Music Whenever; Black Moth Super Rainbow "Sun Lips"

Follow the adventures of the road kill clean-up crew (I like the DIY hazmat suit)..........

Dinghy Design; Big Guy Singlehander Update

A reader response to my first post about a hiking singlehander for a very big guy pointed out my lack of knowledge in regards to the Phantom dinghy, which, at second look, is an eminently sensible choice for a big guys singlehander.

1. The Phantom can be home built, in fact was originally designed to be homebuilt. Plans are available though a quick search doesn't turn up an address to get them (strangely, even the class website doesn't seem to have an address).
2. The ideal helm weight for the Phantom is about 210 lbs (95 kg) with reader "Rudderman" commenting, "I am also 6ft5 and over 18 stone and have absolutely no problems sailing a home built wooden Phantom which I took to runner up position in the UK Nationals. As I recall there are a couple of Phants being built in the US from plans provided by the Designer's daughter"
3. At the same hull weight as a Laser, and over 105 sq. feet (9.75 meters) of sail area the Phantom must be a very lively sail.

Class website is linked here .

Joe over at the blog "Horses Mouth" did a fantastic post on the Phantom which can be viewed over here .

Some pics I stole from the class website showing the developed ply hull shape (the hull looks very similar to the Classic Moth Shelly design) .............





And an onshore YouTube interview with a Phantom sailor showing the Phantom interior....

Dinghy Design; A Singlehander for a Really Big Guy

I got this in the inbox about a week or so ago.........

"I got in contact with Bill about the Classic Moth he built based on your station molds. I too am looking to build my own sailing boat, with looking to start on a smaller project first (~200 hours), and fell in love with the Classic Moth design, especially the curved tanks in the cockpit.

I'm 6'5" and around 260 pounds (118 kg) so not sure if the boat would sail ok with me in it! Do you have any suggestions on an appropriate design and where I may be able to get the plans from?"

C

And my reply.............

"Your size will make it hard to make it work in a Classic Moth. You need a design with some displacement and nothing like some extra length to give you that.

There's no stock design in a 14 to 15' length, easy to build, that immediately comes to mind. One of Chesapeake's Light Craft's multi-use sailboats/rowing dinghies might do the trick.

I probably could draw something up that would fit, but boat design is a hobby and I have no time for it right now. I would think that something like the US1 sailboat class (no longer built) that was a singlehander based on the Windmill hull would fit you nicely."

R

An interesting design problem as "C" is looking for a racy singlehander, easy to build and a design that would float a guy the supersize of an American football player.

There are singlehander classes that have been designed for the larger sailor; the Finn Olympic dinghy, Bruce Farr's MegaByte, and from England, the Phantom dinghy and the SuperNova. But all these classes are production glass hulls and still not big enough to fit Mr. "C".

The US1 mentioned in my reply was an American class, built by Advance Sailboats. The Internet says 450 were built out of fiberglass and a quick Google shows one or two for sale even as I write this post. Advance took the simple V-chine, easy to build Windmill hull, cut some freeboard off the hull, added some rolled tanks and a large (90 sq. ft) main. Since the Windmill was sized to carry two adults (at say 300 lbs combined), it would be safe to say that the US1 could probably handle one at 260 lbs. And, since the Windmill class was designed for homebuilding in ply, an enterprising boat builder could replicate the US1 concept in plywood.

The US1 class is no longer active. The best webpage on the US1 that I came across was an ad selling a US1 ...even had a movie.

A picture of the US1 I stole from the ad......



What the US1 doesn't completely solve for a big guy is lateral stability. When you weigh 260 lbs (118kg) small dinghies have a tendency to lean radically into the skipper, particularly when the wind eases up. A big scow, say the MC scow, with less of a tendency to roll around might be a more pleasant sail for Mr. "C".

Here's a picture of the slightly larger C-scow........



In Internet browsing for this post, I also discovered a California builder who is supplying part build Windmill hulls .

Music Whenever; U2 "Angel of Harlem"

From 1988.........

Swedish Archipelago Raid Revisited

Been catching snippets of the Tour de France and I always comes away shaking my head in awe at the athleticism and grittiness of the world's top bicyclists (I'd rank the Volvo Round the World and the Vendee Globe sailing races as, in the own way, just as grueling a sporting competition).

In the sport of small boat sailing, the cats are the one segment of the sport that treasure their multi-day endurance competitions. I've covered the Swedish Archipelago race before but this is another excellent video covering Day 3 and Day 4 of the 2009 Swedish Archipelago race. (Note the pre-dawn start and competitors camping at night!)


Archipelago Raid, Day3&4 from Pure Archipelago on Vimeo.


I have to reiterate what I said in my previous post on the Swedish Archipelago; a five day, multi-stop cat race would be a top notch Olympic event.

Two of my Favorite Classic Dinghy Photos

(As always, click on the photo for higher resolution.)

The first photo is a Classic International 14 sailing, an Uffa Fox design, probably 1950's.



Second one is an Australian dinghy in big breeze; guessing 1940's or 1950's. I would think she's a skiff type, either a 14 or 16 footer but the bow doesn't look plumb like a skiff should have. The name TRIAD is attached to the file.

Music Index 2; The Next 59

This is mostly for my benefit. Here is the index of the next 59 "Music Whenever" selections starting where the first Music Index (cataloging the first 59 music videos on Earwigoagin) stopped.

1. Weezer; Pork and Beans
2. Frederik; Kids and Winter
3. Band of Skulls; Honest
4. Mahive
5. The Cornhole Song
6. Bright Eyes; First Day of My Life
7. The Cherry Coke$; Bullet for Vapid Beer
8. OK Go; This Too Shall Pass
9. Kruder and Dorfmeister; Lamb Trans Fatty Acid
10. Massive Attack; Teardrop
11. Matt and Kim; Daylight
12. Freddie La Grande; Put Your Hand Up for Detroit
13. K T Tunstall; Hold On
14. Harlem Shakes; Sunlight
15. Frank Fairfield; Rye Whiskey
16. Major Lazer; Keep it Going Louder
17. Rosie Flores, Alvin Hill; Goodbye Again
18. Jon Brion; You Can Still Ruin My Life
19. The Raconteurs; Old Enough
20. Ben Taylor; Wicked Ways
21. Vandaveer; Dig Down Deep
22. Tenniscoats; Baibaba Bimba
23. Greyboy; Love
24. The Molotov’s; Come to Grief
25. Beck; Where’s It At
26. The Avalanches; Since I Left You
27. Maynard Ferguson; Birdland
28. House of Fools; Interested
29. Jimmy Fallon; Pants on the Ground
30. Larkin Poe; Long Hard Fall
31. Blaze Foley, John Prine; Clay Pigeons
32. Madeleine Peroux; It’s Alright
33. South Austin Jug Band; Whitewater
34. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes; Home
35. LCD Soundsystem; Home
36. Band of Horses; The Great Salt Lake
37. Cab Calloway; Minnie the Moocher
38. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones; Simmer Down
39. Mandolin Orange; The Train Song
40. Good Old War; My Sinking Ship
41. UK Ukelele Orchestra; The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
42. Tommy Sparks; She Got Me Dancing
43. Eddie Vedder; You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
44. Guggenheim Grotto; Her Beautiful Ideas
45. Zero 7; Swing
46. Henry Farag, Stormy Weather; Christmas Time is Coming
47. Dan Auerbach; Going Home
48. Dropkick Murphys; I’m Shipping Up to Boston
49. Sun Volt
50. Nicole Atkins; Neptune City
51. Lykke Li, Bon Iver; Dance, Dance, Dance
52. Cities of Foam; Sky High Lee
53. The Decembrists; Crazy on You
54. Tatiana and Alexey; Love Story
55. Caoline Smith; She Ain;t Got It
56. Rupa and the April Fishes; Une Americaine a Paris
57. Little Feat; Fat Man in the Bathtub
58. TuneYards; Bizness
59. Broken Bells; The High Road

Music Whenever: Bon Iver "Skinny Love"

House concerts (where the artist plays at a house before a select crowd) seem to be the rage at the moment. I confess that I've never gone to one. Here's Bon Iver doing a singalong at a house concert in France......

Bon Iver - Skinny Love - Une Soiree de Poche from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Classic Moths at Brigantine 2011

This blog is anything but topical, so I write this report about a month after I raced my Classic Moth at Brigantine New Jersey, only my second regatta of the year. We had good breeze this year, seabreeze direction, around ten with some gusts higher on some races. My mongrelized Maser was lacking some speed in the Gen1 division when matched against the two thoroughbred Olympic Europes sailed by Walt Collins and George Albaugh. I didn't help matters much with two premature starts in the last two races, though this is typical for me when I haven't been racing much. For some strange reason, the Europe Dinghies seem to have picked up speed when using regular Classic Moth sails instead of the cut down Europe Dinghy sails.

For the overall trophy, John Z eked out Joe Bousquet at the finish of the last race after a stirring tacking duel up the last beat. For more complete reports, link over to George's blog or over to Joe's blog .

Two pics from the regatta that I lifted from George Albaugh (I think taken by his daughter Ingrid).

Here I am chasing the fleet after one of my Over-Early Starts...........



Winner John Z kicking Y2K up on a plane................



Agan, many thanks to Joe and Judy Courter for the always superb prerace shindig at their waterfront home.

Music Whenever: Loose Marbles, Meshiya Lake, "When I Get Low, I Get High"

This video captures the essence of a New Orleans street band........

Zen of Daysailing; Kicking around on a Snipe Dinghy

My "Zen of Daysailing" series of posts is just that; no racing, just video clips of people out for the enjoyment of a daysail.

My previous posts in the Zen series can be viewed here .

Snipe sailing..... looks like Florida to me.

Untitled from Kelly Rae Ardis on Vimeo.

Before someone else points it out; the music by Wiz Khalifa, with it's unabashed hedonism and drug consumerism (I hear the word misogynistic tossed around all the time when these type of lyrics are discussed), is as far as you can get from Zen. Also, the lifestyle is very foreign to an old married fart like me but the music does have a good toetapping rhythm.

Exclusive to Earwigoagin; The New Laser Sail

Laser forums have been abuzz recently about the "new Laser sail design", one that will be much more durable than the current model.

In a exclusive to Earwigoagin, we have obtained secret footage of the new Laser sail undergoing on-the-water tests. Sorry, I can't divulge the location, the skipper, or who was filming this.

Junk Rigged Laser from Ryan Barber on Vimeo.

Keeler from Russell Coutts

Despite this blog being mostly about dinghy sailing (and weird music videos), I normally sprinkle keelboat posts here and there just to maintain some diversity.

Back in 2007, Russell Coutts developed a mini IAAC type keelboat class called the RC44 (RC=Russell Coutts..... makes sense). I guess the original idea of this class was to be the stepping stone, the triple AAA league if you will (American baseball terminology) for pro sailors progressing to the larger America's Cup arena. Well, the switch to multihulls squelched that idea but, from the following video, it looks like the class is doing just fine in Europe.

I like the action in this video of RC44 racing. Not an over produced promo film, this short features simple editing of onboard camera footage as we race around the course in a fleet race.

Music Whenever: Black Crowes "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

This past April marked the beginning of the sesquicentennial (150 years) of the American Civil War.

The Black Crowes do a superb cover on The Band's mournful ballad about the end of the Rebel South.

Boat Watching from the Highway

I'm always on the lookout for boats going down the highway.... sort of like bird watchers or those who sit by airports watching the planes landing and taking off; its a secret test to see if I can correctly ID that boat that is quickly disappearing in my rear view mirror. I was floored about two weeks ago with an extremely rare sighting. I was bombing westbound over the Rt. 50 Severn River Bridge about 4:30 pm. The eastbound lanes were slowed to a crawl as they came up on the bridge, as is typical at that time of day. And then I saw a strange boat being cartopped on what looked to be a Volvo station wagon. In that one or two seconds I had available to glance over....bingo.....paydirt! For I knew immediately that there were probably only 20 or so people in the U.S who had a chance at ID'ing this craft and I was one of them.

The sliding seat strapped next to the hull gave it away. It was an International Canoe, but not just any International Canoe, the low chine indicated the latest generation International Canoe and not the old Nethercott hull. The long mean bow with the rig set aft looked like the latest Chris Maas design, probably the fastest IC going at this time.

Well, the Maas International Canoe is known to primarily reside on the West Coast; it was indeed a rare event to see one on the East Coast. I needed a confirmation since it's been close to eighteen years since I was active in the class. I called up good friend Bill Beaver and, "Yessiree Bob", I mean Bill, who said it must have been Chris Maas driving up to Rhode Island to catch a container to Germany for this year's World Championship.

Well, this sighting of a cartopped International Canoe brought back memories of an eccentric fellow from Annapolis who cartopped an International Canoe on a rusty Karmann Ghia during the 1980's. Never too far mind you, maybe 30 miles max. Believe it or not, the IC never fell off.

All my International Canoe Posts can be seen here .