Earwigoagin

Header Photo: Bermuda Fitted Dinghy

2012-02-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

I threw a side view of the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy up as a header photo but it took a while for me to get around to posting about the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy.

Here is a beautiful shot of a Bermuda Fitted Dinghy storming upwind in full glory.

Midwinter Sailing in Florida in the 1930's

2012-02-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

I have posted occasional links to some of the British sailing video shorts (under the name British Pathe', can someone elucidate on this unusual name?) put together, most likely as news reels that they would use to lead into the actual main-attraction movie, common practice circa 1930's and 1940's.

Below is a link to a midwinter sailboat race, sailed on Biscayne Bay, Florida in 1933 while those in the northern U.S (and England) froze their butts off. A Classic Moth appears at about the 45 second mark, almost getting T-boned by a larger sloop at the leeward mark.

Midwinter Sailing in Biscayne Bay, 1933

Update: Tillerman, with his first hand knowledge of English history, answers my question about the odd name British Pathe'. I've dragged his following comment over to the main post:

"Charles Pathé was a Frenchman who was one of the pioneers of the motion picture industry. When I was a boy, one of the companies he founded, Pathé News, used to make newsreels, short films covering current news that were shown in British cinemas. As I recall in those days on your trip to the cinema you would see a main feature, a B-movie (usually starring Ronald Reagan) and a Pathé newsreel.

Apparently, at some point more recently, Pathé News changed their name to British Pathé. I gather their main role theses days is in managing the newsreel archives which have been digitized and put online."

Valentines Day 2012

2012-02-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

I've been a kept man the last couple of months. While I joined the ranks of the unemployed, my wife has been the breadwinner to keep us going. She's been remarkably good about it (not all the time, mind you, but most of the time).

I don't think she realized when it happened or even realizes it today, as it was presented in another context, but I wrote her a Valentine back in 2011.

Luv ya Jeanie. Let's go to the videotape....

Wedding Homily - Miles River YC from Tweezer Sailing on Vimeo.

Bermuda Fitted Dinghy

2012-02-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

I've written about the Australian Historical 10 Footer, where they cram 3 sailors into a ten foot hull with bowsprit and enormous sails. Well, not to be outdone, we have the North American equivalent, the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy, where they cram 6 sailors in a fourteen foot hull with bowsprit and enormous sails. I was able to see one live several years ago, out of her element, sitting on the grass of the Washington Mall as part of Bermuda's display in the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival. It looked to be a rather commodious Classic International 14 with not much in the way of interior. There isn't a centerboard trunk as I gather the keel/centerboard is fitted as the Fitted Dingy is launched (hence the term Fitted Dinghy). There are only six still in racing condition in Bermuda with only four making it out to race on a consistent basis. In poking around on the Internet, it looks like two of the Fitted Dinghies are relatively modern builds, being completed in the last twenty years.

One of the odd ducks about Bermuda Fitted Dinghy Racing is they use the racing rules of the late 1800's. A race starts when the crew launches the Fitted Dinghy off a stake boat by pulling on a rope slung over the side of the stake boat. The rule for right of way for boats on opposite tacks heading on a collision course is for both to tack.

The following three videos give a great feel for what it's like to sail on these amazing beasts.

On this video, at the 2:36 mark, they take the spinnaker pole down, and throw it in the water so the trailing boat runs over it. That's some racing trick! Also at the finish it sounds like they play the bagpipes when you cross the line!

Fitted Dinghy Racing - Teaser from Somers Isle Productions on Vimeo.

Mobility Sailng Revisited

2012-02-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

I did a post two years ago I called Disabled Sailing but that term might not be politically correct; I see that 'Mobility Sailing' may be the more desired description. In any case, over the last two years, the proliferation of sailing videos covering the sailing programs for the disabled has been amazing. This is one sector of the sport that seems to be rapidly expanding and that is solely due to volunteerism.

Again, a big tip-of-the-hat for those that design and build the boats and equipment (marine metalworker Derek D. is someone I know personally), fund raise, organize, do race committee, teach, crew and in any way contribute to ensure the joys of sailing remain open to all.

This video is put out by US Sailing and interviews the just selected US Paralympic sailors set to compete in Weymouth in September.

Oh! The Travesty of it all!

2012-02-05T05:40:00.000-08:00

Good friend Bob, (see The Models of Bob, or Bob's Bolger Chebacco) was back up north from his retirement in Florida with some good news, and some bad news. First, Bob had sold his house in Baltimore; good news in a still sluggish real estate market. When he had first moved into that house, Bob had built a glorious stand-alone three bay garage with a nice loft....just the ticket for boatbuilding. Over the years, out of that building, Bob built a Chesapeake 20, a Bolger Light Schooner, an ACA sailing canoe, restored a Penguin, restored a paddling canoe and completed other boatbuilding projects that memory escapes me now. There was a nice sign hung above one of the bays, "Bob's Boathouse" (which caused problems with a cantankerous neighbor who claimed Bob was running a professional business out of this building!).

Bob sailing his restored Penguin at a MASCF in St. Michaels. The Penguin was refinished in his "Boathouse".

Now the bad news. As soon as the new owner moved into Bob's Baltimore house, he dismantled "Bob's Boathouse"! Most of Bob's friends, who are tinkerers in some shape or fashion, were dumbfounded. What was the logic in leveling a beautiful three car garage! But it happened.

Going, going.....

GONE!

Did you say, "Thinking outside the box?"

2012-02-03T05:41:00.000-08:00

"Thinking outside the box" is a much overused term, but applicable in the case of this French singlehander, David Raison, who glommed on a bulbous, scow type bow to his Mini Transat 6.5 design and then proceeded to dust the competition in a 3100 mile race from Madiera to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The course was mostly reaching, which always favors a hull shape like this, but you've got to give David a huge thumbs up. It's always enjoyable watching a novice designer, with the courage of his convictions, show up all those big yacht design firms.

This comment from reader "Patrick" had me chuckling so I dragged it over to the main post (in race boats, most times, beauty doesn't factor into the equation);

"Thinking inside the bathtub!"

Tillerman's Latest Challenge; Two Core Principles

2012-02-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

I don't know where Tillerman comes up with this stuff but he has thrown down the gauntlet to define sailing in two core principles, from which, everything else about sailing is derived.

Easy......

You will get WET!..... Not wet like in a shower wet, or a pool wet, but; usually a very, very cold wet, or a wet that will keep enveloping you like someone doing a cannonball in your face over and over again, or an icky baywater wet, or a saltwater wet that will leave you caked in crystals.
And you will GO SLOW!......No! you will never get to the Eastern shore in an hour, how about a good day if you're lucky, and sometimes, if you are forced to race, it may take you 3 hours to go two and half miles ...you could walk faster!.... (and there are those days you might not do even that speed).

And, if you LOVE SAILING, 1 and 2 are ALL GOOD! And if you think 1 or 2 are ridiculous you will make sure everybody onboard will know how painful and/or boring this sport of sailing is.

All, this I have learned from my good wife from all these years (actually she taught me this very early on when we were still dating).

And these two core principles for wooden boat owners submitted by Earwigoagin's European correspondent, Romain. (Romain owns a beautiful wooden International 12 foot dinghy, lapstrake constructed, with umpteen, gazillion strakes per side.)

"How about:

1) Winter will be too short to properly maintain your wooden boat.

2) Summer will be too short to sail it fully enough."

Back to the Future; the Qingdao Sailing Olympics

2012-01-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

This year, the summer of 2012, the English host the Olympics. I'm sure the bookmakers have the English team as favorites again, and with good reason.

As I've said before, this blog is all about timeliness and up to date reporting, so here is an aerial video covering 470's and boards at the last sailing Olympics, held at Qingdao, China (with the appropriate bombastic, triumphant music score).

Qingdao Olympic Sailing from iProductions - Bruce Sabin on Vimeo.

Just Breathe!

2012-01-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

Dinghy sailing in a breeze can be wet, very, very wet. Hence the statement "Firehose Reaches" or "I Needed a snorkel out there". And all this very aptly documented in this video by Youtuber "pjbul1" of a threesome on an Australian Lightweight Sharpie in lots of breeze.

Frostbiting Dinghies on the River Thames

2012-01-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

A neat video short of Merlin Rockets and Lasers river sailing on the Thames in mid January 2012. Plenty of varnished wood on those Merlin Rockets! Short tacking in the river, and staying in the puffs usually means the older boats do very well on the Thames when racing against their higher tech modern brothers. Weather looks to be very sunny and warm for an English winter (we've also had a very mild one in the Mid Atlantic region so far). I like the banter between the videographer and his compatriot at the end of the video. "or something or other"

Honey, Did you enjoy your cruise across the lake?

2012-01-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

In one of the strangest political, cultural and human psychology missteps, the United States banned the sale, manufacture, and transportation of liquor from 1920 to 1933. What resulted was probably the largest civilian disobedience of a national law in recorded history. Moonshine, brewing beer at home, underground bars - the speakeasy, bootlegging; Americans were going to get their hooch one way or the other.

I've written about the American Canoe Association encampment on Sugar Island, an encampment that achieved great popularity during the Prohibition, not so much for the canoe competitions as for the fact the Island sits about 1/2 mile inside the Canadian border on the St. Lawrence. During the two week encampment, canoeists from up and down the Eastern Seaboard could drink, and drink, and drink. It got so bad, the governing body of Sugar Island set aside a peninsula on the Island for drinking and all the gambols that are inextricably linked to booziness, the gambling, the running around nude, the decibels, the peeing in the bushes, the fights. They named the peninsula "Buck Point".

And as the following video shows, even the cruising sailboat crowd got into the action.

Let's imagine the skipper's conversation with his wife after he got back from his "cruise" across Lake Michigan;

Wife: "Honey, did you enjoy your cruise across the Lake with Tom, Dick, and Harry?
Skipper: "Yes it was very nice."
Wife: "Well you look very exhausted. Was the weather rough?"
Skipper: (wink, wink) "Oh yes, there were some very rough days"
Skipper: "Listen Dear, how about you and I go look at a new car tomorrow. I've got some extra cash burning in my pocket"

Some Prohibition Footage from Steve Unkles on Vimeo.

Music Whenever; Noah and the Whale "Love, Love, Love"

2012-01-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

Haven't done a music post lately. Some friends have fled to Florida to avoid winter altogether (though today was a glorious warmish day for the Mid-Atlantic winter - after a very dismal weekend - but nothing comes close to having a a bummer week like getting your car crushed in Pacific storms!). Well what to do to bring some cheer? An upbeat tune by "Noah and the Whale" and some of our Filipino friends having a grand old time where the weather is hot, the water is warm, the beer is flowing. Ukulele, whistling, mouth trumpet. Life is good.

Love, Love, Love from Cedric Valera on Vimeo.

Lyrics
Oh, in five years time we could be walking round the zoo
With the sun shining down over me and you

And there’ll be love in the bodys of the elephants too
I’ll put my hands over your eyes, but you'll peek through

And there’ll be sun, sun, sun
All over our faces
And sun, sun, sun
All over our bodys.
And sun, sun, sun
All down my neck
Oh, and sun, sun, sun
So, what the heck

'cause' we’ll be laughing at each others silly little jokes
And we’ll be laughing about how we use to smoke
All those stupid little cigarretes and drinks stupid wine
‘cause it’s what we needed to have a good time

But it was fun, fun, fun
When we were drinking.
It was fun, fun, fun
When we were drunk
And it was fun, fun, fun
When we were dancing
It was fun, fun, fun
Oh, it was fun.

Well then I look at you and say “it’s the happiest that I’ve ever been”
And I’ll say: “I no longer feel that I have to be james dean”
And she'll say: “yeah, well I feel pretty happy too, and I’m always pretty happy when I’m just kicking back with you”

And there will be love, love, love
All through our bodys.
Love, love, love
All through our minds
And it'l be love, love, love
All over her face
And love, love, love all over mine

And though admittedly all these moments are just in my head
I’ll be thinking about them when I'm lying in bed
And i know that none of it will even come true
But in my mind I’m having a pretty good time with you

Oh, In five years time
I might not know you
In five years time
We might not speak
Oh, In five years time
We might not get along
In five years time
You might just prove me wrong

But there’ll be love, love, love
Wherever you go
There’ll be love, love, love....................

Stuart Walker and Sinjin; Together Again

2012-01-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

Ahh! a human interest story for Earwigoagin, a coming together of an old sailing team after a long hiatus.

Dr. Stuart Walker should be familiar to many in the sailboat racing community. Stuart has been a longtime racing tactics columnist for the U.S magazine "Sailing World" and, must be the most prolific author of how-to books on sailboat racing in the short recorded history of this sport. Here's a list of Stuart Walker's titles that I could compile off the Internet (there's probably some I missed);

Winning; The Psychology of Competition
Advanced Racing Tactics
Techniques of Small Boat Racing
A Manual of Sail Trim
The Tactics of Small Boat Racing
The Sailors Wind
Positioning: The Logic of Sailboat Racing
and his newest, The Code of Competition

Dr. Walker started his racing career in International 14's in the 1950's and, in the early 1970's, switched over to the Soling class. (I haven't seen it but I've heard his trophy room is very impressive.) Early on in his International 14 career (1957), Stuart Walker teamed up with a St. John Martin (Sinjin to everyone), and they remained a team until 1963 when Sinjin bought his first International 14. Sinjin would still be called on to occasionally fill in as crew in big regattas, crewing with Stuart in the 1967 English championship.

Sinjin would become a top notch International 14 skipper in his own right, winning the U.S Nationals in 1971 (Stuart would win the nationals in 1969) and representing the East Coast in several International Team Race competitions. He was Annapolis's first Laser dealer. Sinjin retired from the International 14 and hard core racing in 1977.

A picture of Dr. Stuart Walker and Sinjin taken in 1962. This appeared in "Sailing World's" article celebrating Stuart Walker's 300th column for the magazine. This is US666, Salute, the International 14 in which Stuart Walker won the Prince of Wales Cup in 1964 (not with Sinjin as crew). I think all photos in this post were taken by Ellie Martin.

Another pic of Stuart and Sinjin in the International 14, Salute.

US 800 was Stuart Walker's next International 14. This looks to be Stuart and Sinjin. Stuart had devised a really skinny mast out of 1 1/2" tubing for this 14.

Fast forward to Jan 1, 2012. There's a long distance sailboat race on New Years day that Severn Sailing Association have hosted since 1954 (this race being Stuart's idea as well). It's a 14 mile race up the Severn River, into Round Bay, around St. Helena's island and back again. International 14's and then the Solings and then J22's have participated but with the demise of the International 14's at SSA, it remains today, primarily a Soling event.

This year, Stuart recruited his old 14 crew, Sinjin and Sinjin's son (named Stuart, after Stuart). Sinjin hadn't crewed for Stuart since the 1980's but the chemistry was still there. In a breezy southerly and moderate temperatures for January, Stuart claimed his 32nd win in the Ice Bowl. All of us look at the good Dr., in his mid eighties, still racing hard in his Soling year round, and shake our heads in amazement and admiration.

Jan 1, 2012; Stuart, Sinjin, and Stuart Martin bombing up the Severn River in Stuart's Soling with a strong following breeze.

Stuart Martin, Sinjin, and the good Dr. Walker with the Ice Bowl.

And Sinjin, back in 1965, was to take a wet-behind-the-ears teenager, who was mad about sailing, but had never raced, Sinjin took a chance on this teenager and made him his International 14 frostbite crew (Sinjin's wife finally putting her foot down about racing wet boats that capsize in the winter). And that merits a very grateful TOH from the blogmeister.

Antipodean Season in Full Swing; Let's go to the Video Tape

2012-01-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

While we shiver in the Northern Hemisphere (thankfully no snow in the Mid-Atlantic yet), the sailing season for our cousins down under is in full swing. Videos are filtering out of the Southern Hemisphere for those (like the blogmeister) that hunker down in front of the computer for these winter months.

The Aussie 12 foot Cherub class has provided much amusement to the readers of Earwigoagin in the past and these two Cherub videos featured below continue to deliver thrills, spills and dirty words in abundance.

First up is a video that basically follows a Cherub crew upon rounding the weather mark, down the leeward leg to the leeward mark.

Warning, lots of four letter NSFW words here (turn the sound down if you are at work).

"Finally got my pitchpole."
"At least you didn't break your ankle, eh!"

And essentially one game Cherub crew chaining together a bloopers reel with a great soundtrack. (The crew even lost the GoPro, but only momentarily as he dove down to retrieve it off the sandy bottom.)

Congratulations! This crew is the first nominee for the new Earwigoagin's 2012 "No Excuse to Lose Award"

For my mind, if you want some high speed thrills you can share with a friend, there is no better bang for the buck than the Aussie Cherub dinghy (originally conceived by Kiwi John Spencer).

Header Photo: International Canoe launching over a wave

2012-01-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

The World's most popular "planker" class (boy, do I like the Aussie term for the sliding seat!). I lifted this photo of an International Canoe from the Internet. It shows Swede Johan Elfström racing his one-design (Nethercott hull) International Canoe at the 2011 Championship at Travemünder Woche. Johan finished fourth in the one-design fleet.

And from a world far, far, away, here is a somewhat fuzzy photo of the blogmeister riding "No Eyes" hard (pic from Buzzards Bay in the mid 1980's). (Photo from Leslie White)

Log Canoe Video Released, Number 3 in a Series

2012-01-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

My good friend, Bob Ames, has released his third video in his amazing log canoe series. Bob was crew on Island Blossom, the season champion in 2011, and has just about put his GoPro on every part of a log canoe (including the topsail that flys above the foresail in light air). Bob starts the video with his best imitation of the toddler who does the E-trade commercials (trivia question: what's a boardman, a squelcher, a foreman) and the fun takes off from there, a great show on how rollicking and crazy these traditional racing craft can be to sail. The Aussies may have their crazy vintage skiffs but we Marylanders have our log canoes. There's some great capsize video (No, these canoes are not self rescuing).

Blossom 2011 from B. A. on Vimeo.

I highly recommend watching Bob's other log canoe videos; you can watch Log Canoe video #1 over here
and Log Canoe video #2 over here.

The hard life on the rental beach

2012-01-11T03:30:00.000-08:00

I've never worked at renting out sailboats, in fact I've never rented a sailboat. But I imagine most days on the rental beach, the conversation goes like this;

Sun-bleached blonde rental dude, "How much sailing have you done?"
Pasty white Northern dude, "Oh I sail all the time back at home!"

And then the rental dude watches the pasty white Northern dude flail away just off the beach; in irons, out of irons, heeled over, in irons, maybe a capsize, and the rental dude gets in the motor skiff and hauls him in.

The caption for the following video says it all;

"This is one of our clients who went sailing with a GoPro on his head. He capsized and lost the GoPro, now, three months later we found it. This is his story..."

Can you sail? from Simon kearns on Vimeo.

I sense some real trepidation when watching the body language of the girlfriend/wife (anytime a person plunks down in a corner of the boat and rigidly holds that position = "I don't know about this" which is an astute observation given the sailing skills of her skipper). I fear this incident has put her off sailing forever.

New Production Dinghy from France

2012-01-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

Romain, "Earwigoagin's" European correspondent, emailed a heads up about Group Finot's new production dinghy, a 4.3 meter, 14 footer called the "Albatros". Looking at the Albatros website, it definitely sports a wide wedge shape hull. The "Albatros" appears to be the first production sailing dinghy to try to leverage the Transat monohull hull shape into a smaller size. According to the website the "Albatros" is targeted as a two man lightweight sailing dinghy for families and young people.

Here is a side view I lifted from the website..........

The specs on the "Albatros" are as follows.....

Hull length 4.3 m
Hull width 1.95 m
Hull weight 72 kg
Ballast in swinging CB 30 kg
Total hull and CB weight 118 kg
Max load 240 kg
Mainsail area 10.2 m2
Jib area 4.4 m2
Assymetric Area 17 m2

Besides the really wide, wide stern, some of the other design features that seem interesting or odd (take your pick) are.....

Hull is formed thermoplastic out of a recyclable plastic called Evolite by Technyl. The hull uses 3 pieces glued together.
Carbon mast is standard and from the video, looks like the mainsail zips onto the mast like a windsurfer.
The weighted centerboard doesn't swing up into the hull but remains outside the hull when raised.
The blades, including the weighted centerboard, are made of the thermoplastic, which must be an engineering feat in itself to make them stiff enough.
There is a bow insert at the stem which will take most of the abuse of running into the docks.
And the price is an eye-popping low, low 6000 Euros (7620 USD at todays exchange rate). That doesn't include the assymetric kit.

Here is a video showing the rigging and sailing of the "Albatros".....

Group Finot's website makes no bones that there is a definite intent to market the "Albatros" worldwide.

For the American market, I see several problems, the main one being, the "Albatros" may be trying to cover too many market segments. To be a lightweight boat, it has low freeboard, which means this is a sit on boat. American families who daysail like higher freeboard and sit in bench seats. The transom sheeting for the mainsail is a non-starter; there is no American dinghy that uses transom sheeting. Americans like to tie their dinghies to the dock. I'm not sure how docile the Albatros is going to be tied to the dock with a full battened mainsail that isn't easily lowered unless you take the mast down.

Update: Romain adds a comment to say Group Finot have already addressed the issues I've listed above:

"According to one of the articles, the "transom sheeting" is supposed to evolve to a block centered in the boat. Also the mainsail will slide up the mast in a groove, the rudder will be reduced in size and the jib will have a furler...
This will modify a bit the boat from the prototype shown."

I do look forward to test sailing the "Albatros" when it arrives on American shores.

We did have one US class that explored the wide transom, scow hull with normal bow and that is the Johnson 18. Roger Martin, who had done some Transat designs, designed the Johnson 18 in 1994. Over a hundred were built until 1998 when the Johnson boatbuilding company folded. There is a small fleet at SSA and I intend to get a sail on one someday.

Why Sailors Don't Like to Race

2012-01-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, most sailors don't race, they like sailing as a lower stress sport. Ask those who prefer to daysail or putter about why they don't race and you get, "I don't know the rules", and "There's too much yelling" and "I'm afraid I'm going to hit someone".

Well what about some racing in traditional sail boats. Surely that's got to be more genteel. Like this video of the traditional Salcombe Yawls of England.

Wow, utter mayhem! The yelling is so loud you can hear it a couple hundred meters away, against the wind. Add a major dose of the wince factor as we watch the entire fleet try to criss cross each other, short tacking inshore, against the current. There is another video of the always interesting Salcombe Yawls buried back in the archives of this blog.

Top Insect Sailing Blog of 2011

2012-01-04T17:26:00.000-08:00

Shucks Folks, I'm Speechless!

Tillerman once anointed me as the Internet #1 Sailing Dork.

And now, out of the blue, he went and did this.

When the Grand Poobah of sailing blogs; the prolific, witty, erudite, authoritative Tillerman gives you a thumbs up.......Wow!

I'm deeply honored. A Tip of the Hat to Tillerman, the older-than-I, but still young, coot of a Laser sailor.

Header Photo; Barnegat A-Cats

2012-01-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

I "borrowed" this photo from Baydog (he's also added a photo of three Barnegat A-Cats to the title block of his blog ). Baydog (I think he's crewed on them) and even Tillerman know more about this traditional class than I do. From what I was able to garner from a quick trip around the Internet.....

The class traces their origins all the way back to the 1871 Toms River Cup, at that time, a run-what-you-brung regatta featuring the local workboats.
The wide, minimum draft catboat type is ideal for racing on the shallow Barnegat Bay and by 1896 the workboats had been eclipsed by purpose built racing craft.
The class as it is raced today is based around a 1922 Charles Mower design, the 28 footer "Mary Ann". The designer of the Star, Francis Sweisguth, also designed an A-cat in 1923 and today the fleet is a mix of original restorations and reproductions of these two designs.
The Barnegat A-cat has got one huge, bad-ass mainsail and they have lots of crew.
They look to have a very active fleet.

It dawned on me while looking at the bow shape of the Barnegat A-cat and reading about the Charles Mower heritage, that there is a strong connection with our local West River traditional design, the Chesapeake 20, but more on that for a later post.

Oh, and the Barnegat A-cat is also featured as the title photo over on the blog green Boats.

US Olympic Team Announced

2011-12-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

I see the American Olympic Sailing Team for the Weymouth Olympic Games this summer has been announced after the results of the Perth ISAF regatta. (Correction from Tillerman; the US Women's Match Racing team is still to be selected...) All this is somewhat confusing to a old cuss like me who remembers the winner-take-all Olympic Trials being held in the U.S over a one or two week period, but professional sailing moves forward increasingly into their own universe. Anyway, congrats to the winners who will represent the red, white, and blue this summer.

To commemorate our Olympians, I have a medley of videos featuring three Olympic dinghy classes; the 49er, the 470 and the Finn.

First video features the crashes and spills that is the hallmark of sailing a 49er. I also like the Ompah music.......

The second video features the suitably blond, congenial Swedish women's 470 skipper giving a video tour of the 470 dinghy.

Perth 2011 World Championships Live VT from Alex Palmer on Vimeo.

And for our Finn video we feature the air rowing introduced to Finn racing over the last couple of years, as explained by the newly crowned John McEnroe of sailing (English Olympic champion Ben Ainslie who had a dust-up with a photographer at the Perth regatta). I agree with Ben on this one, freeing up the pumping rules for the Finn certainly does make a physical dinghy even more physical - which fits the Olympic ideal.

The models of Bob

2011-12-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

I mentioned somewhere back in Earwigoagin that my temporary job as a sailmaker for the Naval Academy went away in July. In the midst of being a somewhat older gent looking for a job in a down economy, my friend Bob Blomquist mentioned he needed someone to drive his extra vehicle down to Sarasota Florida, as he had taken the plunge and retired full time to Florida. Bob is the boatbuilder, Chesapeake 20 sailor, and the sailor I camped out with at the Mid Atlantic Small Craft Festival.

The car delivery was, more or less, a hammer down dash to Florida (with a break at Charlestown SC with Mothist Mark Saunders) and a quick turnaround flight back, but I did get to stay overnight at Bob's new digs. Being a Florida dwelling, Bob's new home is more airy and light filled than his previous house in Baltimore and I got an opportunity to take some pics of the large sailing models Bob has scattered about his living room.

First is the modified Bolger Chebacco daysailor/cruiser that Bob intends to build. (I'm not sure when, as Bob has immediately become a partner in an E-scow and has joined the local Sarasota fleet of hand me down E-scows that race every Wednesday during the Florida winter season.)

Bob's previous racing class was the traditional Chesapeake 20 class out of West River Sailing Club, situated about 18 miles south of Annapolis MD. Bob built his own Chesapeake 20 but, before commencing construction, he did a study model to work out the decking details. The undecked Chesapeake 20 model is shown below. Above the model is a photo of a Whitehall skiff that Bob and Mark Hasslinger built in the early to mid 1980's.

And finally the most mesmerizing one of the lot; a Crotch Island Pinky. Bob didn't build this one. His Chesapeake 20 crew, Jim Reuter found this model in the attic of a house he had just purchased. It was stored next to Howard Chapelle's book "American Small Sailing Craft". The scribbles and calculations of this unknown model maker filled the page where Chapelle documented the Crotch Island Pinky hull shape. Bob added the mast, sails and stand to the still roughly finished hull.

What an absolutely stunning, curvaceous hull this Crotch Island Pinky has. I love all manners and shapes of sailboats but this model arrests my attention anytime I'm in the same room.

Navigating this blog

2011-12-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write about how to navigate through this blog for a while but a comment from one of my good friends, Bill Parkes (I'm just tweaking on Bill, he really is a good friend) spurred me to finally write this post. Bill commented on my post: "Another Big Guy Singlehander: The Finn Dinghy"

"Rod, You have ignored the Finn.........."

Well, not really. Lets see how to determine how many Finn posts I have done, and other ways to find what you're looking for;

Search Box: With some typing you will find that I have 9 posts referencing the Finn, with 5 of them directly featuring the Finn. How did I do that? Well, Google Blogger utilizes the same Google search engine. "Where is it?", you say. The search box for this blog is on the left of the top menu pane, right above the Title photo. Type in the word "Finn" in the box, hit enter and wala!, Blogger returns all posts that have the word Finn in them.
Blog Archive: A vast majority of readers visit this blog irregularly. To get an idea of what has been posted since you've been gone, just redirect your gaze over to the right menu pane and "Blog Archive" where Blogger will show you an index of all the posts I've done in the current month. If you want to see an index of the previous months posts, click on the right arrow next to that month to open up that index.
Labels: Finally, I've tagged all posts into general categories which you'll find under "Labels", lower down on the right hand menu. You will see, surprise! surprise! that I have 39 posts on the "Laser", click on the Laser Label to see all 39 posts. I've tried to keep the Label list from becoming too unwieldy, which is a struggle.

Hmm! Lets play stump Earwigoagin;

Search word "Flying Dutchman", aha! no posts found.
Search word "Lightning", bunch of posts with maybe three or four related to the American "Lightning" dinghy and several others to the lightning as in "thunder and.....".

Best Wishes 2011 with the Parade of Lights

2011-12-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

End of the year. However you celebrate; Christmas, Hannakahh, Festivus, Kwanzaa, Wiccan, party, party, party, or just a quiet reflection over your favorite beverage; May the joy of the season be with you. To mark this season, here are some pics I took of this years Parade of Lights festival, where owners rig intricate light displays on their craft and then circle around the Annapolis Harbor.

Music Whenever; "White Christmas" Jim Carrey

2011-12-23T17:21:00.000-08:00

I like to flex my diaphragm and croon 'White Christmas" around the house (and occasionally around friends I know really well). It's a tune you can really belt out with no shame. I gotta give Jim Carrey credit, his version really resonates with me.......

In a sing-off with Jim Carrey for the worst "White Christmas", I'd win (not only am I terribly off-key, but my voice cracks at the higher ranges). And the following video is a nice movie mashup of "White Christmas"

Ian Proctor's Osprey Dinghy

2011-12-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

While we are talking about the great English dinghy designer, Ian Proctor, I came across a glorious picture of one of his famous designs, an Osprey dinghy disappearing in waves off Mounts Bay England. The picture was lifted from the Osprey class website. It's so spectacular I had to include it in a post.

The Osprey is a 17 foot two man spinnaker, trapeze dinghy, designed in the 1950's. Definintely a Classic. The history of the class can be found over here.

Len Parker, Earwigoagin's English correspondent based out of Florida, sends the following description of the island and building featured in the background of this photo....

"The island in Mount's Bay near Marazion, west of Penzance..... is thought to have been the site of the ancient island of 'Ictis'. This being the major tin exporting port of the 'Cassiterides' - the tin islands trading with the Phoenicians or Greeks of the eastern Mediterranean from about the 4th Century BC. Dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael, the Mount is approximately 400 metres offshore, and can be reached at low tide by a stone causeway. [See the writings of Diodorus - the Sicilian Greek historian of the 1st Century AD]. Local legend has a more colourful explanation: the Mount was built by, and home to, the giant 'Comoran'. He would come ashore and steal sheep and cows from the mainland and return to the Mount to eat his meal. He was supposedly killed by a local boy, later called Jack - the Giant Killer.

The building on the Mount is actually is a Benedictine Priory built by Bernard of Le Bec, Abbot of Mont St. Michel (Normandy), in 1135. The Priory marks the southernmost part of the St. Michael's Way in Cornwall - A route for pilgrims from Ireland to St. Ives on through St. Uny Lelant to the Mount and thence on to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. It stands 230 feet above sea level and dominates the whole area."

Minisail Scow Revival; Part 2

2011-12-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

All of us sailors have sea stories, told and retold like bards of old. Rupert tells his tale of the Minisail scow;

"I bought my first Minisail (actually a Minisprint, with the self draining cockpit and built in sliding seatsupport) back in the late 1980’s, and sailed her for a while off the coast of Wales in the Irish sea. Thewaves there come straight in from the Atlantic, and can make for a wild ride. Being washed off the seat,and, if lucky, keeping hold of tiller extension and seat webbing, and clawing oneself back on boardagain, is an experience I’ll never forget, but the boat needed space and steady winds to be such fun, when I moved away from the coast, she had to go.It was about 10 years later that I bought my next Minisail, this time a yellow decked GRPMonaco design with a wooden bolt-on seat. By now I wassailing at Whitefriars SC, a small lake situated on the Cotswold Water Park, north of Swindon, and Ihave to admit, I found the boat nice to sail without the seat getting in the way.I was also sailing with the recently formed Classic and Vintage Racing Dinghy Association(CVRDA), who luckily have a very relaxed attitude to GRP boats. Normally I sailed my Firefly, but I tookthe Minisail to a few meetings. The one that stands out in my memory was a fantastically windy CVRDANational Rally at Roadford Lake in Devon. Upwind, the silly bendy rig, stretchy sail and narrow hull(really should have put the seat on for this event!) made for very hard work, but bear off onto the reachand it all became worth it – spray everywhere, passing much bigger boats as though they were standingstill – boating heaven!Shortly after this, I found that I had too many boats, and (in retrospect, foolishly) decided to sellthe Minisail.And so another decade passed…Thoughts during the period of non-Minisail ownership often drifted back to the delights of thescow, but I was happy sailing Fireflies, British Moths, Lightning 368’s, Tonics and various other craft.However, browsing through an Internet boat mart in the Autumn of 2010, I spotted a wooden Minisailfor sale, for a crazy low price. Well, I had to go and see it, didn’t I? I got there expecting a bit of awreck, really, and came away with an immaculate Sprite design Minisail.The boat, No. 3446, dates from the early 1970’s. She had been used for a few years, then put in agarage in the early 80’s, and not used since. Apart from a small patch of lifted varnish, the hull wasperfect. The sail, however, was a mess. Just a huge stretched Nylon bag. going upwind was impossible,with the sail so stretched. It was too long to even fit on the boom properly! A new, stiffer boom, madefrom a section of old mast, solved that problem, and an order went in with a local sailmaker, RandJ sails,for a new main. Fittings were replaced by ones which actually worked, but were kept simple, in the styleof the original.In the spring of 2011 the new sail arrived, a beautiful red and white striped creation. Suddenly,the boat felt as nice to sail upwind as down. After a few races at Whitefriars, it was time to take her onthe road. Llyn Clywedog, in West Wales, is a glorious expanse of water created in 1969 as a reservoir. Itis surround by mountains, making the strong winds swirl in interesting ways! The Minisail, with herstable, flat bottomed early planning hull form, turned out to be the ideal boat for the water. As I’d foundall those years before, the pain of upwind was worth it for the rush down the reaches, and the adrenalinefilled gybes. Compared to strong winds, light wind Minisail sailing is frustrating. The hull has a fair amount of wetted surface, and upwind and on a reach you’ll need to keep the hull heeled to leeward. On the run, Laser style heeling to windward with the boom out beyond 90 degrees seems to be quickest, and is also the most fun. All in all, for a 50 year old design, the Minisail still has a lot to offer. Cheap, fun, fast on a reach and full of novelty value. What more could you want from a boat?"

Rupert tells me to give a tip of the hat to David Argles, who was the true believer and kept the Minisail light going until others discovered the boat.

Two other Minisail pics.........

Minisail Scow Revival; Part 1

2011-12-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

It's always heartwarming to see a dinghy class experiencing a modern day revival, particularly when that class is a scow, a type that is one of my favorites. Rupert Whelan is the kingpin in resurrecting the Minisail scow in England and he has sent me some photos and a report. (Boy, do I love it when someone sends post ready material to Earwigoagin!)

The Minisail was Ian Proctor's first scow design, the forerunner to what would be the worlds most popular scow design, his rotomolded Topper scow with over 50,000 built so far. The idea for the Minisail was germinated when Ian observed the Yanks and their first beach boats (probably the lateen rigged Alcort Sailfish) on a trip to the U.S as a reporter for the 1958 America's Cup. (There is a certain symmetry here. The Sailfish would eventually be developed into the more popular Sunfish with over 250,000 boats built. The Minisail would be eventually developed into the more popular Topper with over 50,000 boats).

Here are the Minisail specs from the advertising brochure of Richmond Marine.

Unlike the Americans who love to keep things the same, Ian Proctor and his builders were always tinkering with the Minisail and there were several variations produced. Rupert outlines the history.......

"The Minisail was designed by Ian Proctor in 1959 after a visit to the USA, where he saw the early Alcortbeachboats and decided to design one for British waters. The first design was flush decked, round bowedwith a slight V bottom. This became the Monaco MkI. These were mainly built in GRP. In order to make home building in wood easier, he designed a flat bottomed version, called a Sprite. This has a squarebow with a carry handle built in, so they are easily distinguishable. For more comfortable sailing on flat water, Ian Proctor designed a cockpit version of each design; these became the Monaco and SpriteMkIIs. All this development took place over a short period in the early 1960’s. Whether the boat had asliding seat, or even wings, was a personal choice, with most of the boats which raced having some sortof sitting out aid.In the early 1970’s an experiment was made with a Monaco hull, making it self draining, and theMinisprint was born. The Minisprint MkII was soon created, which was GRP, self draining, with built inseat support, a pivoting centreboard and a larger section boom with tracked foot, rather than the loosefooted sail other Minisails had, in order to control sail shape better. Just before the Minisail faded away, a composite version of the Minisprint was designed, called the Meson but very few were built."

More information can be found over at the Minisail website.

And some pictures (click in the picture to start a slideshow, photos courtesy of Karen Collyer)..............

Fleet of four Minisails, all different versions, at the Classic, Vintage Racing Dinghy Nationals. Leftmost is Tom Moore in a home built Minisprint, Rupert is front and center with his wooden Sprite, blue and white sail is Peter Matthews in a Monaco Mk1 and David Argles in a GRP Minisprint MKII.

Peter Matthews in a flush decked Monaco MKI.......

Tom Moore in a home finished Minisprint with a sliding seat.......

Part 2 of this post on the Minisail can be found over here .

Ambassadors for Sailing

2011-12-16T15:10:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that I've been sailing most of my life but, unfortunately, I've never been the best salesman for sailing. Contrast that with the love and passion for sailing that just leaps out in the videos below.

First, Sue Lane, an English Flying Fifteen sailor from Dovestone......

And a wonderfully crazy coot who thought it was a good idea to teach sailing on a farm pond in the mountains of West Virgina.......

Weird European Regatta Party Traditions

2011-12-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

The Europeans seem to have, let me say, somewhat different apres-sailboat racing traditions.

Here we have the Dutch jump up and down, wave around their hands, in a marginally choreographed dance, done to a trumpet piece. Video taken sometime during the Dutch weeklong "Sneekweek", which is a drinking festival with brief intervals of sailboat racing.

Header Photo; 1948 Classic Moth Start

2011-12-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

The caption to this old timey photo reads as follows;

"Portsmouth Boat Club Annual Regatta, June 12 & 13 1948

"Blondie", left with skipper Dorr Willey, gets off to the lead which brought the first place, W. H. Weatherly III sailing "Lacerta" #567, right is the winner of second place in the Moth Class. Photo by Gene James."

Music Whenever; The Youngers "Heartbreaker"

2011-12-10T13:14:00.001-08:00

I like the sound of this mournful country group. They're from somewhere midstate Pennsylvania though I've never come across them further south.

Zen of Daysailing; Canoe Sailing in Hawaii

2011-12-10T11:11:00.001-08:00

Another one in a series for those who just like to kick around in sailboats.......

Nalo Sail from dave gagnon on Vimeo.

Banque Populaire hammering at the Jules Verne Trophy

2011-12-08T16:44:00.001-08:00

The 130 foot maxi trimaran, Banque Populaire, skippered by Loick Peyron, is, at this moment, somewhere in the Southern Ocean near Australia, chasing the Round the World record.

I've featured videos of these amazing craft before. It's always hard to get a gauge on the speed of these monsters but at 45 seconds into the following video, Banque Populaire happens upon a cruising catamaran (probably doing 4 or 5 knots under jib only).

Earwigoagin's European correspondent, Romain, was kind enough to translate the French for us provincial Americans;

"The guy in the French Original Version says that they are doing 33 knots and that the leisure catamaran they overtake does maybe 6"

Whoosh...............

Banque Populaire V a fondo por los alisios from Viento a Favor on Vimeo.

Header Photos from previous posts

2011-12-08T15:13:00.001-08:00

Some blog housekeeping for myself. I wanted to document the header photos I've used in previous posts, before I started labeling them as header photos. For a slideshow, click on the first photo.

A Sandbagger off Annapolis Harbor...........

International Canoes on floating docks, New York Bay, Sugar Island...........

Classic Moth start, Midwinters, Boca Ciega Bay, Gulfport Florida......

Classic Moths on the downwind leg, Boca Ciega Bay, Gulfport Florida.....

Australian Historical 10 foot skiffs rigging on shore.........

Solo Dinghy vs "The Kirby Sailboat Formerly Known as the Laser"

2011-12-06T17:02:00.000-08:00

At least in the United Kingdom there seems to be one other hiking singlehander matching the "Kirby Sailboat Formerly Known as the Laser" step for step. Looking at the Yachts and Yachting Web Site where they have tabulated the numbers attending the UK National Championships averaged over ten years, as well of the individual year by year totals, we see the Solo Dinghy hanging right with the Laser (well, the full rigged Laser version).

10 Year Avg Turnout for UK National Championship; Laser 81, Solo 77

2011 National Championship; Solo 95, Laser 81

And before Tillerman puts up his hand and says yes, but..... yes, I know there are no Solo dinghies in North America, or Denmark, or South Africa, or the Phillipines or......

But, in dinghy mad UK, these are certainly intriguing numbers. Any UK readers of Earwigoagin that want to shed light on how the Solo class, designed by Jack Holt in 1956, is hanging with the Laser? I would be very interested in hearing what the Solo Dinghy is doing right.

I've posted about the Solo Dinghy before; a vintage video here , and an amazing heavy air photo here .

Meanwhile here is a very well done promo video for the Solo dinghy

Rupert Whelan added a comment which directly addressed some of my questions...........

"The Solo (also known as the SoSlow or Slowlo) isn't fast, but gives fantastic close racing. I owned one a few years ago, but it was old and bendy, and I decided I could get a better boat for the money (a Lightning 368, another UK only boat) but the modern version is very stiff, is bomb proof thanks to the highish minimum weight, has a powerful fully batten 8 sqm sail and is raced by many of the top sailors in the country.In light winds it will leave a Laser behind, but once hull length comes into play, the Laser will sail away, especially in waves.As for Lasers and speed, there are plenty of faster singlehanders over here, but none have caught on in the same way as the Laser or Solo, so speed obviously isn't all - we set ourselves boundaries in order to get fair, close racing at a cost we can afford, otherwise we would be over in Namibia with Paul Larsen and his Vestas Sailrocket trying to hit 60 knots..."

Kids and Parents in a Mirror Dinghy

2011-12-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

Following along on my "Kids and Parents" series is a family sail in a 10'10" (3.3 meter) Mirror Dinghy. Video is kind of short but the kids seem to enjoy being captain of this vessel. (I like the Muppet sound track, I've got the latest Muppet movie on my movie list but not sure I can convince my wife to go see it.)

Summer Mirror Dinghy Sailing 2011 from P Collins on Vimeo.

Boat Blunderer, Boat Blunderer

2011-12-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Boat Blunderer, Boat Blunderer, what an amazing alliterative epithet. I wish I had thought of this tongue rolling, word combination to apply to my sailboat racing, but noooo!, a sailor of "The Kirby Sailboat formerly known as the Laser" just posted a video with that title. On one end of the spectrum are all those Type A personalities who read and practice Dennis Connor's dictum "No Excuse to Lose" and on the other end of the spectrum you have the Boat Blunderers, the corner where I now proudly plunk my oldster battle flag.

Get out to the race late? Check.
Rigged the boat wrong? Check.
Manage to capsize at the wrong time? Check.

Watch the video. It'll make you chuckle.

Header Photo; Fall View from Quiet Waters Park

2011-12-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

Shot taken across Harness Creek.........

1981 International 14 Team Races and World Championships

2011-11-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

Almost three months ago, I wrote about the three major championships I sailed thirty years ago in August/September 1981. I wrote three posts about the 1981 International Canoe Championships that took place in August of that year but, again, in a bout of procrastination, I have yet to mention the other two championships.

In mid September, 1981, on consecutive weeks, I raced in both, the International 14 Team Races and, the International 14 Worlds out of Annapolis. I teamed with Bill Moss on his Kirby IV.

For many years leading up to 1981, the International 14 class had considered the Team Racing Championship as the defacto World Championship (oddly enough there was no perpetual trophy) but, by 1981, changes were afoot. The class had held it's first World Championship in Alamitos Bay, California in 1979. The 1981 Worlds was to be the second World Championship for the class and there was a strong movement to move the class towards amalgamating the rule with the Australian 14 class.

However, in 1981, the International Team Racing Championship was still THE prestigious event in the class, even though it was basically a three country, English speaking affair (the U.S having a West Coast and East Coast team to make it a four team round robin with England and Canada). The East Coast had never won the International Team Racing Championship but in 1981, with the event in home town Annapolis and having the reigning 1979 World Champion, John Gallagher, the East Coast team looked poised to compete for the top spot.

And we did eventually win the Team Racing Championship, but it was a difficult road as every one of us on the East Coast Team had a race where we totally screwed the pooch; for me it was one of the races against the West Coast where I tried to sneak inside at a mark without an overlap and got shut out by Baird Bardason. Extremely mad at my stupidity, I withdrew and crossed my fingers that we could pull this race out with only three boats....and we did. It seemed race after race, one of us would step up to save the team's bacon. It was an extremely hard fought series against the Canadians, there were a couple of protests that went our way but, in the end, we prevailed. The first and only East Coast team to win the International Team Race series.

Mug shot of the 1981 East Coast International 14 Team after one of the races......

From Left to Right; Chris Price, Eric Arens, Bill Moss, Tom Price, Paul Weiss, John Gallagher, David Gallagher, Rod Mincher

The World Championship the next week started with three days of a hard 20-25 mph Northwester blow. It wasn't if you were going to capsize, it was when you were going to capsize. I remember a hard reach right on the edge of control when the rudder stalled out and stayed stalled. The rudder was turned, there was a nice rooster tail but no control. "Hang on!", I yelled at Bill, "No rudder!" right before the 14 headed up and rolled over. The breeze moderated toward the end of the week.... Bill and I had a couple of good races to finish mid teens which wasn't too different from where I ended up at the International Canoe Worlds a month earlier.

Below is a photo from Annapolis rag, "The Evening Capitol". Crew were on the English team; Alan Fitzgerald and Nick Burgin.

From an email from English team member, Andy Fitzgerald.....

"Yes it's me and my crew Nick Burgin (who went on to sail a FD successfully with Roger Yeoman before pulling out before the Seoul Olympics, to be replaced by another 14 sailor Neil Mcdonald of round the world fame)........It was still in my mind the windiest race ever - we all hid in the lee of the supertanker and the race really started there. My introduction to the cut and thrust of team racing, not to mention the Canadians who were getting on top of their game."

John Evans, member of the English team, added this comment which I've dragged over to the main post.

"Yes, indeed , it was a memorable event in 1981 - as we not only had 25+knots wind for one days racing in the Worlds, but also an Annapolis "Buster" with hail, rain and thunder one evening - it stopped the Naval Academy Band from practising, which was a relief!I won the windy day race, and did quite well overall.....Bob and Peggy Reeves hosted us.Andy Fitzgerald raced with a guy called Nick Burgin...my crew was called Pete Barr, who knew all Baird Bardason daughters really well!"

Alan Laflin emailed his recollections;

"Eric A and I have owned 2 14s together since the 97 Worlds and raced it in the Totally Dinghy regatta in September. We're both 72 (me next week) and we won the Century Cup in England in 2008. First non Brits and the oldest combined age ever. The 1981 picture in front of the Naval Academy was just after we won the first race of the Worlds and went downhill after that. I think we were 2nd in the US Nationals part of the Regatta."

Eric Arens emailed this clarification about the photo below;

"The picture is left to right reversed as you can see in the Naval Academy. I forget the photographer's name, but he lived in Annapolis; and he reversed the picture so that it would fit on the fold-out cover of Sailing World's predecessor magazine.

Your note on the team races is very good in stating that each of us really messed up at some time or other. I got disqualified before the start of one race when I was on port tack. I still do not know how little room a boat tacking to port has to give a starboard tacker so that the starboard tacker cannot change course and bear down on the port tacker."

And Mark Adams added a comment which I've dragged over to the main post;

"I think the b/w picture is indeed of Andy Fitzgerald from the UK. I used to run into him in England on business and we would always talk about the windy day of the Worlds. We managed to make it 3 miles or so downwind in 30, then hung out in the lee of an anchored tanker while the RC set the course. We both agreed that it was the windiest day of racing we'd ever had in a dinghy. And I'm from San Francisco and he's from windy ole England. Oh and the photographer's name who took that pic of me and Chris, Alan and Jim was Bob Dollard if I recall correctly."

On the picture below, West Coasties, Alan Laflin and crew Jim Anderson (foreground) with Mark Adams and Chris Benedict (3rd in the Worlds) to weather, beating back to SSA after the days races. Photo from Sailing World.

And this article from "The Evening Capitol" fills out who made it to podium finishes.......

The following email is about some of the shenanigans that took place at the informal Team Race party. I missed the good bits because of a very pregnant wife. (I've tried to keep the players somewhat anonymous.)

"The relay race on the big lawn at Tom Price's house that resulted in Ed.... from Canada and me having to run against each other because the Canadians kept the $1 entry fee from each country and wouldn't pay up to the East Coast when we (East Coast) had won. Since the course included chugging a beer and stripping down to nothing at the far end of the lawn before returning, the opportunity was realized and taken to remove my clothes. Anyway, in the confusion we did not get the money. But justice was served, although years later. About the year 2000 I was at an airport in British Columbia getting ready to get onto a helicopter to go to a lodge in the mountains to back county ski for a week when I heard a call "Eric......" I looked over and saw Ed.... and immediately said "You owe me $10." He bought a round of drinks at the lodge, but the rest of the East Coast never did get rewarded for winning."

Music Whenever: Quelqu'un and Lorenzo "Lay Lady Lay"

2011-11-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

I like this cover of the Bob Dylan tune. Never heard of the duo though.

And I like the weirdness; the trailer park, the bikes and the band jam emerging from the coverlet.

(The NSFW cover photo has nothing to do with the video, just a simple hook to let our animal desires move that finger over the mouse to click the play button.)

LayLadyLay from Patrice De Bruyne on Vimeo.

Laser Heavy Air Slalom

2011-11-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

I tweak on the "The Kirby Sailboat formerly known as The Laser" class every so often, but you can't knock the world class quality of these dinghy sailors. The Laser Slalom was a big deal in the 70's but stopped as a competition after about five years. I remember 30 years ago, they set a Laser Slalom up in Annapolis.... there was some breeze and my attempts to master the close set marks, particularly gybing, was very ragged to say the least.

Thankfully someone resurrected the Laser Heavy Air Slalom this year in San Francisco and this great video captures some of the highlights and lowlights (like the almost total submarining about 39 seconds into the video).

Laser Heavy Air Slalom from Tj Stacy on Vimeo.

Header Photo: 2010 Cooper River Fall

2011-11-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

Classic Moths on the hard with "The Kirby Sailboat formerly known as the Laser" fleet racing in the background.

Racing on the Gorge

2011-11-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

A neat compendium of video shorts of dinghy and foiler racing on the Columbia Gorge. (There's even an old fart handling the Laser downwind with aplomb.)

Sail the Gorge! from Bill Symes on Vimeo.

And going back in the Earwigoagin archives are two videos of the insane Laser Long Distance Race in the Gorge. Click over here and over here .

Skate Sail in Saskatchewan

2011-11-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Holy Moly Batman, someone already has ice in North America.! But not much wind!

Slow-time Skate Sail from Village Rainbows on Vimeo.

Why a Classic Moth is Better than a Laser

2011-11-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

Upon writing a post about Cooper River 2011, I was reminded that I had yet to write a post that I had intended for last year. The post was supposed to be in response to an incident at Cooper River 2010 (as I have mentioned before, this blog is all about timeliness!).

Last year at Cooper River, just before launching my Classic Moth for the day, I was rounding the corner of the clubhouse when I overheard a conversation between two Laser sailors. Both of them were looking over at our congregation of Classic Moths when one of them said;

"I understand why someone would sail a foiler Moth, but I can't understand why someone would sail one of these", as he nodded his head toward our fleet.

I didn't respond, just smiled to myself and kept going. It wasn't the time or place, I had to get ready for the day on the water. But the gauntlet had been thrown down. It just takes me a while to pick it up.

Tillerman has merrily gone down this path before with several posts on "Reasons why such-and-such class is better", the Sunfish/Laser being a target in his post Ten Reasons Why Sunfish are better than Lasers , and then with the Force Five/Laser with Seven Reasons Why Force Fives are Better than Lasers . (Tillerman even had a tongue-in-cheek, self flagellation post, Seven Reasons to Hate Laser Sailors, but that isn't germane to this post.)

I can come up with five strong reasons why I persist in sailing the Classic Moth and not return to the Laser Borg (though you will find me every once in a while racing a Laser.)

Classic Moths are so much Lighter

My Classic Moth fits Me

The Classic Moth is more fun to sail

Classic Moths are Cheaper

The Classic Moth People

Music Whenever: John Mellencamp "Pink Houses"

2011-11-18T17:03:00.000-08:00

Another great tune I file under the genre "Americana" rock.

There's a black man with a black cat
Livin' in a black neighborhood
He's got an interstate runnin' through his front yard
You know he thinks that he's got it so good

And there's a woman in the kitchen
Cleanin' up the evenin' slop
And he looks at her and says
"Hey darlin', I can remember when you could stop a clock"

Oh, but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

There's a young man in a t-shirt
Listenin' to a rockin' rollin' station
He's got greasy hair, greasy smile
He says, "Lord this must be my destination"

'Cause they told me when I was younger
"Boy you're gonna be President"
But just like everything else those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Oh, but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there's people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico, ooh yeah

And there's winners and there's losers
But they ain't no big deal
'Cause the simple man baby pays for the thrills, the bills
The pills that kill

Oh, but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America somethin' to see baby
Ain't that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Cooper River Fall 2011

2011-11-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

The more astute among those of you who still read my drivel after all these years; you may have noticed that I haven't been sailing my Classic Moth that much...... and you're right! I last raced my Maser in June and neither my Maser or any of my project Classic Moths have been dipped in water since.... that is until last weekend. My job as a sailmaker for the US Naval Academy went away in July, it was a temporary assignment after all, and I, in trying to navigate what is indeed a difficult job market, I haven't been able to wrap my head around racing my Classic Moths. There have been other distractions as well; a wedding and other temporary work.

Well, last weekend I bundled my trusty Maser onto the trailer and made the trip up to Philadelphia with my Mothboater travel mate, John Z. The river provided a nice 5-7 knot, typically fluky breeze, the temps were close to 60 F, the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky, a gorgeous afternoon. We raced 6 short races, I finished 3rd out of 5 and had a blast.

After the racing, as is the custom, the Mid-Atlantic Mothboaters spent time sampling weird and wonderful beers, orchestrated by Mike and Barbara Parsons.

We had the Dogfish Pangea, a spicy beer with a strong orange taste, Fegleys Imperial Pumpkin, my review of which has been relegated to my Pumpkin Beer post , Samuel Smith Winter Ale with a typical English maltiness and my cheaper but still tasty, Farmhouse Ale Stout.

A picture from left to right; George, who is the author of the blog Mid-Atlantic Musings, Mike, a friend of Mike's who only likes watered down lite beer but we still let him join the party, Barbara, who brought out the Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and the blogmeister, still sporting his zinc oxide sun screen. (John Z is behind the camera.)

One of the neat things about Cooper River is that it has the feeling of being in a quiet suburban setting but you can see the skyline of Philadelphia poking out above the treeline. Here is the skyline behind the massive rowing center building on Cooper River.

In my dotage, I pick my fall days I want to go sailing and you couldn't pick one better than this.

Music Whenever: Tribute "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

2011-11-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia :

In 2004, George Harrison was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was played in tribute by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, Steve Ferrone, Marc Mann, and Dhani Harrison, along with fellow inductee Prince.

Actually this serves two purposes; it allows me to cleverly connect this following music video into the current mess in the Laser class.

In the mid 90's, Prince decided to change his name into a symbol that couldn't be printed. Everyone had to refer to him awkwardly as "the artist formerly known as Prince".

As Tillerman notes, in 2011, Bruce Kirby decided to rename his Laser design to "The Kirby Sailboat". Now everyone should refer to Tillerman's favorite sailboat (again awkwardly) as "the Kirby Sailboat formerly known as the Laser".

Anyway, great music video, particularly when "the artist formerly known as Prince" does his solo at the end.

Update: Baydog has kindly posted another version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (as well as some Bob Dylan) over here . Also, in the comments, Tillerman suggests going to YouTube and watching a live version with George and Eric Clapton done during a 1992 Japanese concert.

Kids and Parents and Sailing

2011-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, Nick Hayes published a book "Saving Sailing; full of suggestions to grow the sport. Tillerman wrote a post about his thoughts on the book over here . One of the suggestions Nick made was that parents should actually go sailing with their kids rather than dropping them off at the club to be herded around the water by some college aged instructors. I think there is some merit in Nick's suggestion, though I am not one that can be held up as an example; I was much more into my singlehanded sailing as my kids were growing up and not so much into taking them out. Understandably my kids went off and found other activities they enjoyed more.

Here are three very different videos with parents/adults sailing with their kid(s).

The first one has a young tyke, somewhat overwhelmed, bombing along close to the water with his parents in a Hobe Tri-Foiler.

Salim goes sailing August 2011 from AaronDavis on Vimeo.

The second video has mom crewing for her two kids, one steering and one tending the jib on an older wooden catamaran (by the look of the crossbeams it may very well be an old Prout Shearwater, but I'm guessing this is Australia so it may be some home grown design). The video ends with what looks like Dad and maybe an older son, double trapezing on a modern skiff type vessel.

Sailing at the richmond river sailing club and rowing sunday 6/11/2011. from Callum on Vimeo.

And for Baydog, who has written about his family sailing on an E-scow , here is a kid steering an E-scow. By his grin from ear to ear, an experience he'll remember the rest of his life. (And plenty of grins and laughter from the old farts too!)

I've got to add this one from a fellow blogger. My2Fish, blogger about Sunfish sailing, music, and Michigan State football , points to his video of sunset sailing on his Sunfish with his oldest son. Beautiful colors in this video.

sunfish sailing with my son from my2fish on Vimeo.

Music Whenever: Bon Iver "Holocene"

2011-11-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Another recommendation from Robyn.

Supposedly Bon Iver fell in love with the beauty of Iceland and I have never seen a better music video in capturing stunning natural wonders. Combine this with Bon Iver's haunting acoustic sound to create something special.

BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

Header Photo; 1888 Topsail Cutter "Elf"

2011-11-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post in June about the Elf Classic Yacht Race, a cross-the-Chesapeake Bay Classic Yacht Race. This is the restored 'Elf', off Annapolis Harbor, waiting for her skipper to row out so she can get underway in the race.

Volvo Ocean Race: 2011 Edition

2011-11-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

The around the world Volvo Ocean Race starts tomorrow. I think those Volvo guys are absolutely nuts, right up there with those crazies that jump off mountains in those flying squirrel suits and then zoom feet from the rock face. I would be hard pressed to name another endurance event that is as long and draining as the Volvo Ocean Race. American Kenny Read hits the nail on the head with this interview.............

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Ghostly apparitions, eerie humming and swirling waters in this night video of a TP52 blasting downwind off Denmark........

Wolfpack sailing from nils melsom kristensen on Vimeo.

Kibitzing; Jamie Brickell and Mothboats

2011-10-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing much sailing this fall but I have been kibitzing. Sometimes, you never know when you'll walk smack dab into sailing history. In talking with SSA Lightning sailor Jamie Brickell, he mentioned he learned to sail on a Mothboat, specifically a Skip Etchell's Connecticut design. Well, he added a comment to one of my posts which I'll drag over to this post. At the time, he didn't mention his mother was Allegra Knapp Mertz, winner, four times, of the Adams Cup.

Jamie writes;

My mother, Allegra Knapp Mertz, bought Connecticut Moth #1020 from Skip Etchells in 1947, named her Loon, and frostbited at Larchmont (NY) Yacht Club over the winter on 1947-48. Her husband, Jim Mertz, was a member of American YC in Rye NY, and Loon went there in 1948. She was placed on one of the docks. I was 7 years old at the time and found that I could push her off the dock and go sailing. The only problem was getting her back on the dock at the end of the day. I did this for about 6 weeks before I was caught. Mom came down to the club to go sailing and the sails and boat were missing. Luckily I sailed around the AYC main dock and made a perfect landing, wouldn't have broken an egg, as she said. Looking back, it was probably a bit crazy for a 7 year old to sail around Milton Harbor, and a bit beyond, unsupervised, but that was then. I loved that boat and think it is the reason I am still racing small boats, currently a Lightning, at age 70 with my wife Susie as forward crew. There is a half model of her (Loon) in the American Yacht Club.

Jamie (age 4) also faintly remembers his Mom and step-dad fishing a large log onto the Mothboat to use later as firewood.

For a tribute to Allegra Knapp Mertz, here is a link to her obituary in the New York Times.

I've talked to a fair number of my generation and many learned by sailing on their own; not so much through organized instruction; just going out and going sailing.

Header Photo; Artsy, Fartsy Classic Moth

2011-10-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

I took a photo of current National Champion, Jeff Linton, at this years E-City Championships and tried one of the different styles you can pick in Adobe Elements.

Music Whenever: American Babies "Dance All Night"

2011-10-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

There is music I call "Americana". For me, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Robert Earl Keene, The Band, Steve Kellogg and the Sixers fit the bill. I would expect every one has there own version of the "Americana" sound. This tune by American Babies slots into the "Americana" sound for me as well.

All Right Already; Photo of Thistles

2011-10-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

To answer any confusion. From the Earwigoagin archives; a photo of genuine Thistles starting at SSA (As Tillerman noted, the previous post had a video of Intercollegiate FJ's racing, not Thistles). Here at Earwigoagin, we do throw the ocassional changeup to keep everyone on their toes.

Photo from John Z.

Race Committee for Thistles; October 9,10

2011-10-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

I was Vice Chair for the Thistle Oyster Bowl at SSA on October 8,9. I was expecting to take a camera along and take a pic or two for Doryman, but we had little to no wind. We did squeeze a race off late Saturday in about 5 knots to make it a regatta, but Sunday only teased us with some light breezes in the Severn River; flat calm remained in the Bay. The regatta was called by noon.

The Thistle Class is doing as well as any dinghy class on the Eastern seaboard. Talking with class stalwart Don Moore he can list all the clubs where the class was once strong in the 1960's and 1970's and popular regattas were held, but now.... nothing. But that is how it is with all dinghy classes (with maybe the possible exception of the Lasers). It amazes me the small clubs and lakes the Thistles are still sailed. There are the Pennsylvania lake clubs outside of Philadelphia that I've never heard of. There is also a communal fleet of Thistles that are wet sailed all summer in New Castle Delaware. I have said it before; there is no better sailing dinghy to drift about a lake than a Thistle.

I was puzzling why even fiberglass Thistles have wood gunwhales and wood trim and found out it was a class rule,enforced so the class wouldn't look too plastic. Good rule! I also noted that two of the skippers had been sailing coaches in a previous life. In talking with one of the ex-coaches, I found it interesting, that after coaching kids in plastic 420's and Lasers, they were attracted to a classic dinghy like the Thistle.

I came across a YouTube of an intercollegiate regatta sailed down the road on the Potomac River on the same weekend. You get a good feeling on how the wind teased but ultimately became a no-show.

2011 Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival

2011-10-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

Earwigoagin reporter John Z was on location to take some photos at this years Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival hosted by Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, St. Michaels Maryland. Apparently reporter wages that this blog site pays are not sufficient as John was also selling a John Gardiner traditional motor skiff he built some time ago (with vintage 10 hp Johnson). John did find a buyer at the last minute.

The docks, as always, were a beehive of activity..........

Having brought a motor boat to the festival, John didn't participate in the sailing race but did take in the action from the deck of a traditional Sam Crocker 23' Stone Horse keeler.

8' Cocktail racers are the newest rage in the Mid-Atlantic. An open cockpit outboard racer (6-8 hp outboards), the design is based on a 1939 design from "The Rudder" magazine. Local plywood kit makers, Chesapeake Light Craft, have designed a stitch and glue version that should be introduced in the next couple of months.

I get bored with all-varnished stripper canoes and kayaks, but I never get bored with the beauty of an all-varnished Adirondack Guideboat......

The Delaware Tuckup during the sailing race............

I don't remember seeing a Beetle Cat attending the Festival the last couple of years. Apparently one made it this year.....

Melonseeds are still one of the more popular traditional sailing craft being home built today. One of the Melonseeds launching......

Puddle Duck racers are another class that has caught the interest of the home builder crowd. Derived from the Bolger "Brick" (apt name for this square, blunt, plywood design), Puddle Duck sail plans seem to wide open. This one sports a leeboard......

Header Photo; Windmill Class

2011-10-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Windmill class is a 15'6" (4.72 meters) two man hiking dinghy designed by Floridian Clark Mills (designer of the Optimist dinghy). Like the Optimist dinghy, the Windmill was originally designed to be home built out of plywood, featuring a shallow V chine hull. Mostly found in the U.S, the Windmill at one point had a thriving fleet in Finland. A lively sailing dinghy; I sailed and raced the Windmill as a teenager and will always have a soft spot for the class. (A previous post points out that the Windmill hull was used by the US1 singlehander class.)

Music Whenever: Shakira "LOCA"

2011-10-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

My last "Music Whenever" post reminded me that now would be a good time to transition to this Latin-pop icon. My, what she can do with her midsection! Nuff said!

Shakira _ LOCA _Patinando por Barcelona from YETIGUZ on Vimeo.

Feel good video on boatbuilding

2011-10-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

I've been building a canoe for close to twenty years (I've lost track). This fellow took on a much larger project and successfully hammered it to completion in twenty five years. His down home observations are worth the price of admission.

Music Whenever: Black Eyed Peas, Sergio Mendes "Mas Que Nada" "

2011-10-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Mix Latin and Rap ---Why not?

Black Eyed Peas & Sergio Mendes [Mas que nada] from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

The 'Pinnasse a Voile" of Arcachon Basin, France

2011-10-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

A fascinating video of Pinnasse racing in the Arcachon basin, southern France near Bordeaux. Very canoe like, with a pointed stern, narrow beam, hard chines, and a pretty upswept bow sheer, the Pinnasse was originally a work boat used for fishing and oyster farming but, today, just like the Maryland log canoe, lives on primarily as a racing sailboat. They feature a low aspect lug rig where the tack of the sail is attached to the bow. To tack, the sail must be dropped and shoved around the mast to the new leeward side and then rehoisted. All very tricky in a tippy boat and this video is captivating as we see the coordination of the 6-7 crew as they hustle to get these craft from on tack to the other.

Also on this video are some video snippets of the always beautiful wooden International 12's racing (the not so common pink, as a hull color, is featured here..... I had a niggling feeling that I got this wrong - the International 12 identification - when I wrote this, but I thought "Romain will correct me if I'm wrong", and he did). Romain writes......

"The pink international 12' is in fact a monotype d'Arcachon.

Slightly longer (14'), wider and with more sail surface, the hull is not lapstrake and the sail type is a balanced lug instead of a standing lug.

It was designed in 1912, one year before the International 12'"

The video also features several classic beauty keelers and, what I assume is a traditional working craft, flat bottomed with open transom and rudder hung off a gantry - a very strange combination but also very forward looking if this was how it was done many years ago.

La régate des voiles traditionnelles sur le bassin d'Arcachon from televisionbassinarcachon on Vimeo.

Australian Classic 10 Foot Skiffs; What about the other view?

2011-09-26T16:31:00.001-07:00

Pete from the New South Wales 10 footer fleet emailed to say that he noticed that I only posted photos of the 10 footers going upwind. To rectify my omission, he supplied some photos of the 10 footers running offwind with their (ahem!) normal day-to-day spinnakers.

Tis the season for Pumpkin Beer

2011-09-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

My posts on beer now go back into the Internet dark ages (at least 6 months ago). What drags me back to posting about beer? Tis the season, the season of the true, blue American pumpkin beer. (I can almost hear my international readers say "Ewww!"). I've made it my mission this year to taste as many pumpkin beer varieties as possible, mainly so that Ed and Mike and John and I can pontificate about beer tasting when we have no clue about what a true beer connoisseur should say (Mike brought a beer to the Classic Moth midwinters that he said tasted like PEZ (a hard candy with tart bite that most often is dispensed in an odd container; have to say I agreed with him).

So far my Pumpkin beer tastings this year;

Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin Ale - Clipper City

Good tasting ale. Just the right amount of pumpkin flavor. Slight hop finish. Golden color, good head

Southern Tier Pumpking

Vanilla notes overpower the pumpkin

Smuttynose Pumkin Ale

Too hoppy. Again overpowers the pumpkin.

Dogfish Punkin Ale

Darker Malt base with pumpkin and spices coming through nicely

Saranac Pumpkin Ale

Golden color. Almost perfect blend of pumpkin and spice flavors.

Shocktop Pumkin Wheat

As you would expect from the wheat base, a lighter beer with a fizzy head but the pumpkin taste doesn't take second fiddle. Very tasty.

Blue Point Pumpkin Ale
I can taste the pumpkin, I can taste the beer; however I can't taste the connection between the two. The bottle mentions spices, maybe.... but not enough for my palette to pick them up. Update: Had this in combo with some spicy food and it complimented it nicely.

Starr Hill Boxcar Pumpkin Porter
This porter pours fizzy and the carbonation remains strong in the first taste, obscuring any flavor.

Cape Ann Brewing Company Imperial Pumpkin Stout
The stout overpowers the pumpkin here, so much so that I can't really identify the pumpkin.

Flying Dog Ales Imperial Pumpkin Ale "The Fear"
Can taste the pumpkin in this one but, for my taste buds, this ale just didn't stand out.

Fegleys Devious Imperial Pumpkin Ale
Barbara Parsons from up Philly way had me sample this. The initial carbonation was a problem but if you let the beer air out for a while it changes everything. Pumpkin taste definitely there with spices, I detected a strong vanilla tone. Top notch especially if you let the beer sit for a while after opening.

Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale
This beer has a strong reputation among pumpkin aficionados. I had one that was just transported down from Maine. Very tasty but I can't remember anything else about it.

Tastes vary widely on music and beer. So, swill down a pumpkin beer and post a comment. I'm waiting for Ed to weigh in with his choices and I'm hoping to cajole some tastings from Mike as well.

Classic Moth Nationals 2011

2011-09-21T18:47:00.001-07:00

This year has been a bust for my Classic Moth racing. I've raced two regattas this year but a wedding and then subsequent entertaining of out-of-town relatives meant I missed this years Classic Moth National Championships in mid-September. Luckily 'Earwigoagin' correspondent Len Parker was on hand to file the following report and photos.

Nationals 2011 as seen through my novice eyes ... Weather forecasts for the weekend were 20-30mph winds with on & off rain. Not knowing the Elizabeth City topography very well , I guess those forecasts were for further east as it was 10-15 on Saturday with some heavy showers , and slightly less wind on Sunday with some gusts keeping everyone busy and putting several down. The wind did pipe up even more both days after the racing had ended.

13 signed up to race.

Gen 1 ... George Albaugh , Walt Collins , Greg Duncan , Lewis Hay , Bill Schill , John Pugh , Joe Courtier.
Gen 2 ... Jeff Linton , John Z , Mike Parsons , Mark Saunders , Randall Swan , Patrick Burger.

5 races Saturday... Jeff won all 5. In the first or second race Bill Schill lost his mast and we had to tow him in. As we were sorting it out Patrick also lost his mast , so we had to tow both in together. Greg came in a race or so later & Patrick used Greg's extended-mast Europe for the rest of the day. Mark then snapped a shroud and lost his mast in race 5.

Sarah & John Pugh's hospitality was superb as usual , with food , drink , and a roaring fire going to get people dry and warm before the caterers arrived.

The annual meeting was also held Saturday and the sail proposals were passed ... and all the officers remain in their respective posts.

4 races on Sunday... Jeff won 2 races , as did Mike. Lewis ... Randall & Greg didn't race. Patrick back in his new boat retired in race 1 after shipping too much water. He plans to widen those side tanks. Mark came in early after being over the start line early a couple of times.

Results Gen 2 ...
1. Jeff Linton
2. Mike Parsons
3. John Z

Results Gen 1 ...
1. Walt Collins
2. George Albaugh
3. John Pugh

Turtle Trophy ... Bill Schill

Lewis Hay bought Randall Swan's Skol. John Pugh bought Lewis Hay's Europe. It was a fun weekend , the racing weather was good , the spectating weather was awful on Saturday and I was wearing every item of clothing I'd bought with me and it was all soaked but it was still fun. Everyone got away at a decent time after the prize giving due to the meeting being held the day before.

Roll on to the next one ...

Cheers ,
Len

Len also sent along some photos.

Photo Captions:

Walt Collins and John Z. dueling upwind
John Z upwind.
Walt Collins leads Jeff Linton around the leeward mark.
Start on Saturday.
Mark Saunders, Mike Parsons, John Z aiming for the leeward mark.
Mike Parsons, John Z on the second reach into the leeward mark.
Mike Parsons upwind.
Jeff Linton rounding the leeward mark.
Joe Courter in his Maser.
George Albaugh upwind.

George Albaugh, the same George from the photos above, has two posts on the 2011 Classic Moth Nationals; one on the racing with pictures and the other on the people around the Pugh's backyard.

Meanwhile, Joe Bousquet, who also missed the Nationals for a family reunion, posted this GoPro video up on YouTube of him sailing his Mistral Classic Moth at Silver Beach on the Delmarva Peninsula. (Was he allowed to take his Classic Moth to the family reunion? Lucky dog!). The new deck Joe installed on his Mistral looks very curvaceous and varnish-pretty in this wide angle view. You may also hear how these plywood Moths have a very different "Boing" sound when going through waves (compared to those unnamed plastic classes).

Australian Classic 10 foot skiffs; More photos

2011-09-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

I get a kick out of this class. How they shoehorn three grown adults into a ten footer and then pile on scads of sail is my kind of crazy. Plus, class rules stipulate that all boats must be clear finished. I've posted before on this class (search over at this link ). From the class website, looks like they're launching two new hulls for their season so they must be attracting even more crazies. I've found more photos off the Internet (click on photo to enlarge).

Header Photo; Classic International 14

2011-09-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Picture looks to be early 60's; pre-trapeze. Location Annapolis; Frostbite sailing. Skipper and crew unknown. Male and female teams were very common in the 1960's (hard to tell from the photo if this is a mixed crew).

I pulled reader "Doc Haagen-Dazs" from the comments and enjoyed reading where he relates his time in a Classic International 14 over here. Great story.

Music Whenever; Club 8 "Everything Goes"

2011-09-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Forget about the video. Just close your eyes and immerse your brain in this dreamy tune.......

club 8 "everything goes" from evan gill on Vimeo.

Y-Flyers; "Tim the Sailor"

2011-09-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

When I was a senior in high school, my father moved the family to Youngstown, Ohio and I was introduced to Midwest lake sailing. We joined the Berlin Yacht Club , a small yacht club on Lake Berlin about twenty miles west of the city. We brought our Windmill out from Maryland and raced with the handicap fleet for a year or two before my Dad decided to buy a slightly decrepit Y-flyer and join the Y-flyer fleet. Club racing was usually two races on Sunday with a break for lunch and then a barbecue after the last race. Everyone started at the same time, on a line that extended from the club dock, and then we usually raced a circular course around permanent marks placed on the periphery of the lake. Depending on the wind, we would start going west or we would start going east. We might get a true beat, and then again we might not. To say this was a culture shock would be an understatement, as even back then, my sailboat racing in Maryland featured separate fleet racing around triangle courses with the first beat to windward. And then there was lake sailing where the wind was most times light to nonexistent and puffing from over there, oops.... now it's behind us, or now it seems to be wafting from above.

As frustrating as it seemed at the time, I have fond memories of racing a Y-flyer on Lake Berlin. There is just something about the Midwest sailboat racing that ratchets down the competitive buzz you get out on the coasts. The racing was fun, ludicrous at times but it made you humble; the people are genuine.

Probably no YouTube video out there epitomizes my Y-flyer racing on Lake Berlin than the following video about "Tim the Sailor". Light air degrades into drifting, then upgrades into light air, then degrades into drifting. There is the mass start where Tim starts next to a Thistle (never, never start next to a Thistle in light air, there are few boats anywhere in the world that can stay with a Thistle in the light to drifter). There is the parking lot, the inevitable bunch up where all fleets are mixed together. And there is that smile, when upon finishing, golly-gee-whiz, you have actually beaten a Thistle.

To Berlin YC and the Y-Flyer.........

British Moth; The Other Circle M Moth; 2011 Nationals

2011-09-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

I've posted before on the British Moth , a class that formed in 1932, with their own version of what, in that day and age, pre-WWII, was the latest Moth design, but what we today consider a vintage style Moth, a scow bow Moth with V sections designed by Englishman Sydney Cheverton. It remains a viable class in 2011, the high aspect rig fully modernized with a fair number of skippers flying aramid sailcloth on carbon fiber rigs. The class also retain the Circle M insignia, just as the USA Classic Moths. Although we share the 11 foot length, the two classes have a different ethos. We remain brother in arms, albeit on different sides of the Atlantic.

Thirty two British Moths showed up at Northhampton SC for their 2011 British Nationals and faced stiff breeze. Peter Styles was there to capture the action and I post some of his excellent photos below (I made a couple photos black and white, hope he doesn't mind). This 1932 design Moth looks plenty exciting; hard planing reaches, spray everywhere.....

DC-10 plans; New Address

2011-09-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

For those that might be interested in DC-10 plans, here is an updated address where they can be purchased;

Doug Cooper

Eldred Cooper Boats

P.O. Box 611

Falmouth, MA 02541

From Tweezerman's archives, another picture of the DC-10

The Water Playground called Hawaii; Paddling Racing and Canoe Surfing

2011-08-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Since Joe over at the blog Horses Mouth has taken a two week break, I'm going to take advantage of his absence and tread partially in his territory, that being surfing videos. This video does feature some surfing but, it is not a surfing video. No wizards on surfboards here. This video features the Hawaiian outrigger canoe; both the paddling and sailing type. There are two parts; the first part about the training and then the competition in an ocean race by the LiveStrong team, paddling a 6 man outrigger canoe (Hawaii's state team sport is outrigger canoe paddling), the second part of the video features sailing and paddling outrigger canoes playing in the surf zone.

Absolutely fascinating..........

molo sail and canoe surf from Anders Carlson on Vimeo.

Music is "All You Deliver" Jose Gonzalez; "Storm" Jose Gonzalez.

Music Whenever: Rockin' Sydney "My Toot Toot"

2011-08-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

This video ain't much, the lyrics ain't much...... but the music, ah, the music.....you just can't beat some toe tapping zydeco.

Finn Followup

2011-08-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for sailing videos where Olympic sailing team members, at the top of their game, make very difficult sailing maneuvers look easy. I posted a video not long ago featuring a 49er tacking duel.

Here's a video of a gybe mark of a very breezy race of the 2009 Finn Gold Cup with the two leaders nonchalantly gybing (Finns have very long booms that love to dig into the briny and upset the whole program with any slight misstep from the skipper).

Just a walk in the park (yeah, right!)............

DC-10 dinghy

2011-08-27T14:06:00.001-07:00

Some of you may have noticed that I've been switching up my header photo. The current photo gracing the header of this blog is of a DC-10 sailing dinghy sailing at the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival at St. Michaels.

The same lady owner of the DC-10 has shown up every year I've attended and I've been very impressed with the DC-10 design as a very capable small singlehander for almost anybody. Although the DC-10 was designed specifically to be home built, the DC-10 hasn't achieved any great level of popularity. I have read that it is used as a frostbite dinghy out of Falmouth Massachusetts.

Messing About in Boats magazine wrote about the DC-10 in a 1993 issue, back when I subscribed to MAIB and other boating and sailing mags (I don't subscribe to magazines now because I'm a pack rat and my wife is much happier, and life becomes easier, when I don't leave little piles of magazines in every room of the house). Articles in MAIB cast a wide ranging net over the boating scene and I recommend looking into subscribing if your interest in boating is similarly broad brush.

The one page article on the DC-10 as excerpted from the January 15, 1993 issue of Messing About in Boats...................

The address of the designer, Douglas Cooper, listed in the article is probably not correct and I'm not sure if plans are still offered. I will do some research on the designer

Another Big Guy Singlehander; The Finn Dinghy

2011-08-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

On one of my posts about the Big Guy singlehander, "Noodle" intimated in a comment that I was ignoring the Finn dinghy; the Finn dinghy being the most popular of the big guy singlehanders. How can you argue when 283 Finns showed up for the 2011 Worlds Master Championship in Punta Ala Italy!

That being said, how are these oldsters with their creaky knees and aching backs able to get under such a low boom. I owned and raced a Finn (a glass Newport that had a wood deck..... Rob Andre did the conversion) for a short while when I was in my 20's. On my first sail, my elbow got a right smart whack when I left it too high in a jibe. On tacks, you really did have to fold yourself on the floor to get under the boom. After finishing down the fleet at the U.S Nationals in Sayville NY, I realized that I was too small for the boat and, quite frankly, the Laser seemed more lively offwind.

But, there is not a better singlehander in light air than the Finn. The large cockpit makes for pleasant light air lounging compared to the contortions of the poor Laser sailor draped over the daggerboard trunk. The large sail area and finer hull shape means the Finn doesn't need much air to tramp along quite nicely in soft breezes. The Finn would be my top choice if I was just day sailing on a lake in light air (I would have to keep the Finn on the beach for the Finn is not a light dinghy to launch and retrieve). The question is, can you find one?.... demand is such that there are not too many used Finns popping up.

Here's a great video of the Geezer Finn fleet racing out of Encinal YC, California, tucked up into Oakland Inner Harbor and well away from the big breezes of San Francisco Bay. They all seem quite enamored of the Finn and not at all fazed over dealing with such a low boom..........

Northern California Finn Club Regatta at EYC from Moon Rabbit Studios on Vimeo.

Music Whenever: Collective Soul "Shine"

2011-08-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

A great acoustic version.

International Canoe; Let's go to the Video Tape

2011-08-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Time to wrap up the International Canoe posts for a while with a video of a German sailing an older International Canoe. In fact, this IC looks suspiciously identical to the King Ferry glass hull/wood deck IC's that Steve Clark was building in 1981 and the IC "No Eyes" I raced in the 1980's.

This video gives the viewer the true sense that, once you get out on the sliding seat, there's nothing static about sailing these craft.

Couple of things to point out;

The dangly rope led to the outboard end of the sliding seat is the jib sheet. It allows the jib to be adjusted while you're hiking at the end of the seat.
The German owner hikes the IC the same way I used to hike, wrapping my ankles and shins around the bottom edge of the sliding seat. Most IC sailors don't do that, they hike off a hiking strap that spans the middle of the seat from one end to the other.
He's got a very funky mainsheet arrangement. Most mainsheets just attach to the back end of the seat carriage with a cleat on the back or the forward beam of the seat carriage.

1981 International Canoe Worlds; The Epilogue

2011-08-21T08:34:00.001-07:00

What other memories do I carry from the 81 International Canoe Worlds?

I've done three other regattas where the housing, food, and dinghy park were based out of one site (excluding Sugar Island Week, where everyone is stuck on the island for a week). Today, it's not common to do that for regattas (except, like Sugar Island, camp regattas seem to be getting popular, which uses the same concept of throwing everyone together after racing). Having everything at Tabor Academy was good. Since most of us were on a steep learning curve, shared experiences across nationalities took on even more meaning.
I had a one year old infant at home that was an early riser. Keeping my morning routine, around 6:30 am I'd be up in the dim beginnings of daylight, sauntering among the different International Canoes scattered about the dinghy park. Just me and one of the Germans, who, very punctually, would hoist his sails with at least 3 1/2 hours before he had to launch. There's still something about racing dinghies waiting in the half morning light that I find very picturesque.
I developed later in the week, a physical affliction known only to sliding seat sailors; severe abrasions on each butt cheek from sliding in and out (several International Canoe sailors from that era slyly referenced such malady in the names of the IC's, i.e "Sticky Buns" and "Rosie Cheeks"). Mid week a lot of us were walking bow legged like cowboys. I thought I had enough padding but as I was to find out later, any movement whatsoever of the piece of clothing or wet suit that was layered next to your butt would act like sandpaper. The physical hurt ratcheted up so, that come Thursday, I was desperate enough (and I alone) to come up with the solution of taping up my butt cheeks with duct tape. It worked well enough for Thursdays racing but when I decided to remove them after the racing, the real pain began. I had no idea how many little tiny hairs you have on your butt. And with duct tape, there is no quick rip it off. Picture Steve Carrell's chest hair removal (movie '40 Year Old Virgin') in very, very, slow, slow motion.
I roomed with a young English sailor (I think Adrian was his name), who would attack his IC with a saw, hammer and nails every evening after sailing. On measurement day, Adrian found out his IC was considerably overweight. After determining that the previous owner had squirreled away lead weights in the hull (ostensibly to prevent nosediving), Adrian proceeded to cut huge square holes in the deck. He found the weights and then closed up the holes by nailing some scrap plywood he found laying around the dorms. He had seat carriage problems which he fixed by nailing some large 2X4's to the carriage. In all my time racing dinghies, I have never seen someone destroy in a week, what had been a very pretty cold molded International Canoe.

Finally a picture of a youngish Tweezerman standing (probably because it was too painful to sit) in the Tabor Academy dinghy park alongside his first IC "No Eyes". Thirty years ago, the sailing kit appears prehistoric!

1981 International Canoe Worlds; The Racing

2011-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

The racing for the 1981 International Canoe Worlds at Marion was breezy as expected but the famed Buzzard Bay seabreeze only made a late appearance for one race; we spent most of the week in good Northerly breeze courtesy of a strong cold front; a rare weather occurrence for the U.S East Coast in August.

The regatta was fought between the four Swedes and Steve Clark, the rest of us were nowhere close in boatspeed or boathandling. For me, tacking was a 40/60 proposition in the breeze, it being very easy to stall these craft head to wind and then end up going backward.

The drill for tacking an International Canoe goes sort of like this (everyone has their different techniques).

Ease main while scooting back into the boat.
Get both feet aft of the seat.
Blow the jib sheet.
Helm over and at about the same time, grab sliding seat and give it a good heave to get it from the old side to the new side.
Cross to the new side (some cross on their knees, some walk around the end of the boom),
Hopefully you've got the bow around enough on the new tack to sheet the jib on the new side. (A partial sheet will do).
Here the decision tree branches out a little. Any indecision will see you get blown over. If you haven't got the seat far enough out on the new side, you need to heave it out and quick. If you have got the seat out far enough to land on, land your body on it hard, hopefully butt first but many times I've done a belly flop.
Simultaneously (or as near to it as you can accomplish), finish extending the seat while you're sliding out to the end, sheet the jib in and sheet the main in.
And you're off (unless you got it wrong, in which case you may be going backward, or capsized on the old tack, or maybe capsized on the new tack, or maybe you stepped off the boat, or maybe the seat is still stuck on the old side, or maybe the tiller extension has ended up under the boat trapped in front of the rudder, or.......)

There were thirty boats at the regatta from five countries; US, Canada, England, Sweden, Germany. I ended up smack dab in the middle in fifteenth. I made it into the top ten twice with two eighth places but by the end of the week I was exhausted. I made a hard landing coming in from Thursday races and bent my rudder shaft. I did my best at straightening it out but I sailed my worst race on the last day. Since I had already racked up a DNF as my drop race, adding a 22 didn't help my overall score.

But it was a great regatta and I was going to spend the next fifteen years of my life trying to learn how to tack these beasts (and gybing them in a breeze was no picnic either).

Oh! I did have one fleeting moment of glory in the regatta. I wrote about it for the U.S Canoesletter.

From the April 1985 issue of the Canoesletter

"In the second race of the 81 Worlds at Marion three canoe neophytes, the author, Tim Prince and Martin Herbert went the ‘wrong way’ (according to local knowledge) on the first beat to round the weather mark 1,2,3. Heady stuff and, with soon to be world champion, Swede Max Tollvist, in fourth place, this trio of North Americans fought like demons to hold their positions down the next two reaches. The first beat had been the lightest of the series, a 5-8 knot southerly, but as we approached the leeward mark the famed Marion seabreeze had started to kick in at 15-20 knots. Tim and Martin had sneaked past your author leaving me to round in third, one boat length ahead of Max. I resolved to sail as fast as my limited canoe experience would allow and not bother worrying about Max (for the Swede had already proved devastatingly quick in a breeze). Around the leeward mark I hardened up on port tack, attention riveted on snaking up and over the waves, the senses devoted to keeping US 163 flat and driving; sailing totally absorbed, sailing with blinders on. Two minutes passed wrapped in this hyper-concentration. It was time to check on my competition. I quickly stole a glance over my aft shoulder. No Max? Had he capsized? Not that I could see. I rotated my torso forward and peered upwind. Shock and despair! Max was 50 yards upwind and going twice as fast. My first hard lesson on the distance an International Canoe planing upwind could put to an International Canoe that, in relative terms, was only mushing along.

As it turned out there were 30 of us mushers at the Worlds and only five (the four Swedes and Steve Clark) who had mastered the art of upwind planing in an International Canoe. It was not surprising the North Americans were so deficient. Most of us were lucky if we had six months of tiller time on the International Canoe."

Photographer Gail Scott Sleeman just happened to capture Tweezerman (US 163) on film whilst leading the second race. Here, I'm still holding the lead but being chased hard down the first reach by two other International Canoe neophytes at that regatta, Tim Prince (US 160) and Canadian Martin Herbert (KC 11)

Another Gail Scott Sleeman photo showing Tweezerman launching off the starting line.

The World Championship title came down to the last race. Steve Clark was battling the two top Swedes, Max Tollvist and Olle Bergqvist. Steve ended up tied for second with Olle but lost the tie breaker. A photo of Steve (looks like he's coming into the launch beach) from staff photographer Ren Elliot, scanned from a yellowed article in the local newspaper, Sippican Sentinel.

Two other scanned photos of the launching beach off Tabor Academy, again from Ren Elliot of the Sippican Sentinel newspaper. Tweezerman is getting ready to shove off in the background of the first photo.

And another one from Ren Elliot of the Sippican Sentinal; Swede Olle Bergqvist (2nd overall) on his way out to the race course.

Thirty Years Ago: 1981 International Canoe Worlds; The Prelude

2011-08-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Thirty years ago, this very week, I raced in the International Canoe Worlds in Marion Massachusetts (Buzzards Bay). Organized by Steve Clark, it was the first International Canoe Worlds held in the U.S. I had been racing the International Canoe for about six months, definitely a greenhorn in these very tricky craft, and I arrived with no great expectations. Setting up the International Canoe at Tabor Academy (the dinghy park, the dorm housing, and the meals were completely run out of this school), I was gratefully surprised to find that most of the fleet was new to the International Canoe as well.

In the fall of 1980, Steve Clark had very generously given me one of his production International Canoes as a Chesapeake Bay fleet starter boat. Steve had started building composite (glass hull/wood deck) International Canoes in a converted grocery store in a sleepy upstate New York hamlet on the eastern shore of Lake Cayuga, a town named King Ferry, a town with one crossroad and four buildings staking out the four corners. Steve had picked up a used Manana design International Canoe in the mid 70's, and had become completely smitten with the speed, the twitchiness, the feel of the International Canoe as a racing dinghy. Steve had found the U.S International Canoe class (or the decked sailing canoe as the old timers would say) in a sorry state, had been for years. Moribund, geriatric, and insular, the American-style International Canoe was only raced out of Grants Boat Yard in City Island. To change that, on a true believers mission, Steve had set out to find some converts.

Like a true Johnny Appleseed, Steve had decided to seed his modern English-style "King Ferry" International Canoes around to the major yachting centers of the U.S, putting them into the hands of those who had backgrounds in tippy dinghies. I became a seedling, Del Olsen and Scott Young of San Francisco became West Coast seedlings. And these seedlings were now arriving at Tabor Academy for a World Championship, along with the British, Germans, Canadians, and Swedish.

The pre-regatta form book certainly had the Swedes and Steve Clark as favorites, they at least had several years experience and Steve, coming out of nowhere, had given the Swedes a major fright when he competed on their home waters in the 1978 World Championship. The English International Canoe fleet had seen a recent influx of top ranked International Moth sailors, Colin Brown, Chris Edwards, and Chris Eyre. But they were all new to the International Canoe and, though certainly used to sailing tippy boats, an unknown quantity.

As far as the American newcomers; we had raced a couple of drifter regattas on the East Coast that summer; we were expecting the Buzzards Bay Southerly Buster, we were expecting to be hammered and upside down quite a bit, we were young and ready for the challenge. The battle to come would be not so much against competitors but against this strange, narrow, wonderfully fast sailing dinghy with a sliding seat.

Hats off to a great tinkerer; George C. Devol

2011-08-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

I devote a lot of space on this blog to the sailors who love to tinker with their boats. Small potatoes in the great scheme of things, especially when you read the obituary in the Washington Post today of George C. Devol, the tinkerer who invented the robotic arm. From the Post;

George C. Devol, 99, a self-taught tinkerer whose invention of the robotic arm revolutionized factories around the world, died...... Aug 11 at his home in Wilton, Conn.

Mr. Devol said that his limited formal education never held him back. "I always went into areas of industry where nobody else knew anything either.....There was nowhere to go to get information, so I generated it"

"How can we afford to let a country as big as this go down the drain in manufacturing capability?" he said in a 1984 interview with the Miami Herald.

The full story in the Washington Post can be viewed online at Washingtonpost.com

Thirty Years Ago: Three Championships

2011-08-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

Thirty years ago, starting August 15th, I sailed three World Championships, in two dinghy classes, in the space of five weeks. It was a simpler era, of simpler sailing dinghies, of amateurs that trained mostly by competing on weekends, and, if you just went out sailing, there was no training regimen, you were just out there for fun. Looking back now, that mid-August to mid-September, I was probably at the peak of my sailboat racing prowess; I was sailing fit, I had been hammering away at dinghy racing for the better part of ten years prior in various dinghies. Make no mistake, I'm not World Champion caliber; not mentally tough enough, not obsessively focused, my ego not wrapped around my performance on the race course. But I was good enough to steal a race here and there, to put up a series podium finish every so often.

Changes were afoot; I'd been married four years, I had a one year old son and my wife, the saint she has always been, was 7 1/2 months pregnant with twins. My footloose sailing lifestyle was about to wrap up for family and some sort of career. But then and now there still remains those three championships of 1981, August through September, racing with a band of brothers, both teammates and competitors, memories still strong to this very day.

Music Whenever; Horace Henderson and His Orchestra "Smooth Sailing"

2011-08-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

This one kills two birds with one stone; a couple chillin on a Snark sail on a lake (it's been a while since I've featured the mighty eleven foot, expanded polystyrene Snark in a post) accompanied with a nice Swing tune from Horace Henderson in the background..........(warning for young children; scary creature in the black and white segue!)

Followup to Mystery International Canoe on Severn River Bridge

2011-08-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Update to my spotting a a new generation lime green International Canoe stuck in traffic on the Severn River Bridge .........
The owner/designer/builder of that mystery IC, grey-haired, oldster Chris Maas won the International Canoe Worlds at Travemunde Germany held late July. And Chris also anchored the US team (with teammates and youngsters, David and Willy Clark) in winning back the New York Cup (first competed for in 1887) over the English team. The New York Cup competition is a semi team race; three vs three but the winner of the race is determined by the first one to cross the line. In the New York Cup, if you have a particularly fast canoe sailor you can spring to the front, it's game over. Dave and Willy were able to spring Chris to win the first two races (best out of three races) and the cup comes back to the U.S (Australia were the previous holders).

Pictures of various IC's sailing at the Worlds can be viewd over at Chris Hampe's Flickr account .

Nostalgia of an Old Athlete - "Men Playing Basketball"

2011-08-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

My favorite poem about old athletes and nostalgia, the significance of which will be revealed in upcoming posts. (I actually suck at basketball.)

"Boys rise up in old men, wings begin to sprout at their backs."

Oh! Wood Butcher, Slopper of Glass, What is the Answer?

2011-08-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

One of the ironies of life is that I, the one who does not let craftsmanship nor beauty get in the way of working on boats (the gorgeous Tweezer was an aberration, due mostly to the efforts of Bill Boyle and George Albaugh..... I wanted to paint that Moth, to hell with all that pretty Atlantic cedar) it is I who seem to be asked my opinion on how to fix boats. I think that people assume that since I've built boats, I must know what I'm doing...Hah!

Last Friday, I wandered down to SSA and ran into Ali Meller, who for a good twenty years or so was Mr. 505 of North America (now he races road bikes and does quite well I'm told). Ali was helping a son and dad rig a newly purchased used 505 and I recognized it immediately as a Lindsay (the spruce rolled seat tanks were the give away). Ali confirmed my guess (in life's quest, knowing the lineage of a 505 may not seem much, but I'll take that little nugget as evidence of a superior intellect) and Ali elaborated further into the history of this particular 505. This 505 was one of twelve of the original batch of Lindsay 505's, where Mark built the wood interiors into a English Parker glass hull, circa late 1970's. We had a good laugh as that would only be knowledge that old fart dinghy sailors would know.

When the son started listing the problems of this older 505 (hey, all old boats have problems), he seemed particularly worried about the ply delaminating on the underside of the deck between the shroud bulkhead and the forward bulkhead. I didn't see a problem... if you can't see it, no problem. but then Ali asked me how I would fix it. How I would fix it??? Hmmmm! Hmmmm! (Try to look confident here.)

"Oh, Just turn the boat upside down, drill some holes, take a syringe and squirt epoxy between the delaminated veneer and the good plywood, take some bricks to force the delaminated veneer in contact with the good ply. Should be good to go. You do have some syringes don't you?" Delivered with surety, I didn't want to explain further, so I begged my leave to continue on my tour of the dinghy park.

It was only getting into my car, that I realized I wouldn't have fixed it that way, I would have cut the delaminated ply away with a razor knife, thrown it away and glassed over it with 4oz. fiberglass. A true half-assed Tweezerman repair.

Here is a top down picture of a later model Lindsay 505. This one has mahogany veneer rolled seat tanks instead of spruce. The used Lindsay I was looking at on the SSA dinghy park also had the foredeck painted, probably because the aircraft plywood, after 30 some years, was getting grungy (it was, after all, delaminating underneath).

And here is a 505 punching off the leeward end of line during SSA's weekday TESOD series.........

Music Whenever; Bellowhead "New York Girls"

2011-08-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

A rollicking sea chantey presented in an full arrangement using strings, brass, reeds, mandolin and a good ole squeeze box.

New York Girls, Songlines version from edward cooper on Vimeo.

The more astute among my readers may have noticed my original post didn't have a band name for this group. Well, Doryman to the rescue! In an oblique hint, he posted another great traditional folk video by the group Bellowhead on his blog. Thanks for the update.

We don't need no stinking trailer!

2011-08-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

So much for treating this old woodie with kid gloves.....................

Another onboard video; 49'er training

2011-08-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

With the quick acceptance of the waterproof, mountable, compact video cameras (Go Pro and the like), there are a whole slew of onboard dinghy sailing videos popping up on YouTube. Most of them are very boring. Each week, there seems to be an average of two of three onboard videos of Lasers and their skippers taken from the same angle, bow aft, the camera strapped to the bow fairlead..... Yawn!

There are exceptions. This entertaining video of 49'er skiffs training off Clearwater Florida uses a mix of masthead shots, helmet cam shots and video taken from a chase boat. Watching a tacking duel between two 49'ers, with the elite athletes going wire to wire, is mesmerizing.

Three Rivers Race at Ludham Bridge

2011-08-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a post about river sailing recently. The Three Rivers Race on the Norfolk Broads is always a good one to watch. With this video you get a true sense on what a zoo this race can be. I assume the course has the competitors reaching Ludham Bridge, turning around and retracing their course. So you have these Classic Norfolk Broads cruisers running, and beating, and tacking, and avoiding clueless motoboaters, all in a very narrow body of water. The spectators are having a jolly good time taking all this in, laughing, offering up polite clapping when the boats make their turn and then adding some very vocal razzing onto the head of the motorboat mucking the racers up.

Three Rivers Race near Ludham Bridge River Ant Norfolk UK from dee moore on Vimeo.

Music Whenever; Black Moth Super Rainbow "Sun Lips"

2011-07-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

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

Dinghy Design; Big Guy Singlehander Update

2011-07-31T04:56:00.000-07:00

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.

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).
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"

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

2011-07-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

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"

2011-07-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

From 1988.........