Worthington Whittredge: Three Boats

In the history of recreational small boats the written record before 1870 is almost nonexistent. Before the U.S. Civil War (1860-1865), one is forced to look at art to get a feeling what was going on with recreational boating. The above sketch was done by Worthington Whittredge. Worthington Whittredge was a painter famous for his beach scenes around the Rhode Island coast. This pencil and watercolor sketch was done in 1856 and shows recreational small boats, presumably parked on a beach. The center boat shows a flat-bottom, pram bow boat with three rowing stations. The right boat, drawn with bow only, seems to be the same type as the middle one. I'm not sure this boat type has been documented, at least there is no match when I thumb through my copy of the Mystic Seaport small boat collection. It seems a combination flat-iron skiff with punt/scow bow features and flared topsides of the dory thrown in as well.

The left boat is definitely home-built. I'm guessing the design brief called for getting one person out in what was rough water (hence the high freeboard) to go fishing . The boat had to fit the lumber available which meant it had to be short (maybe 8 feet max?). It comes equipped with a paddle but I imagine the high freeboard and flat bottom did not help it track straight at all!

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It occurred to me after I posted this that these row boats of 1856 shared some of the design lineage with my Kid Simple idea, which took the hull shape from the St. Michael's scow.

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Update 8/17. John Watkins commented, "Looks a little bit like the chalk barge in Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, a book which has been reprinted about once a generation since the 1760s." With that hint, off I went to the Internet and found this image: 

There are some similarities though the sheer line on the American model has a higher stern and lower bow. As I was thinking about it, even though the American rowboat has three rowing stations, this craft most likely had only two rowers, the forward rower had a choice of station depending on sea-state.

The image was culled from this Finnish website where the designer, Pieni Ekstack, has made a nifty 2.3 meter plywood rowboat, a shorter dink, very roughly based on this 1760's design.

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John Watkins writes to tell me I didn't find the correct image for the Chalk Barge online. Here is the correct image he sent me. Much heavier displacement which makes sense if it was designed to carry cargo. If I'm reading the hull lines correctly it seems to have an enormous skeg. And the leeboard doesn't extend far enough below the hull. Very odd.

Tom Price Pencil Drawings

Good friend, Tom Price, top-notch racer and also an artist, sends along these pencil drawings he did as trophies at a recent Star Regatta. Obviously most of them are of Stars but he also did a nice one of a traditional tall ship, I think a barquentine. Just superlative work! As always click on one of the photo to get an expanded view.

Watercolor of Solings at the Dock

Found this in the International Soling Association Guide 1992-1995. A beautiful, subtle ink and watercolor  (or ink wash) drawing by Michel Bernard of Paris.

OD-OY Art Covers from 1965

The American sailing magazine, One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman, in modern times, morphed into Sailing World, actively published art covers back in the 1960's. Here is the sampling of the OD-OY covers from 1965.

Gerado Contreras did two very expressionist covers for OD-OY in 1965.

Gerado Contreras

Another Gerado Contreras cover.

Gerado Contreras

Jim Dewitt, a San Francisco artist, has been very famous for his sailing paintings, for over 40 years. He is the one artist that seems to intimately capture the breadth of action in sailing. Here is his OD-OY cover in 1965 with big-boat action getting the sails trimmed.

Jim Dewitt

Ted Brennan was one of the major illustrators of the One Design and Offshore Yachtsman. His pen and ink sketches made it onto the cover several times. (I am sure the starter's pistol would be very mistaken in today's culture - and I think it very odd to include it even back in the 1960's, especially with the theme of youngsters and model boats.)

Ted Brennan

Another Ted Brennan sketch of the weekend exodus out to the sailing club, or the lake outside the city, or the weekend regatta, or to the big water.

Ted Brennan

Winslow Homer's "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)" - The Error

Wikipedia Commons

I would bet that several of Earwigoagin's readers have a print of this iconic painting hanging up in their house. Painted by Winslow Homer in the 1870's, this oil painting depicts an American catboat returning from a recreational fishing expedition. For me, this painting pushes so many buttons about the joy of sailing, moreso than any other sailing painting. But there is a major, glaring error.

It was my friend, Tom Price, that pointed out the error in this painting. The tiller is over the traveller bar. You wouldn't be able to tack this catboat without the traveller block catching up on the tiller!

I was over at the National Gallery of Art for a Cezanne exhibition when I decided to go search out the original "Breezing Up".  Getting up close I could see that the tiller was painted very translucently. You could see the traveller bar under the tiller. There may be several reasons. Tom Price maintains that Winslow Homer never quite finished the painting and he may have intended to go back and bring the traveller bar to the fore. It may be that Winslow Homer decided the aesthetics of having the tiller go over the traveller bar out-weighed any realism it sacrificed. When Winslow painted the tiller translucently it was his way of saying to an astute viewer, "Hey I know this won't work but deal with it."

It is interesting to note that there hangs next to "Breezing Up" a smaller, somewhat identical painting by Winslow Homer, the catboat in this painting named "Flirt". In this smaller study before he painted "Breezing Up", Winslow Homer has painted the tiller correctly under the traveller bar.

As an aside, if one takes a closer look at the way Winslow Homer painted the faces of the two boys sitting/laying forward and the skipper, it seems these three are looking intently to leeward, at something off to the left of the painting. Given the darkish clouds in the painting, was it some nasty weather to leeward, a thunderstorm perhaps? Or was it an approaching boat that may have been on a collision course?

It seems to me that Winslow Homer was trying to introduce some tension into "Breezing Up". It may be wrong to assume this picture is about a lanquid, relaxing, sailing vibe, as we have traditionally interpreted "Breezing Up" . Unfortunately this intense staring tension of skipper and crew doesn't translate unless one is in front of the original and looking closely.

Click here to see what Wikipedia has to say about the painting.

I've dragged Tom Price's comment over to the main post. (After all he is an artist.)

"The dynamic tension of the sun on the boys vs the darkening clouds, The pull on the rope tiller extension and the bow of the sprit under compression all contribute. Substituting an anchor for a 4th boy sounds like a compositional ploy or maybe he just thought an anchor was easier to paint than a boy after the first state."

Bertrand Warion Watercolors

Bertrand Warion, French boat builder of classic dinghies such as Moth's, 9m² Sharpie, and the Dinghy Herbulot, is also an accomplished marine watercolorist.

Bertrand's watercolors are now offered up for sale on the Internet. Well worth a look if there is a area on your wall just begging for some boat art.

Update 09/02: This link allows you to preview 63 of Bertrand's watercolors.

While we are dwelling on art, it's worth checking out Trevor over at the blog eh...whatever (over on the right on my blog list). He has a fair number of posts featuring his watercolors. (Though hailing from somewhere in the middle of America, Trevor's art doesn't feature many boats... still very high quality art nonetheless and always interesting to peruse.)