Thursday, January 6, 2011

Another Moth Nantais Build

Contstruction Moth Classique

Plans de Moth Classique

More news about the French Nantais Moth Classique keeps surfacing. Guimbert Alexis, a 23 year old house carpenter in France, sent along some pictures of a Nantais Moth Classique he built last year. He built it to have a craft to learn sailing and the workmanship is superb! I must admit that I haven't ran across too many young boatbuilders in the U.S, particularly those building sailing dinghies. I would like to see more young people have a go at it. The Moth Classique is an ideal boat for a first time project as, not only is it a small project, but the Moth Classique also offers so many different designs for different sailing abilities as well as different building techniques.

The Nantais Moth sports the bubble deck that was popular in the 1940's. This has the big advantage of keeping the skipper out of the water on what is essentially a low freeboard hull. Also the old Moth rule limited the height of the gooseneck to 9" above the deck (correction; from George A's comments, original rule was 12" boom height). This resulted in the old rule Moths having a very low boom. Our current Classic Moth rules in North America eliminated that restriction, making it easier to push the boom up to a height where it doesn't box the ears and force the skipper to kiss the floorboards on a tack.

Setting up the station frames, center plank on...........




Hull planked in plywood and flipped...........



Deck framing complete.................




Deck on.................



Nantais Moth Classique out on the water.............





Again, congrats to Guimbert Alexis on a beautiful Moth Classique!

The lines to the Nantais.


Links to previous posts on the Nantais Moth Classique can be read here and here.

In 1943, American Roger Gintling, published building instructions for his Moth "Little Mae Too" in one of the popular do-it-yourself magazines of the day. It is a close "kissing cousin" to the Moth Nantais. I've posted on the details of the Little Mae Too over here.

7 comments:

George A said...

Rod: Actually the old rule for boom height was 12" above deck not 9". Only old skippers have trouble with the old rule--even now that we have to wear life vests while racing! My feeling is that if you can't fit under the boom of a Vintage Moth or a Europe dinghy then you need to move to a laser or maybe a keel boat...

JDRSnipe said...

Did you see today's posting about the Zhik Moth championships featuring Moths on foils with hard wing sail? Check out http://www.sail-world.com Videos too along with reports on regatta.

clovis said...

J'ai déjà écrit que les premiers Moth Nantais reprennent intégralement la carène de "Little Bear". La grande et intelligente nouveauté qu'apportent les jeunes Nantais concerne uniquement les appendices, dérive et safran. Donc, plutôt que de montrer la carène, mieux vaut publier les plans de ces appendices.

Tweezerman said...

English translation from clovis:

"I have already written that the first Moth Nantais completely uses the hull lines of "Little Bear" (Van Sant design published in Yachting magazine). The intelligent invention brought by the young people of Nantes concerns only appendages. So, rather than showing the hull, it is better to publish the plans of these appendages."

Aubine said...

Hello,
I have built the same boat (moth nantais) in 1974 when I was 14 years old (with the help of my father)... It's the boat I learned to sail on.
Now I'm looking for the plans to built another one (My original ones have gone lost). Do you know where I can get a copy of them ?

Tweezerman said...

Aubine,

The photo in the post has the offsets, though a bit blurred. Let me look and see if I can come up with some offsets that might clarify the numbers. (Good luck, I don't know how this comment will translate into French.) Bonne chance, je ne sais pas comment ce commentaire se traduira en français.

Aubine said...

Thanks on beforehand for all extra information. No need to translate to French (my 2nd language) as I have more practice in English (my 3rd language).