A Piece of Furniture: A Division 2 Windsurfer Raceboard

Occasionally I've come across photos of exquisitely built and varnished small sailboats that I have been featured on Earwigoagin under the moniker Piece of Furniture. Such was the case recently when some photos of a beautifully wood molded Division 2 Windsurfer was posted in Facebook.

The stern has very similar conic sections to the Mistral design Classic Moth.

The Division 2 Windsurfer was the odd duck of the Windsurfing fraternity; a long skinny displacement board that was actually designed to go upwind, not so much blast downwind. It was the Olympic Windsurfing class in 1988 for the Seoul South Korea Olympics.

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Update: 8/20. Gui, one of my International Canoe buddies from back in the day, now fully immersed in all things Windsurfing and foiling, begs to differ on my classification of the D2 as a displacement craft:

"The D2 is clearly not a displacement board!...The D2's work OK in light air, but like most other sailing craft, they are much nicer to sail in 10+kts. They are as much displacement boards as the other long raceboards when the wind is down. They plane upwind at ~8-11kts and I got mine to ~20kts downwind, pretty sure a more committed D2 sailor with a modern design would be in the mid-20's."

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Internet research on this woodie picked up a post from Hit the Wave blog, that pointed to this beauty as possibly having a 1984 Brazilian origin from a Greek boatbuilder, cold molded in Cedar; a Greco.

Aussie Chris Thompson seconded Greco as the builder with this comment that I'm dragging over to the main post:

"It looks like a Greco from my memories; I was offered one of the top ones at the '85 worlds for a criminally low price, but had no way to get it from the UK to Australia. There's been a little revival in D2s lately, which is nice to see."

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.

Throwing the Shade: 60's Dinghies vs. the Newbies

The Olympic Training Regatta at Parma, Day 6 featured big breeze, big seas. The 49'ers and Nacra's didn't race Day 6 setting up the following quote from an Australian 470 crew (the 470's did race). Go to 1:12 in the video where the 470 crew throws considerable shade on the 49'ers and Nacra sailors.

"Today's the day for the real boats. We see all the skiffs and catamarans stuck on shore looking silly. The 470's, Finns, and Lasers, we all got out and went slowly [still] but had a good time. The waves and wind make our boat quite a bit of fun and quite close racing [still] which is really enjoyable."

The Australian Nacra crew fires back at 1:32 into the video. Just gotta love this inter-class jabbering.

Commentary: Olympic Equipment Trials - Singlehanded Dinghy

I've put the header photo of the Laser being blown over as a sort of tongue-in-cheek; I've always been joshing the Laser class; great boat that the Laser is. In the beginning of March, World Sailing ran a week long trials in Valencia, Spain to ostensibly select the singlehander dinghy for the Paris games in 2024. (I say ostensibly because politics always intervene, see my post on the Contender.) This could mark the end of the Laser in the Olympics (and then, perhaps not). Three newish classes were invited; the RS Aero, the Devoti D-Zero, the Melges 14. The Laser was also invited but kept ashore for the final day. Conditions were varied enough during the trials with the exception of a real blow. All three trialists represent modern dinghy thinking; low rocker hulls, flattish transoms, high aspect sails, and, (bullshit opinion alert!, since the blogmeister was nowhere near being present at the trials) during the week, there probably wasn't a huge difference in performance from class to class. So we await the report of the selection committee; which, if truth be told, probably doesn't have a lot of weight when the Annual Meeting of World Sailing convenes in November. Like any political body, behind the scenes maneuvering and lobbying will win the day.

I've come around, slowly, to the idea that Olympic classes should be elite dinghies, not popular world wide classes. This is the way the 49'er has evolved. It is a very difficult boat to race and only the Olympic sailors race this class. (One of these days I might re-tell the tale of Macy Nelson, who decided as an amateur, to race his 49'er in the Miami, Florida, World Sailing event.) My idea of the elite Olympic hiking singlehander is a version of the RS300. Olympic racing and the rest-of-us racing are two different concepts. Let the Olympic sailors have their own singlehanders and to us, the amateurs, leave us be, enjoyably racing our Retro singlehanders (long live our Retro singlehanders!), or our Laser's, or our RS Aero's, or D-Zero's, or Melges 14's. It's time to stop pretending these two, very different versions of our sport should be sharing the same classes.

I should mention that I know Dina Kowalyshyn, an Annapolitan, who was the head of the selection committee. Her husband was an International 14 crew during my era in International 14's; he is known by the 14'ers of that time as "Easy Bob". I ran into Dina at my normal Saturday breakfast joint about six months ago. She was breakfasting with Lorie Stout and we had a interesting conversation about where community sailing was going in Annapolis (or not going as it was determined).

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Update: May 4, 2019: The World Sailing committee released their recommendations; either the Laser or the RS Aero is fit for Olympic competition. The Melges 14 was too big of a boat and the D-Zero had too fine a bow - not enough buoyancy for the trialists.

Finn World Champ Whaling on it in Big Breeze

I just wrote that the 12 Foot Skiff was the hardest dinghy to sail in the World... but the Finn, ahh! the Finn. Watching the Olympians race this cranky, old, singlehander, big sail with long boom, in a big breeze, you just can't help to marvel at the skill, the physicality, the training to do this in close to thirty knots of breeze. Swede Max Salminen performing for the back deck cam at the 2018 Finn Europeans.



This isn't the first time I've featured Finn videos on Earwigoagin (not by a long shot):

• Grunt Reaching
• Finn Pumping
• The Merry Finnster
• Windy Finn Training
• Finn Gybe Mark
• 2012 Medal Race
• Finn vs. Laser Carving

Foiling in the hands of the Olympians

There has been a lot of digital ink from the sailing punditry community on how foiling is going to change sailing. No longer are we to bash and pound, or surf and plane, but rather fly... that is the future! So without further comment, let us observe how the Olympic Nacra 17 and their professional sailors play the foiling game; in one of the qualifying races at the Aarhus World Championships. (Though it must be admitted, compared to the Moth, which foils all around the course, the Nacra 17 must be considered semi-foiling as it doesn't fully fly upwind.)

Header Photo: 49'er Skying

The previous header photo was of the Australian 49'er I plucked from the Internet, hence the location is unknown, but, if I had to guess, I would say this is a screen shot from the famous/infamous medal race at the 2008 Quingdao Olympics.

Paul Elvstrom's Rare Double

Paul Elvstrom's most mentioned accomplishment is his four Olympic Gold Medals. However, to my mind, Elvstrom's greater accomplishment was winning both the Finn World Championship (Finn Gold Cup, 1958 and 1959) as a skipper and also the 1962 Flying Dutchman World Champion as a trapeze crew (Olympic performance double-hander at the time). There is no better example of Elvstrom's greatness than being the top skipper in the most competitive singlehander class of his era and the top crew in the most competitive trapeze class of his era.

Paul Elvstrom's experience as a trapeze crew led him to develop the first trapeze singlehander class (named, what else, the Trapez) which he introduced at the 1965 singlehander trials in Weymouth, England.

1962 Flying Dutchman Worlds - St. Petersburg Florida - Hans Fogh skipper

You would think winning a Finn Gold Cup and then turning around and winning a World Championship as a trapeze crew would be unique in sailboat racing but it turns out the accomplishment was repeated - by an American. Cam Lewis won the Finn World Cup  (1979 and 1980) and was also winning trapeze crew at the 505 Worlds (1981 and 1982 - twice, for two different skippers). I would think with the increasing specialization in training for the Olympic classes that we will not see anyone else join this exclusive "double skipper/crew championship" club.

Cam Lewis in his Finn.

Paul Elvstrom, Camelot and Jack Knights

Paul Elvstrom passed away a couple of weeks after I posted about one of his projects, an obscure 11 foot dinghy, the Elvstrom Jr.

Paul Elvstrom was my teenage sailing hero in the 1960's; a larger-than-life king who ruled over the best dinghy sailors on the planet; the Olympic Finn sailors. Just as Theodore White romantically redefined the JFK presidency as a hero king ruling over Camelot, yachting journalist Jack Knights did the same with Paul Elvstrom and the band of rough, tough Finn sailors bestride the sailing dinghy world of the 1960's. Jack wrote a column for Yachts and Yachting magazine, a magazine I received via surface mail through the grace of my kindly Aunt Doris. Most columns had some news about the goings on of the Finn crowd. Through Jack Knights, the top Finn sailors of the 1960's; Richard Creagh-Osbourne, Jorg Bruder, Andre Nelis, Willi Kuhweide, Valentin Mankin, Hubert Raudaschl, Peter Tallberg, Thomas Lundquist, Peter Barrett, Henry Sprague, Bob Andre, the East Germans..., became lasting heroes as they fought each other in grueling battles in gale force winds.

Jack Knights, who himself was three time English champion in the Finn, always painted Paul Elvstrom in a different league from his counterparts. His reports added another facet to the legend. There was the Jack Knights report on Paul Elvstrom's first Star Worlds. Paul finished third in the first race but was unsatisfied with his boat speed. Overnight he moved the mast 6 inches forward which entailed, cutting the deck, changing his spreaders, changing the rigging. A normal sailor would not do this in the middle of a championship. Paul didn't give it a second thought and went on to dominate a windy World Championship.

Paul Elvstrom was the best and Jack Knights was the brilliant scribe who wrote the sailing story; a legendary band of heroes led by the incomparable Dane.

From Expert Dinghy Racing

From Expert Dinghy Racing

Canadian 49'er team video - May 2016

I've featured plenty of Olympic 49'er videos on this blog, mostly of the watery, down-the-mine, disaster variety. This one is different. The sailor's monologues nail the difficulty of sailing a high-performance dinghy, coupled with the obsessive grind of an Olympic campaign. The videography is beautiful. There is the requisite blasting around but there is also a sequence of these two caught in North American squall; the blast and then the calm and the torrential rain afterward.


905 Sailing-HD from Jesse Wyatt on Vimeo.

More Vintage Sailing Kit - 1956 Olympics

My previous post on 1970's International 14's provoked a small discussion on vintage sailing fashion by us greybeards. Which prompts me to pull a photo from even further back - the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. Silver medalists in the 12 sq. m. Sharpie - Australian Rolly Tasker and John Scott. (Photo harvested from the Internet.)

A photo from one of the races of the 12 sq. meter Sharpie class in the 1956 Olympics. Rolly Tasker and John Scott are the left-most Sharpie.

A Brush with Sail Blogspot

Finn Dinghy Grunt Reaching

I've been featuring lots of videos about how to do it wrong - time to get back to the Olympic sailors doing it right - in this case Finn sailor Alejandro Foglia of Uruguay.

A couple of observations:

• You know it's really honking when a Finn sailor isn't pumping the main.
• The Finn is a heavy singlehander - 107 kg hull weight - but despite the weight this if full on, balls-to-the-wall reaching.

Tillerman over at Propercourse just recently featured a video of the massive American centerboard design Flying Scot planing. (There is a true sense of unleashed power when you get some of these heavy designs up and going; I have some fond memories of some great reaches on a American Lightning dinghy (318 kg.) under spinnaker and also the Y-Flyer scow (227 kg.).

Sailboat Racing Fails of 2015

An excellent compilation of some of the more memorable screw-ups of 2015, capturing a wide range of eff-ups. I especially like the ones where the skipper walks off boat, leaving the crew to fend for him/herself (49 seconds and 3.15 into the video), having done that myself several times on the International Canoe. (Alas, a singlehander, where I couldn't enjoy messing with the mind of a crew when he/she realized this bus is trucking down the road with no-one at the wheel - tiller.)

Not Turkey Carving; but Laser Carving

We American's are just finishing up our Thanksgiving feast weekend, Roast, baked, or fried turkey is the centerpiece and carving the turkey into white or dark meat pieces is all part of the tradition (and then add the gravy, stuffing, oyster or regular, mashed sweet or white potatoes, cornbread, vegetable casseroles of all sorts ..... well, you get the idea).

Segue into a sailing theme, in this case Olympic sailors carving their Lasers downwind. (Carving, in this case, a maritime definition borrowed from the surfers and meaning the radical changes in direction to stay on a wave.)

And surprise, surprise, an American in the lead in this one!

• A previous post about Laser carving.
• Torquing the Laser upwind.

Outside Looking In

It's always fun to listen in when someone outside the sport of dinghy racing puts their two cents in. An English photographer, a landlubber if we go by his commentary, was drafted to shoot the Princess Sofia Olympic Regatta. He puts together this video where he airs his views of this strange sport.



Trofeo Princesa Sofía IBEROSTAR from Sailing Energy on Vimeo.

The Merry Finnster

I noticed that Finn videos were popular in the bloggosphere a couple of months ago. Being somewhat late in following trends, I offer up one of my favorite Finn videos, this of Olympic sailing's free spirit, Estonian Deniss Karpak. Sailing in Lake Garda, on a day that appears to be solely devoted to training on downwind technique (lucky dogs those Olympians, to spend the day planing to and fro), our hero pauses to pick some flowers to decorate his centerboard before resuming the workout.


Daybreak: Garda Adventures from Deniss Karpak on Vimeo.

Down the Mine Twofer

We just got another dollop of snow this morning in the Mid-Atlantic (nothing close to what they are dealing with in the Northeast). To buck me up before I go out to shovel the driveway, a duo of sailing crash and burn videos.

First up, that old chestnut of dinghy disaster, the Olympic 49'er. This time the performers are a Canadian team (the acceleration once they get the assymetric trimmed is jaw-dropping - at about 2:04 into the video).

Click here for more 49'er shenanigans.


Splash's & Crash's from Ferguson Sailing on Vimeo.


Next up, a plucky and persistent junior team having their difficulties around the course in their RS Feva during the 2015 Bloody Mary. Good thing they are wearing matching dayglo-green knit caps.

The Olympic 49'er: Continuing the Krashboombang

The 49'er, the two-man Olympic skiff, is not an easy dinghy to master; which is as it should be for an Olympic class. Hence, great 49'er "crash and burn" videos keep surfacing periodically, enough to keep the blogmeister thoroughly entertained. (I sailed on a 49'er once, light air, and I was limited to crew. It was a short sail and I remember how skinny the spin halyard was and my only recollection was how painful it was to pull the asymmetric in and out of the launcher.)

In the following video, I hate it when the forward hand just can't stay glued to the boat. It makes everything else that much more difficult.


Justus Schmidt - Max Boehme Flying 49er from Valencia Sailing on Vimeo.

One of the problems....the 49'er just lulls you in, blasting along, Joe Cool, "Hey we got this thing under control!" and Whap! Splat!


Pitchpole - Palma Style from Ferguson Sailing on Vimeo.

And who can forget the mother of all 49'er "Down the mine" videos", I reintroduce the antics from the Medal Race of the Qingdao 2008 Olympics. Color commentary is in, I think, Danish.

Header Photo: Gardner's 30-footer "Departure"; The Proto-Star

Picture lifted from the 1896 issue of Outing magazine. My discussions on the origin of the Star keelboat can be found here and here.

Crewing Flying Dutchman

The earlier post about woman Mothist, Pat Duane, who was also one of the U.S.A's earliest Flying Dutchman sailors, reminded me of the one time in my sailing career I sailed with a current Olympic Sailing Team skipper. Norm Freeman, who had finished sixth out of twenty in the Flying Dutchman class at the 1976 Kingston Olympic Regatta that summer, had come to Annapolis in the fall of that year to race the Flying Dutchman invitational at SSA; sans crew, as it turned out, as his Olympic crew had taken a break. Initially Norm tried to recruit my friend, Duncan Skinner, who, at 6'7" height and string-bean physique, was the ideal FD crew (the FD sporting 190 sq. ft. of sail area with a large percentage of it packed in a massive genoa jib). Duncan had already made commitments for the weekend and put forth my name even though I was small for FD crew (5' 10 1/2" (1.79) m. and 175 lbs. (80kg) weight). I was game, though I had never stepped on a Flying Dutchman, my trapeze-hand experience mostly with International 14's.

The fall regatta was windy and I must admit, my crew-work was definitely not of Olympic caliber, it taking forever to horse that big genoa in on the tacks. I was probably taking 2 to 3 times as long as his Olympic crew. No matter! His FD was so much faster than the rest of the fleet that 1/2 way up the first beat we had a clear lead that we extended throughout the race. We ended up with all firsts.

There are a lot of strings on a Flying Dutchman but Norm did all the adjustments. I found the Flying Dutchman very smooth and much more stable than the International 14. I do remember, in one race, concentrating on the spinnaker downwind, blasting along comfortably, when I felt some unnatural shakiness in the steering. Experienced crews know to check the skipper when that happens. He might have fallen out of the boat, or tripped, but it wasn't a disaster this time. Norm was standing up, straddling the tiller, worried about a particular nasty gust coming up on us. To me the FD was handling the breeze beautifully, with predictable responses, so I was somewhat puzzled by his concern. Eventually Norm settled down and we won another one.

The current crop of skiffs are thought to call for a more athletic crews. To my mind, the demands on a top-notch FD crew are just as athletic if not more so. It takes lots of strength to handle that genoa.

Dr. Stout took the picture below to memorialize my one regatta with an Olympic Team skipper.