Classic Moth tinkering; Different sail plan

The Classic Moth has a classic pinhead sail plan. There has been a small movement in 2009 by two Moth boaters to see what the boat would look like with a more "modern" sail plan.

Scott Sandell, who has assembled a fleet of cast off Europe Moth dinghies at the tip of Long Island, has been working with Farrar sails to develop a larger sail plan. His first attempt piled on the roach; I think about 18" more than the class legal sail at mid girth.

Picture of Scott's first sail....



A picture of Scott's sail sailed by Ed Salva next to a class legal Classic Moth.



Scott decided the first version was too powerful, especially for the light weights, and this fall came out with a smaller, less roachy sail.



Meanwhile, your blogger, spurred on by friends who said the class legal sail looked too "Classic", built a fat head sail with a straight leech (it met the Classic Moth mid girth rule). I raced it (non-scoring) at Chestertown in the summer. My thoughts at this time are it may be too powerful and may change the class too much. I need to do some more sailing with it in 2010. A picture of me with the fathead with George Albaugh in his Europe dinghy.



Long live the tinkerers!

Addendum; Email from Scott Sandell.......

My peeps are requesting you change your description of our fleet. We have two boats that won the world championships, three from the last Europe trials, and one incedibly beautiful Cristalli built in Belgium. Hardly cast offs! Thanks!

We feel we have the sail nailed. I cannot ever imagine the CMBA taking much of a look at it, but this design works for a wide variety of helms. Thanks for the encouragement along the way!