innovation was in bringing these elements together in a small cruising boat, and it is this combination that made the Atalanta visually striking and recognisable.
Twin lifting keels. Dagger boards, centre boards and centre plates have been common features of dinghies and small sailboats for centuries. And lee boards are a defining a characteristic of the Thames barge and Dutch tjalk. All of these are means to address leeway while under sail, but can be lifted to reduce draught as required. They act, in effect, as temporary keels (although often without providing much ballast). While not common before the 1960s, a few successful yachts had been built with two keels offset from the centre line, such as the 25 ft ‘Bluebird’ built for Lord Riverdale and launched in 1924. What we now know as bilge keels reduced drought and allowed the boat to remain upright when taking the ground.
Twin lifting ballast keels were introduced with Sujanwiz, and were carried over to the Atalanta; they figure prominently in Fairey’s marketing materials as a central, defining feature of the Atalanta.
In principle, a single lifting keel located along the centreline would have been equally compatible with the design objective of a small cruising boat having minimal draft that could be easily towed. However, the twin keel design allowed the keels and their respective boxes to be placed off-centre, giving unobstructed access from the main hatch, through the main cabin and to the forehatch. This not only left the main cabin uncluttered, but unimpeded access enabled the claim that foresail handling and anchoring could all be done from the safety of the forehatch.
Another very practical advantage of having two keels is that the lifting mechanism had to deal with 215 kg instead of 430 kg. At 215 kg hand cranking was viable: indeed, the marketing materials suggested that the keels were ‘easily worked by a girl’, a claim which reinforced the image of the Atalanta as a family cruiser. The keel lifting and clamping gear was certainly unique. The keels could be clamped at any position for safety at sea, yet would still kick-up if an obstruction was encountered.
The twin lifting keels were central to the Atalanta, both as a structure and an idea. Without the innovative lifting and clamping gear it would have been impossible to imagine a seaworthy yacht with good windward performance, positive stability and self-righting characteristics, and that could also float in 0.38 m of water.
Towability. By the mid 1950s the idea of a cruising capable boat that could be easily towed was becoming established. In the UK, the 17 ft Silhouette, which first appeared in 1954, was designed by Robert Tucker as a trailable plywood sailboat to be built by amateurs. It had twin keels. In the US, the 25 ft Amphibi-Con 25, which was strip planked with a long keel and centreboard, appeared in 1954 as an early ‘trailer-sailer’.
The Atalanta’s weight advantage (derived from hot-moulding) and fully retractable keels made towing of a capable cruising boat both possible and practical. In contrast to boats like the Silhouette and Amphibi-Con, the Atalanta sat lower on its trailer because of the fully-retractable keels, which enabled Fairey’s claim that the boat could be used as a family caravan while towing, which appeared consistently in the marketing materials. As the 1964 marketing brochure put it: ‘Atalanta makes the complete amphibious home: use her as a caravan on the way to cruising grounds.’ Indeed, many owners have used her thus throughout the last 60 years (e.g. Trevor Thompson and his family trailed to Croatia for many years ‘caravanning’ on route)
The Atalanta’s towability was a key to Fairey’s promotion of dry sailing, using its ‘Boat Park’ at the Hamble factory site. This innovation was a logical extension of want was a common practice among dinghy sailors: it eliminated the need for a mooring and the problem of fouling, and it enabled Fairey to capture an after-sale income stream (through storage, launching and service).
While the Atalanta was certainly among the early cruisers which were marketed specifically as easily towable this innovation must be put in perspective – in 1955, at the time the boat was first put into production, around 20 per cent of households in the UK had access to a car or van. Presumably, a large proportion of these vehicles would have been too light to safely tow the Atalanta (the 1957 brochure suggests that ‘the special trailer can be towed on the road by any large [emphasis added] car’; the company’s photographs often showed her being towed by a Land Rover; and it is known that an Atalanta was towed to the Mediterranean behind a Mark 2 Jaguar!). The potential market for trailer-sailers was therefore still quite limited, although the trend was certainly going in the right direction: by 1970, the proportion of UK households having access to a vehicle had risen to 50 per cent.
Owners association. Because of the unique aspects of the Atalanta, owners faced a number of new challenges, including how to get the most out of the boat (e.g. through raising and lowering the keels depending on the sea state, point of sail etc), and how to maintain and repair the keel hardware, rudder, deck and hull. Fairey Marine formed the Atalanta Owners Association in 1958, and its Annual Bulletin served as a forum for the exchange of ideas and experience. Fairey funded the AOA for the first ten years with a view to supporting owners but also keeping up to date ownership records: it became self-supporting thereafter. A number of technical papers were written, both by the company and by owners, detailing for example guidance, methods and experiments relating to rig tuning, keel removal, mast raising and lowering, hull and deck repairs and rudder modifications. This long-standing tradition of active ‘user innovation’ is still in evidence today.
More than the sum of its parts
The Atalanta emerged in the early 1950s as a unique package incorporating a number of largely pre-existing design elements and engineering processes. In a context of enormous social, economic and technological change this innovative package embodied the engineering and industrial heritage of Fairey Aviation, the pressures on it to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, the company’s waterside location, and the fruits of its dinghy-oriented collaboration with Uffa Fox.
As illustrated in Figure 6, the hot-moulded construction method, which provided Fairey’s entry point into dinghy manufacture, also drove the Atalanta’s design, engineering and manufacturing processes, and enabled it to be marketed explicitly as a safe, capable, towable family cruiser. With a nudge from Alan Vine’s growing family, Fairey realised that the idea (or ideal) of family cruising represented a market opportunity. But this foresight was not sufficient to guarantee the company’s long-term participation in (to say nothing of its dominance of) that market.
In effect, the company’s heritage of hot-moulded construction, which was such an asset in the late 1940s and early 1950s, had by the early 1960s become a liability in the face of the GRP revolution. It is not that the company was unaware of developments. An article in the 1960 Annual Bulletin entitled ‘Why is Atalanta hot-moulded from wood veneers?’ provides important insight into Fairey’s ‘views on the wood versus glass fibre controversy’. Two companies in Fairy Group ‘examined carefully the advantages claimed for them [glass-fibre resin laminates]’, and both came to conclusion that the hot-moulded wooden boat ‘superior, both technically and economically’, According to Fairey, hot-moulding produced hulls that were stronger, more rigid and with higher abrasive resistance (‘particularly at hull speeds in excess of 20 knots’!). They also cited more consistent standards of production with hot-moulding, and that fact that when sprayed with polyester resin paint, hot-moulded hulls required no more maintenance than those made from glass fibre. The Atalanta marketing brochure for 1961 echoed these findings: ‘The hot-moulded shell, deck and coach roof form a light, strong, homogeneous and entirely watertight hull. The finished product keeps the advantages of wood which cannot be imitated by synthetic materials.’
This is the kind of solid analysis one might expect from a yacht manufacturer with deep engineering roots focused on the high end of the market. However, with the benefit of hindsight we can see that they got it spectacularly wrong. As the next decade would amply demonstrate it was exactly the qualities of the ‘synthetic materials’, combined with improvements in GRP production methods, that would drive the boom in family cruising that Fairey had previously foreseen. But Fairey was ‘locked into’ what was quickly becoming old technology, with the end of the Atalanta production run in 1964 representing the effective disappearance of hot moulding from the mainstream of the British yachting industry (although Fairey continued to use this method to construct motor cruisers until it went in receivership in 1975). The company started production of a GRP version of the Firefly dinghy in 1968.
Figure 6. Pathway from hot moulded construction to safe family cruiser.
The Atalanta 26 played a small but important part in the development of post-war British yachting. Reflecting dynamic social and economic contexts, Uffa Fox and Fairey Marine brought together in the Atalanta a number of largely pre-existing design features and engineering processes. It was the combination that was innovative, and this combination of design, technology and social innovation made a significant if short-lived impact on the British yachting, just as the GRP revolution was beginning to take hold. A combination of factors – including an ill-judged commitment to hot moulding, over-reliance on a single designer, and competing corporate priorities – meant that Fairey was unable to build on its first-mover advantage in the soon to be booming family cruiser market.