Header Photo: Start at the 2011 Classic Moth Nationals

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The previous header photo was from a Sunday start at the 2011 Classic Moth Nationals. Unlike this year's crawling breeze, the 2011 Nationals had some breeze. In the background of the photo is the Museum of the Albemarle (green roof), Elizabeth City, North Carolina, which has some of the more iconic Mothboats from the early years on display.

2020 Classic Moth Nationals

Lloyd Griffin

The 2020 Classic Moth Nationals in Elizabeth City was a drift-fest, with racing only on Saturday. The 2020 Nationals were postponed for one month because of concerns over too much wind from the remnants of one hurricane. Ironically the rescheduled Nationals had the wind sucked out of Elizabeth City by the passing of the remanants of another hurricane.

As usual, George A. over at Mid-Atlantic Musings has the complete report.

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Results (top twelve) of the 2020 Classic Moth Nationals. Congrats to Mike Parsons, the 2020 champion, George Albaugh, winner of the Gen 1 division, Joe Bousquet, Masters champion, Sam Moncia, junior champion, and Emma Mayer, women's champion.

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Mike Parsons	1,1,1,1,[2],1	Mistral
Joe Bousquet	2,2,2,2,[4],2	Mistral
Parker Purrington	3,[4],4,3,3,3	Dunand
John Zseleczky	4,5,3,[7],1,4	Mistral Y2K-mod
George Albaugh	6,3,[8],4,5,7	Wooden Europe (Gen1)
Zach Balluzo	5,[7],6,5,6,6	Mistral Y2KMod
Bob Patterson	[8],6,7,8,7,5	Shelley (Gen 1)
Sam Moncia	[9],8,5,6,9,8	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Emma Mayer	7,[10],9,10,10,10	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Matthew Panek	12,11,10,12,8,[DNF]	Olympic Europe (Gen I)
Logan Weeks	10,[13],11,9,13,11	Olympic Europe (Gen I)
Valerie Turbett	11,[14],14,11,14,9	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)

Header Photo: 2019 Classic Moth Nationals

Ingrid Albaugh

The previous header photo was taken as the fleet crawled upwind in the light air of the 2019 Classic Moth Nationals. Twenty three Classic Moths registered for the Nationals, a definite bump-up in numbers compared with the last couple of years. This can be traced to the large number of juniors racing; the fruits of the push by E-city Mothists and Joe Bousquet to get more juniors in these great little boats. The other notable was the success overall of the Vintage class, bolstered by two experienced Mothists, Gary Gowan (Gen I winner in previous years), and John Zseleczky (top competitor in the Gen II class with a 2nd place in the Nationals) sailing Vintage this year. Walt Collins, another wily veteran, won the Gen I class, sailing his design which borrows heavily from the vintage class. The header photo shows some of the top finishers; Walt Collins, foreground, (winner Gen I), John Zseleczky, on the left, (second in Vintage), and Mike Parsons, background, (winner overall and Gen II).

I had also thrown up a header photo of John Zseleczky sailing Tweety, his yellow-decked, vintage Ventnor.

Ingrid Albaugh

The fleet off and running after one of the starts.

Ingrid Albaugh

George A. has the comprehensive report on the Nationals on his blog.

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Overall results. Mike Parsons in his Mistral took home the overall trophy.

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Worth re-posting one of my favorite videos from the E-City Nationals, this one from 2010.

Header Photo: Champion at Work

The following header photo is of perennial Classic Moth champion, Floridian Jeff Linton, rolling downwind in his modified Mistral design, Mousetrap. I must say that Jeff is one of the most approachable, laid back, sailing hot-shots I've ever come across. He is also one of the few hot-shots (maybe the only one) that is comfortable doing a program where he will personally build his own racing craft out of wood; one of the reasons you can still find him racing his own build Classic Moth.

Jeff controlling two competitors upwind in the recently completed 2019 Classic Moth Midwinters.

Len Parker

And another photo of Jeff from the 2011 E-City Nationals.

Len Parker

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I'm trying to catch up on items I have conveniently put on the back-burner on this blog.

Here are the Results of the 2018 Classic Moth Nationals - about 6 months late:

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Joe Bousquet	1,3,1,1,1,[3],1	Swiss Dunand
Mike Parsons	2,1,2,2,2,2,[2]	Mistral
John Zseleczky	3,2,3,3,3,1,[3]	Y2K Mistral
Zach Balluzo	4,5,5,5,4,5,[8]	Y2K Mistral
George Albaugh	5,4,6,4,7,4,[9]	Europe Wood (Gen I winner)
Erik Albaugh	7,6,4,[8],8,7,4	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Sam Moncia	[8],7,8,6,6,6,6	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Dan Janeway	[9],8,9,9,9,9,5	Ventnor (Vintage winner)
Josh Kiggans	6,9,7,7,5,DNS,[DNS]	Mistral
Bill Boyle	10,10,10,10,11,10,[12]	Abbott (Vintage)
Don Hewitt	11,11,12,11,10,[13],11	Connecticut (Vintage)
C. Hatcher	13,13,[14],12,13,12,7	Post Ara (Vintage)

• Joe Bousquet and the Swiss Dunand Moth.
• Another Linton Header Photo.
• And another Linton Header Photo.

The Swiss Dunand Classic Moth

Moth Classique, 2018 Classic Moth Nationals

At the 2018 Classic Moth Nationals, for the first time in about twenty years, a hull design other than the Mistral won the Gen II class (faster designs). Joe Bousquet took a dilapidated Swiss Dunand Moth, (a fiberglass Swiss hull built by Fletcher Marine), rehabbed it with his signature tub cockpit, and proceeded to win easily in very light airs.

This is Blair Fletcher in the original plywood Swiss Dunand Moth he purchased from the Swiss after they won the World Championship in 1965 at Cape May, New Jersey.

As seen below on Joe's double-deck trailer, the Swiss Dunand (top) and the Mistral (bottom) share very much the same rocker line and the midship V-shape is also very similar. The differences are the Swiss Moth has much fuller bow sections, there is a topside chine on the Swiss Moth, and the stern is V-shaped vs. the semi-circular transom on the Mistral. The Swiss Moth also has more freeboard.
 

Joe pioneered the swoopy tub cockpit on the his first Mistral, Try-Umph, back in the late 1990's and put the same cockpit on the Swiss Moth. (Almost all the Mistral's built since have the same cockpit.)

Joe going upwind in as much breeze as showed up at the 2018 E-City Nationals. Joe had to sit much further forward on the Swiss Moth to keep the full bows in the water.

Another view of the full bow of the Swiss Moth.

Joe in Swiss Miss (2379), to the right of the Mistrals of  Mike Parsons (70) and John Zseleczky (111).

The lines for the Swiss Dunand Moth showed up on Louis Pillon's Moth website and are reproduced below. It appears that some anonymous Moth nerd has fed the Swiss Moth lines through some hull fairing program. If you want to print, use the top right arrows pop-out icon to put this into another tab on your browser.

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See this post for Bertrand Warion's fiberglass Dunand variant.

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2018 Classic Moth Nationals

George A. over at the Mid-Atlantic Musings blog did a three part series on the 2018 Classic Moth Nationals with plenty of photos. Click on the links below to read through his reports.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

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Header Photo: Classic Moths upwind; 2017 U.S.. Nationals

The previous header photo is an upwind leg of the 2017 Classic Moth Nationals at E-City. It was light wind that year and it appears to be light wind again this year. The 2018 Nationals are going on as I type this blogpost. They were postponed one month because of Hurricane Florence. I'm not attending because I've lost my racing motivation at the moment.

Header Photo: Classic Moth Nationals 2017

The previous header photo was taken before one of the start at this years 2017 Classic Moth Nationals. As you can see the event was competed in light air, though there was enough oomph in the breeze for Race Officer Greg Duncan to get 11 short races off. Mike Parsons won the Gen II division and the overall title, Walt Collins won the Gen I division and Don Janeway won the Vintage division. Fifteen Classics entered though there wasn't fifteen on the line at any one time as some had other stuff to do on Saturday and some had other stuff to do on Sunday.

The Pugh's lawn at E-City with the fleet ready to float around in the whisps and wafts of that weekend's zephyrs.

Mike Parsons, the Cooper River ace and 2017 National Champion rigging his Mistral. Behind him is a Vintage Connecticut.

Results for the 2017 Nationals.

Header Photo: Gary Gowan's Cate's Classic Moth

The previous header photo is of Gary Gowan's home-built, modified, Cates-design Moth. If memory serves, I think he has won two Gen I National titles with this Moth (note the wooden mast as well!). The Cates design was the most popular of the Classic American Moths of the 1960's, and examples keep popping up to this day, all over the U.S.. I've learned from conversations with old-timers that raced them as juniors that this design was much modifed; some having fuller bows, different chine configurations and so on. Gary's Cates has a wider transom.

• The section on the Cates design over at the Moth plans post.
• A short discussion over at Woodenboat forum featuring the Cates (among others).

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For some reason, when I do a Google Search on Earwigoagin Header Photo, I get a good compilation of images from this blog.

Plans de dériveur classique Moth, Plans de voiliers classiques Moth

Header Photo: Classic Moth E-City Nationals 2016

Darin McCauley

The previous header photo was taken by professional photographer, Darin McCauley, at this year's Classic Moth Nationals at Elizabeth City. If you look closely, you can see this photo was captured just a millisecond after the point of no return, witnessed by the still present trail of water coming off the tip of the daggerboard. (Also many thanks to Jay Yerkes for performing this difficult athletic maneuver so elegantly.)

I didn't make this year's Nationals because, for most of the summer, my head wasn't into racing. Turnout was off this year for the Nationals but the local fleets in Maryland and South Carolina are gaining strength with local regattas featuring 11 Classic Moths - so a bit of a trade-off.

I feature several other of Darin's excellent photos below. Just a quick plug for Darin, he writes;

"If you know of anyone who could use photographic coverage of any sailing event please let them know I'm available!"

To reach Darin McCauley - DMC@darinmccauley.com

Bill Boyle debuted his brand new woodie - a cedar-strip Europe Dinghy, one of two home-built Moths seeing their first Nationals. Bill is slated to build a second one over this winter. Click here for Bill's website on the Europe build.

Darin McCauley

John Zseleczky (on the right) debuted the second home-built woodie, his Y2K-mod Mistral, and finished 2nd overall. His build was documented here.

Darin McCauley

Blogger George Albaugh finished 3rd in the Gen 1 class with his Olympic Europe Dinghy. George's more complete report on the 2016 Classic Moth Nationals can  be found here.

Darin McCauley

Gary Gowan won the Gen I division in his home-built, woodie, modified Cates (he actually finished third overall which I think is a first for a Gen I since we started slotting the slower designs into their own division).

Darin McCauley

Finally, not a Darin McCauley photo, but one by John Z, of his new Moth with the race area on the Pasquotank River in the background.

John Zseleczky

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Results of the 2016 Classic Moth Nationals. Congrats to Mike Parsons, the 2016 champion.

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Mike Parsons	1,1,1,1,2,2,3,[3],2	Mistral
John Zseleczky	2,2,2,2,1,3,2,2,[3]	(New) Mistral -Y2Kmod
Gary Gowans	5,4,4,5,3,4,7,6,[7]	Cates - mod (Gen I)
Bob Patterson	6,5,5,3,4,8,8,[8],4	Patterson Shelley (Gen I)
Walt Collins	4,3,3,6,13,5,6,4,[13]	Feather - mod Ventnor (Gen I)
George Albaugh	7,6,6,[7],5,6,4,5,5	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
John Pugh	3,[13],7,4,6,9,9,9,6	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Joe Bousquet	13,13,13,13,13],1,1,1,1	Mistral
Zach Balluzo	9,8,9,8,7,7,5,7,[9]	Mistral
Bill Boyle	8,7,8,9,8,10,10,[10],8	(New) Woodie Europe (Gen I)
Don Hewitt	10,12,13,13,12,12,[13],11,10	Olympic Europe (Gen I)
Jay Yerkes	13,13,12,10,9,11,DSQ,12,13	Mistral

For the first time in a while, there were no vintage Classic Moths racing in 2016. It is also interesting that 9 out of the 12 competing were wooden dinghies.

Classic Moths in the Mist

At this year's Classic Moth Nationals we had a marine layer settle in Saturday night, giving us fog on Sunday morning, a rare event for Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The fog started to creep out towards Pamilco Sound around 9 a.m. and racing commenced, on time, in sunshine.

I took a couple of photos.

The fog didn't stop the sailors kibitzing about Mothboats.

Two transoms in the mist. The Laser transom of the Maser and the wide Europe Dinghy style transom of the Mousetrap Mistral.

The view from the Pugh's pier.

The original post of the 2015 Classic Moth Nationals can be found here.

2015 Classic Moth Nationals

The 2015 Classic Moth Nationals at E-City this past weekend had two glorious sunny days with winds mostly under ten knots. Jamey Rabbit repeated as National Champ with an even more dominating performance than he had last year. As usual, the Gen II Mistral or modified Mistral designs filled the top four positions. Rod Mincher returned to the Nationals after a several year layoff to take the Gen I division in his Maser. Gary Gowans, who won Gen I last year, copped another victory this year, in the Vintage division.

The fleet was split almost evenly among the divisions with 6 Gen II, 5 Gen I, and 6 Vintage to make a total of 17 Classic Moths.

I was able to wander around and take some yard shots of a few of the Classic Moth fraternity/sorority.

Usually the Classic Moth Greybeard Society doesn't have a quorum at the Nationals but this year they did. Dan Mallott, Gary Gowans, and Jahn.

Bill Boyle, who was the lead builder on the Tweezer project, has built or restored a bunch of Classic Moths. Here he is with his restored Ventnor.

Joe Courter, who puts on the great pre-race party at the Brigantine Regatta, got the Old Goat award (he's well into his 70's).

National Champion for the second year in a row, Jamey Rabbit,

John Zsecleczky finished third overall.

Mike Parsons finished second overall.

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Top Twelve Results of the 2015 Classic Moth Nationals.

The Gen II  and National Championship winner is marked with yellow, the Gen I winner is marked with green, the Vintage is marked with orange.

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Jamey Rabbit	1,1,1,1,1,1,[2],1,1,1]	Mistral/Mousetrap
Mike Parsons	2,3,2,2,2,[4],3,2,2,2	Mistral
John Zseleczky	4,4,3,3,[4],3,1,4,3,4	Mistral/Collins
Joe Bousquet	3,2,4,4,3,2,4,3,[5],5	Mistral
Rod Mincher	5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,4,[6]	Stark Maser (Gen 1)
John Pugh	6,7,7,6,7,7,7,[9],7,3	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Greg Duncan	8,6,[13],7,6,9,9,8,8,8	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Zach Balluzzo	11,[12],8,8,9,8,6,6,9,7	Mistral
Gary Gowans	9,10,9,9,[11],6,8,7,6,9	Tennis Bracelet (Vintage)
Carol Terryberry	10,11,11,10,[12]10,10,10,12,11	Ventnor (Vintage)
Erik Albaugh	13,13,[14],13,8,11,12,12,11,10	Mistral/Savannah
Bill Boyle	[14],14,12,14,14,12,11,11,10,12	Ventnor (Vintage)

George Albaugh over at Mid-Atlantic Musings blog has put more photos up in his 2015 Nationals photo album.

Classic Moth Tweezer D Before the Start

In the course of a discussion of sails among the local Classic Moth fleet, I went back and pulled out a photo of the blogmeister just chillin' before a start at the 2006 E-City Nationals. This is my all varnished Tweezer D design. My outfit here is kinda conservative. As some readers may remember, I have always had an affinity for natty looking sailing gear.

I can't remember who took the photo. This may be one of Elisabeth or Ingrid Albaugh's photos.

Classic Moth Nationals 2014

I didn't make it to the Classic Moth Nationals this year. That weekend I was floating around Annapolis Harbor on a Herreshoff Rozinante. John Z sent along some photos of the event so, in keeping with the dictum of the bloggosphere... when you have material, write about it (even when you were nowhere near the action).

Saturday was breezy, blowing across the Elizabeth City River, as it is a majority of the time (though a little eastward this year). Sunday was lighter and flukier with about the same direction.

This is the 25th Nationals since the revival of the Classic Moth and, to mark this milestone, the National Champion was to come from the Vintage Division (those who are racing hulls built before 1950 - there was five in number this year). Walt Collins overcame boat problems on Saturday and in deftly deciphering Sunday's shifts, came from behind to finish 1st in Vintage and take the National Trophy. Gary Gowans, sailing his homebuilt and slightly modified Cates design Good Newz, won the Gen 1 division over an Olympic Europe and Jamey Rabbit borrowed Jeff Linton's Mousetrap to run away with the Gen II trophy. (Jamey was a young hot-shot Mothist when I first showed up on the Classic scene but has been absent for about ten years... it's good to see him back in a Classic Moth.)

George A. over at Mid-Atlantic Musings actually attended the regatta and has written an extensive report complete with a large selection of  excellent photos from Hope Malott, I recommend you read his post; click here.

Some photos. Most are from John Z with the exceptions noted. As always, to get higher resolution, click inside the photo.

Below is Gary Gowan's Cates design, winner of Gen I division, sitting on the Pugh's lawn. As far as I know, this is the first time a Cates has won Gen I; the Cates being the most successful Moth design in the U.S in the early to mid 1960's. (Oops! got that one wrong. George A. sends along this correction... this is history before my time in the class.)

"Mike Albert won the Nats in 1997 sailing the ex-Bill Schill Cates, Pegasus, over Joe Bousquet's Mistral (Joe failed to attend the skipper's meeting and was dsq'ed for passing through the start/finish line on a critical race. This faux pas cost Joe B. the regatta). This was before we had the Gen I and II divisions and shows that a Cates in the right hands could be competitive against the best boats of that era. Jeff Linton also was able to almost beat Mark Saunders and co. the first time he raced a Moth down at St. Pete, sailing an old beat up Fletcher-Cates he borrowed from Ken Willus."

Gary Gowan's two Mothboat trailer rig ready for the homebound trip. His pretty Gen I winner is on top with a winter project Vintage hull on the bottom.

Jamey Rabbit is at least ten years older from the last time he appeared at the Nationals but he hasn't lost the magic sailing touch of his youth. He had six 1st place finishes out of eight races.

A Hope Malott photo of Jamey rounding a leeward mark. Concentration plus plaid sailing shorts. Now that's stylin!

Another Hope Malott photo. This is fellow Marylander Victor Stango launching from the Pugh's property for Saturdays racing. Victor has a wider Gen I Lindenberg design.

The Classic Moths are all about diversity. From left to right, a Vintage Ventnor with a wood mast (all Vintage Mothboats have to sail with a wooden mast), a Gen I Lindenberg, and a Gen I Olympic Europe.

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The Results of the 2014 Classic Moth Nationals.

The Gen II winner is marked with yellow, the Gen I winner is marked with green, the Vintage and National Champion is marked with orange.

Skipper	Races	Hull Design
Jamey Rabbit	1,1,1,1,2,1,1,[2]	Mousetrap
Mike Parsons	[4],3,4,4,1,3,3,1	Mistral
John Zseleczky	3,[4],3,3,3,2,2,3	Collins-Mistral
Gary Gowans	5,5,5,[6],5,4,4,4	Gowans-Cates (Gen 1)
John Pugh	6,[10],8,9,4,6,7,7	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Victor Stango	7,7,7,[12],6,8,6,6	Lindenberg (Gen 1)
Rutledge Young	[DNF],6,6,5,9,5,5,12	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Joe Bousquet	2,2,2,2,[DNC],DNC,DNC,DNC	Mistral
Walt Collins	8,8,[DNC],DNC,7,9,8,9	Dorr Willey (Vintage)
Greg Duncan	11,[12],11,7,8,11,9,11	Connecticut (Vintage)
George Albaugh	9,11,9,11,10,[12],12,10	Connecticut (Vintage)
Ed Salva	13,[15],12,8,12,10,11,8	Olympic Europe (Gen 1)
Zach Balluzzo	10,9,10,10,[DNC],DNC,DNC,DNC	Maser (Gen 1)
Dan Mallott	14,DNF,[DNC],DNC,13,13,14,13	Shelley (Gen 1)
Don January	15,[DNF],DNC,DNC,DNC,14,13,14	Ventnor (Vintage)
Bill Boyle	12,12,[DNF],DNC,DNC,DNC,DNC,DNC	Abbot (Vintage)

Another Home-Brew video of Classic Moth Designs

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been unearthing some old video clips on my hard drive. This is one where, for the first time, I narrated the video as I shot it. Unfortunately you have to put up with the blogmeister's mumble-mouth delivery which demonstrates that I, thankfully, could have never had a career as a TV newsreader. (Even I have a hard time deciphering what I was trying to say - at one point it sounds like I said "outspoken cockpit" when describing an open cockpit design - Sheesh!)

There is one historical mistake in the video. Skip Etchells did his Connecticut design in the late 1940's, not the late 1950's.

The Transoms of E-City

Nothing gives the flavor of the Classic Moth class more than to wander around Pugh's lawn at Elizabeth City taking pictures of transoms. There cannot be a more diversified racing dinghy class going anywhere in the world. Here are some (not all) of the various sterns at the 2013 event.


The Skip Etchells designed Connecticut Moth (designed 1948).

The flattish transom from the Olympic Europe.

The early 1950's Mint design (boxy, slightly rounded).

The circular transom of the stock Mistral. Builder/skipper is Mike Parsons.

The flattish transom of the one-off Lane Reeves modified Savannah Mistral.

The modern looking transom of the 1960's John Shelly design (definitely one of the innovators during the 1960's). I have been told that he tried to patent the distinctive inward curve to the topside panel at the stern.

For further study, George A. has on-the-water photos of Classic Moth transoms over at his Mid-Atlantic Musings blog.

The "D" or "Dammit" Course

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I've put more specific instructions on the "D" or "Dammit" Course in a later post on this blog.

Click here to read more about how I think the "D" course should be set up.

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As mentioned in a previous post, I was the race officer for the Classic Moth Nationals this past September. With such absolute power, I allowed at the skippers meeting that I might run a different course if the conditions permitted. One of my pet peeves about the normal windward/leewards or triangle course is that they don't provide for a truly fast planing reach for singlehanded dinghies (unless the wind is hitting near to upper teens, close to twenty). I remember running Laser races out of SSA in a good southerly sea breeze, firing off windward/leeward courses as normal, and hearing the comment on shore that the only time the Lasers got to blast reach that day was on the sail home.

Given that the Classic Moth National courses are short and station the race committee halfway up the windward leg, I came up with the "D" course; a course I would use if I deemed the wind was strong enough to get the Mothboats planing. This course is not new; I remember using a variant of this for Europe Dinghies (back when they were an Olympic class) out of West River Sailing Club in the 1980's. It is called the "Reverse P" course (originally the Harry Anderson course - refer to the comments) and essentially shoves a triangle in the upper half of the course and a leeward leg in the lower half of the leg. This allows for close to a beam reach on one leg, the ideal planing angle for conventional singlehanders. As an added benefit, for me (yes, sometimes it is about me), this course would have the competitors round the RC boat, allowing the RC crew to watch and dissect some racing up close.

A rough drawing of this course shows the top heavy configuration of the two reaches, a feature that has prompted some jokesters to nickname this course the "Dolly Parton" course. To acknowledge this moniker, for the Classic Moth Nationals I renamed the "Reverse P" course the "D" course (helped by the fact that the "D" flag is not used for any other RC function and is available to designate a course).

Note: I changed the course layout as shown on the drawing. The leeward mark rounding was changed to a starboard rounding instead of a port rounding to avoid the curlicue.

With the competitors fully briefed, I was itching to try it out. The wind had been strengthening during Race 1 and before Race 2 there was the beginnings of just a hint of whitecaps. The "D" course was subsequently signaled and off they went, unfortunately in a breeze that now looked as if it was softening up. On the first reach the wind continued dropping and then just shortly after Joe Bousquet, the leader, rounded the reach mark, the wind around the RC boat completely dropped away and shifted to the south, making for a beat on the second reach. Joe was able to round the RC boat after putting in one tack but the rest of fleet got caught in a very light, frustrating, fluky beat around the RC boat. At one point, George, the brains behind the blog Mid-Atlantic Musings, loudly opined from his Europe Moth, "I don't know about this "D" course, I'd say this is closer to a "Dammit" course!" Other competitors bitched and moaned as they flopped from one tack to another but the fleet eventually drifted around the RC boat. For the third race, the wind returned to the original direction, although lighter, and I reverted back to the more conventional triangle courses for the rest of the day.

I got some good natured ribbing about the "D" course over the beer cups that night. But the "Dammit" Course is now out there and I'm itching to use it again; somewhere, sometime.

The grizzled old PRO, fiendish schemer of the "Dammit" course, on station at the Classic Moth Nationals with his able assistant Elisabeth (picture stolen from Greg Duncan's Facebook page).

Header Photo: Classic Moths Racing at E-City - 2013

Mike Parson holding a good lead upwind, with John Z chasing, on the second day of the Classic Moth Nationals, Elizabeth City, North Carolina.