Header Photo: Start of the Paddling Canoe Race, Late Nineteenth Century

The previous header photo was harvested from Facebook with little identification. A paddling canoe start from the late nineteenth century, the location remained a mystery. I emailed several canoe historians and they were somewhat stumped as well. Someone said Lake George N.Y., another said possibly Hay Island right acroos from Gananoque in the Thousand Islands. Dating was also broad, sometime between the late 1880's, 1890's. Even without a precise identification, the bevy of delicate sailing canoes in the foreground still makes this photo a gem.

A sailing canoe from that era up and planing.

Douglas Fowler Finishes Restoration of Bill Garden Paper Canoe

Time to wrap up the saga of the Mystery Canoe. For those who want to dig back into Earwigoagin to review previous posts, click on the following links:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Some winter work

Douglas Fowler sends along photos of the finished restoration of the canoe model. What a gorgeous sailing canoe! There is no-one better in the World at canoe restorations than Douglas Fowler; just for the simple fact that it is a rare occurrence to come across an individual who is such a perfectionist. Douglas ruminates on wrapping up putting this model back together:

"Well it’s finally done! Probably won’t try this again. Massive amounts of time with the sails causing me particular agony! Didn’t see that one coming. Being made out of paper also added a difficulty factor as well. I’ve had a plexy case made so I’ll close it up tomorrow. Having trouble finding a clear surface to put it on. Still want to have a little plaque made identifying it for the base but that can wait. My sign shop is closed up so I can’t go and design it with them. I enjoyed restoring it and it certainly was a worthwhile project. Maybe someday I’ll build a full size one although probably not out of paper as spec’d. It would be a good one for cold molding out of some type of veneer or even a thin plywood bending panel. At 20’ it would be a good size for this lake. I wonder if a full size one was ever built and if somewhere in the Northwest it still exists? I suspect being made of paper with plywood ribs and bulkheads the chances aren’t very good."

 

A Hybrid Row-Sail Dinghy from the Late 1800's?

Douglas Fowler sent along photos of this discovery, identification unknown. It does fit my conjectural image of what George Aykroyd had in mind when he developed his hybrid row-sail dinghy. (See the Toronto Dinghy.) A fellow named Everett is in possession of her and sent along this information:

"Attached are some photos of a small sailboat I am trying to identify. I think it is a cruiser of the type that appeared at the end of the decked sailing canoe early days say 1890. It was owned by Fred Bourne and purchased at a Dark Island auction in the 1970s. Nicely made, Spanish Cedar, copper tacks have a star embossed on the head. Any thoughts? Thanks' Everett

There doesn't seem to be any provision for rowing. This may have been sail only but it does sport a Whitehall rowboat type transom.

Header Photo: International Canoe U.K. Nationals

Rick Bowers

The last header photo was a beautiful waterline shot taken during the 2019 International Canoe U.K. Nationals. More International Canoe posts.

Garden Paper Canoe: The Model after some Winter Work

More on the ongoing saga of the Mystery Sailing Canoe Model acquired by sailmaker Douglas Fowler. The mystery turned out to be a Bill Garden Paper Canoe design. (See the previous posts, Part 1 and Part 2, for the complete background story.) Douglas sends some photos of his winter restoration work and the model is turning out to be a real beauty!

Looks like Photoshop still wants to convert the hull color to Herreshoff Sea Foam Green. The actual color is bluish as in the top photo.

Douglas Fowler is the consummate craftsman. His attention to detail borders on OCD, which is a very good thing when you are restoring historical artifacts. His writeup about his trials and tribulations of the winter rehab of the Garden Paper Sailing Canoe;

"Let me tell you, this sucker has been a challenge! I’m doing the rig now and was saved by a 78 yo model fitting maker in Florida. I tried to solder fix the 4 loop ring at the top of the mast and the gooseneck. Instead of 2 pieces I instantly ended up with 4 or more. Another interesting find was the color which was not really a Herreshoff Sea Foam Green at all but what you see. The hull (but not the deck) had been varnish[ed] over the paint which had yellowed. The current color was under the rail. Went to an auto paint store and had a custom mix loaded into a spray can. The hull and the deck are indeed paper which has presented special challenges. Between the plan and the bits (top of the mast was missing) I was able to figure the rig out which is almost ready for assembly. Still need to split a 1/8” dowel down the middle for the roller furler. I’m still in awe of whoever made this model!"

Header Photo: The Taifun Sailing Canoe

The previous header photo is of the athletic, full-on hiking skipper powering the modern German Taifun sailing canoe upwind. The Taifun is a racing canoe class that is the only extant sailing canoe that has similar dimensions to the original English B-class sailing canoe of the early 1900's.

A history of the Taifun sailing canoe from Christopher of the German Sailing Canoe Federation:

"The sailing canoe is one of the representatives of the small sailing craft with elegant, sleek lines. Early on, the most frequently built was the 7.5 square meter sailing canoe of the German Canoe Association. There were Rundspant, Knickspant- and Doppelknickspant boats. They are 5.20 m long, sloop, and were sailed by one person. The sail logo of class was a red dot. Typical for the boats is the Spitzgat shape - the double-ended shape of the sailing canoes. The 7.5 square meter sailing canoe was a restricted design class where the length of the boat, the sail height and sail area were fixed. Many different sailing canoes were built to this rule and the most up-to-date knowledge in small boat construction was adopted. However, the variety of types made a large spread in speed and finishers in regattas were very spread out.

"From an issue of the "Yacht" (1951, Issue 6, p.133): "The Bremer, after seventeen years of experience in the design and building of sailing canoes, five years after the end of the Second World War, developed a type 'Bremen" canoe, a 7.5 square meter racing and hiking canoe- and they have achieved a certain standard form, which has proven an excellent sailing craft. The boat has a "spoon bow", the underwater shape has no hollow lines, so that it does not hobby horse, and remains dry even in heavy weather Of course, it is equipped with all the latest technical finesse, the canoe is light, fast, stable - and in combination with a large cockpit it is not only a superb racer, but also an ideal hiking boat.The owner with wife and 1-2 children can sleep comfortably in the long cockpit. The cockpit can of course be covered except for a small opening- which has proved to be unnecessary even in hard regattas and heavy waves on the lower Weser from Bremer Werft to the DM 1000.-. "

The designer of the 7.5 square meter sailing canoe type "Bremen" was Walter Mater. As a trained boat builder, he worked in the post-war years as a part-time home builder. He himself operated a small boatbuilding company in Bremen before the war began. Later (about 1963) he developed a motor canoe. In 1985, Walter Mater died at the age of 77 years. Drawings of his canoes, Canadian paddling canoes and regatta dinghies were sent to a large number of interested parties and clients at the time.

On the Hamme near Bremen, the German Championships took place in 1955 in the 7.5 square meter sailing canoe. However, there were only 10 boats. In 1956 the 7.5 square meter class were up to 17 boats from Bremen, Westphalia and southern Germany.

In 1964/65, the Taifun, based on the Bremen canoe, was introduced - a further development that included short hiking boards, to enable more hiking leverage on this narrow hull. The boat numbers G1 to G 99 are 7.5 square meters sailing canoes, numbers G 100 and up are Taifun's. The Taifun was a one-design, and the old 7.5 restricted rule class was abolished. As can be read in an issue of the "Yacht" from 1963: "Unanimously, the German Canoe Association decided in the autumn of 1963, the introduction of a standard sailing canoe The existing free design class is no longer allowed New builds and basic conversions of the 7.5 square meter canoe will no longer be measured ... From this standardization, the German Canoe Federation promises to intensify canoe sailing on a national and international level. "

Some photos of the Taifun class racing. The Taifun sports little hiking seats to get the skipper out further. Juniors race the Taifun two-up; after age 19 the Taifun is a singlehander.

Some videos of the Taifun are over at this post.

Linton Hope's 1896 Royal Canoe Club Cruising Canoe: "Bubble"

As part of the discussion around the Mystery Cruising Canoe and possible connection to the English B-class canoe, John Summers took some quick photos of plates from a Dixon Kemp book of Bubble, the prototype English RCC cruising canoe designed in 1896 by the iconic English designer, Linton Hope. As I mentioned before the English felt the Americans had gone too far with their wispy, sail-happy, sliding seat canoes and wanted to drag designs back to something more wholesome, without a sliding seat. Bubble was 16 feet long (4.87 meters), 13 feet on the waterline (3.96 meters), and had 140 sq. feet of sail (13 sq. meters) in a gunter rig.

The sections for Bubble look relatively roundish with some tumblehome aft.

The displacement was a relatively massive 400 lbs. (181 kg) by today's standards with 100 lbs in the centerboard.

Three years later, by 1899, Linton's latest cruising canoe design, Vanessa VII, had lengthened to 17 feet, had increased the sail area to just under 150 sq. feet, and the sections had flattened out considerably. These were the dimensions around which the B-class canoe would form.  From a Forest and Stream article:

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For a modern racing version of Linton Hope's Bubble canoe, click here to read a post on the German Taifun sailing canoe.

Header Photo: Happy New Year from Sugar Island

I was poking around some images on my computer when I came across this one, a photo that actually said Happy New Year on it. This photo is of a group of canoeists on Sugar Island, watching the sailing canoe races from the shade of the trees, their chairs perched on a smooth rock face that makes up much of the island. Year is mid-1930's, probably 1934 or 1935. I googled the name on the lower right, Geo. F. Lewis, and found out he was from Massachusetts and also in charge of the musical entertainment for the week. It would be a safe bet to assume that this is Geo. F. Lewis watching from one of the chairs. Here's wishing the readers of Earwigoagin the best for 2019.

Part 2: Mystery Sailing Canoe: How her identity was solved.

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Where we continue the quest to solve the identity of a sailing canoe model (above photos) that was purchased off Ebay by sailmaker Douglas Fowler. Refer back to the Part 1 post for an introduction.

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Looking at the photos of the model, I immediately dismissed an American origin for the design. American sailing canoe classes either centered around the mostly decked, low freeboard, lightweight, sliding seat canoes (16X30) or the ACA canoes of the depression era which were essentially paddling canoes with lateen rigs. This looked like one of the English cruising canoes. The Scots and English had been using canoes to cruise big water since the 1870's. (The west coast of Scotland with it's nooks and crannies and islands was a favorite destination.) An early photo of the Loch Lomond Canoe Club below:

Around the 1900's, the English had developed the B-class canoe, with higher freeboard and a gunter rig; no sliding seat. Certainly the English B-class sailing canoe hull shape looked similar to Doug's model and I put that suggestion out there. Below is a Beken photo of the B-class canoes. This looks to be from the 1930's when the class was modernizing. Number 18 has the original lower aspect, longer boom sail plan. Sail area was 150 sq. ft. (13.9 sq. meters). Given that Doug's model had a higher aspect main (with a funny little gaff) and a sail area which was definitely smaller, this would prove problematic.

Doug tracked down Andrew Eastwood, who had written a history of the English sailing canoe about twenty years ago. His reply put the kibosh on the idea that this model was an English B canoe.

"One, the most important being that the sail area is too small for a RCC B class, so she must, most likely, have been rigged to fit with the 10 sq m rule, which was 1936. If you look at the B class in the book they were sailing with about 150 sq ft and the boom extended almost to the stern. Two, the general shape looks wrong. The Royal Canoe Club B class were very full in the fore and aft quarters, whereas your model looks less so. Three, about 20 years ago I came across a canoe lying derelict and persuaded the owner to let me take it. It was a canoe called 'Zenith' registered as K 26 by the Royal Canoe Club. She was originally a Swedish B canoe but measured as a RCC B class under the rules of the time. The UK numbering for the IC (10 sq M canoe) is a continuation of the numbering started for the B class." 

Andrew suggested this model may be a Swedish B canoe. Off I went to the Internet and used what I found to write this post about Swedish sailing canoe classes. The problem with the Swedish B canoe is the modern version is very similar to an OK dinghy - not at all like Doug's model. Maybe a Swedish C class canoe? (Rickard Sarby's Swedish C-canoe became his famous Olympic Finn design.) Again, the only modern photo I came across has this Swedish C-class canoe with a ketch rig, not a sloop rig. Perhaps a Swedish E-canoe? But I couldn't find a photo of one. Does the class still exist?

The blue sailing canoe [above] is a Swedish C-canoe, probably from late 50's or thereabout. I think the design was called "Celita". Sail area 10 m2 and length 5.50 m. The general appearance seem to indicate the Stockholm archipelago,

 Bengt Andersson

The English connection had been scrapped and the Swedish connection didn't look too likely. Meanwhile, Doug had also dragged two of the foremost sailing canoe experts in North America into the email conversation; John Summers and Joe Youcha. John had initially come down on the side of the English B-class canoe. Joe had noticed some details (pea green hull color, deck details) that were characteristic of Herreshoff construction. Could this model be a L. Francis Herreshoff design? We have this L. Francis 10 square meter design done in the 1930's (see photos below) but the rig was wrong and the hull too narrow. Add this to the fact there didn't seem to be any provision for a sliding seat on the model. We were increasingly facing the prospect that Doug's sailing canoe model may be a one-off that would be impossible to track.

Joe Youcha suggested that Doug contact Maynard Bray, a marine historian (WoodenBoat technical editor, Mystic Seaport Museum) who has wallowed in more boat plans and boat designs than all of the rest of us combined. Boom. We hit paydirt. Maynard did an immediate ID and sent back this Rudder article. Doug had a model of a Bill Garden design, a 20 foot sailing canoe initally designed for paper construction.

So I was wrong. It was an American design after all. John Summers wrapped up this very interesting trek through sailing canoe history with this very succinct quote:

"If Maynard doesn't know then no-one knows! Always did like Garden's drafting style. He drew some quirky boats--why the little dutch gaff, do you think? Thanks for solving the mystery."

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The model after a winters work.

Mystery Sailing Canoe - How her identity was solved.- Part 1

Every once in a while I get dragged into trying to identify an obscure vintage small sailboat. I find it fun in a way; a test of your knowledge of sailing history.

Back in the beginning of November I received an email from sailmaker Douglas Fowler regarding the original provenance of the design of a sailing canoe model  he just bought off Ebay. (Doug, at one point, had collected two of the most historically significant 16X30 decked canoes, Mermaid and Tomahawk.)

The original Ebay photo of the model Doug bought:

Photos of the model on Doug's loft floor.

Doug was wondering if the model was a early rendition of an International Canoe and was missing the sliding seat. This started a back and forth between several "experts" which I'll detail in Part 2 of this series.

Header Photo: D-class Swedish Sailing Kanot

Torsten Sörvik

The previous header photo was of the Swedish D-class sailing canoes (kanot) racing to the weather mark. Several countries, Sweden, England, United States, Germany, created cruising or open sailing canoe classes during the early 1900's. (As compared to the faster and more out-of-control decked sailing canoe, which evolved to the modern International Canoe.) At least in this photo, the modern D-kanot now races with a very refined, hi-tech, square top rig. The Swedish "cruising" sailing canoe classes as I could find from the Internet are:

• B-class. A 3.9 meter cat-rigged sailing canoe for young sailors. Max sail area 8 square meters. For a glimpse of a Swedish B-class kanot (blue hull with, what appears to be an OK rig at 1:20 and 1:58 into the video), click on the video in this post. Also, more info here.
• C-class - 4.8 meters to 5.2 meters. Max sail area 10 square meters. Minimum weight 81 kg.
• D-class - 5.4 meters to 6 meters. Max sail area 13 square meters. Minimum weight 360 kg. I've lifted the header photo from the website of boatbuilder Torsten Sörvik, who appears to be the kingpin of the Swedish D-class kanot's.
• E- class - 5.4 meters to 6 meters. Max sail area 13 square meters. Minimum weight 130 kg.

The Swedish sailing canoes all feature hiking boards which extend the hiking skipper out about 300 mm or so. There is a German canoe class, the Taifun, of which I know very little, that also uses these hiking boards. A video from this years Eurocup on a lake in Berlin shows both the International Canoe and the Taifun class racing. I must admit the Taifun looks to be a very sensible singlehander (or a two-hander for smaller crews). Click here for a more detailed post about the German Taifun sailing canoe.



And a Taifun at speed.



And a Taifun at speed, take 2.



All this crusing canoe research was brought about when I was called upon to help identify a sailing canoe model that was picked up by sailmaker, Douglas Fowler. More about this later.

Geezer International Canoe Design Redux - IC Fatso

If you dig far enough back in Earwigoagin, you'll suss out the blogmeister's history as an International Canoe sailor. (Though, truth be told, I had more-or-less completely stepped out of the class a long time ago, seventeen years ago, way back in 2000, long before this blog.) The International Canoe's are really great performance single-handed dinghies, and they are proving to be a good fit for top-notch (and I mean top-notch) oldster dinghy-ites who have kept up their fitness and boat building skills (ref. Chris Maas, Robin Wood, Steve Clark, Alistair Warren, Colin Brown and others (many of these skippers I competed against in the 1980's) - though you do need a bit of extra dosh to play at the top level; carbon this, carbon that, jibing daggerboard, T-foil rudder, mylar this, super control that... it all adds up).

What prompted this post was this recent comment by Steve Clark (ruminating after the recent International Canoe Worlds in Pwhelli Wales, UK) over at the Sailing Anarchy forums.:

"The elders are thinking nice thoughts about a little more stability. Remember that the old development rule allowed boats as skinny as the new rules (750mm) and the boat that emerged as "best compromise" was 1014 mm wide. So I had been meditating about what I can do in a beamier hull form. It will probably give something away upwind and in a short chop, but there isn't much slower than a capsized IC. I have an idea, based on Lou Whitman's Phoenix that was probably faster than the Nethercot in 1970, but never got much of a chance after the ICF made the Nethercot the only approved shape."

Being humble as I am (Oh, what the heck, push your brilliance out there) -- I was echoing Steve's most recent thoughts for a oldster International Canoe over ten years ago!

When Steve Clark proposed his new rule back in 2005, which favored very narrow IC's, I, being the maverick, thought - why not have an IC that was 18.5 feet long and beamy -- should end up about the same speed and easier to sail. So I drew this one up based largely on the Whitman Phoenix design. Predictably, there was not a lot of support from the class to add 1.5 feet (457 mm) in length to the IC rule and this design became an interesting but ultimately a dead-end footnote in International Canoe history. (Note this design was done in 2005 - 12 years ago.) (ed. note: The Phoenix International Canoe, drawn up in the 1960's, was a very fine-lined, shallow-V, beamy International Canoe design by American International Canoe designer wunderkind of post-WWII - Lou Whitman.)



Two years later, 2007, I pulled in my elongated, mod-Phoenix design IC into the normal International Canoe length - 17' (5.182 meters) and did a new design, the IC-Fatso.

The sections (I kept a tall bow to hopefully keep green water from sluicing over the foredeck.):



The topview of IC-Fatso:



Maybe if you wait long enough, you find yourself sitting on the right part of the circle as it comes around again ... and then maybe not. Dinghy designs are always food for thought and more often than not, there is nothing new under the sun.

The IC-Fatso remains a design exercise. I've never checked to see if the IC-Fatso would fit the current IC rule (it would be an OK design to the older one). The IC-Fatso would, under most conditions, be slower than the current narrow IC's and the IC-Fatso wouldn't qualify as a Classic (the Nethercott, Slurp are the two designs in that fleet). It would be a safe design that would get you around mid-fleet with less trauma than the current designs and possibly faster than the Classics but it seems to fit in a tweener world - which makes it a difficult proposition to build for the class.

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The blogmeister sailing his Nethercott "No Eyes" at the International Canoe Nationals at Lewes, Delaware in the early 1980's. We made it a family vacation that year and, in 2017, some 30 odd years later, returned a second time for a family beach week (no sailing).

Header Photo: Yoles Rondes de la Martinique

The previous header photo is of the Yoles Rondes de la Martinique, a sailing canoe, a wild and wacky, far-removed cousin of our Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe. There are various classes; the large Yoles can have two sails (two sails for offwind courses?), the one in the photo just one, and they sport low slung. very square, boom-less sprit sails. Their hiking aids can't technically be called planks, since they aren't shaped, just round poles. They are steered with a long oar, leveraged off the stern.

I've mentioned the premier event of the Yoles Rondes season before in Earwigoagin, a round-the-island tour which takes place in late summer and is the sporting event of the year for the island of Martinique.

The Yoles de la Martinique belong to that genre of large crewed, over-rigged, unballasted sailing beasts, along with the Australian Classic skiff (here and here), the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy, the Bahamian workboats, the Log Canoes, the Coco Island Canoe, and the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe.

A photo, gleaned from the Internet, of a Yole Ronde struggling under full press:

A drone video set to a soothing score which belies the chaos below:



A series of on-board videos put together by "Yoles Martinique", with much shouting onboard (in French). Some things to note:

• It takes two strong men on the oar to steer when the wind comes up.
• Offwind, they will put some of the crew on their poles to leeward to reduce roll momentum (where they seem to spend most of the time underwater).
• Every once in a while, a crew is jettisoned into the briny deep, the assumption being to reduce weight for offwind legs.
• The crews are all smartly kitted out in matching team gear.

My2Fish has done a better job in researching the Yoles and wrote this informative post over on his blog.

What a glorious, photogenic sailing class!

2015 Fall Season: A List of Free-for-all's

Over the years this blog has featured some of the oddball regattas/sailing races where you take your oddball small sailboat and compete against a bunch of other oddball small sailboats. During the fall season there is enough of these events you could, if so inclined, hop-scotch up and down the East Coast of the United States.

They are (in roughly chronological order):

Sebago Cup - mid-September at the Sebago Canoe Club, Brooklyn N.Y.

A one race jaunt around Jamaica Bay. I'm sure they would be delighted to see some out-of-town visitors and been told, even though this is Brooklyn, there is plenty of parking around the club. See comments for more info from SCC members.

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SEBAGO CUP ----- September 19, 2015
Our annual cruising race!
This is an open class cruising race open to non-members. Fleets will be created upon the participation of at least two boats of the same class. Contact sailing@sebagocanoeclub.org for more information.
Skippers meeting - 11:30 am
Starting gun - 12:30 pm
Notice of Race
Sailing Instructions 

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NSHOF Classic Wooden Sailboat Rendezvous- mid-September, Annapolis Maryland.

A one-or-two lap race around the Annapolis Harbor. The majority of entrants are classic cruising keelboats but there is always a smattering of small boats. This year John Z is entering his Classic Moth.

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CLASSIC WOODEN SAILBOAT RACE, Sunday ---- September 27, 2015
NOR

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MASCF (Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival) - First weekend in October, St. Michaels Maryland.

This is more of an event than sailing race but there is, on Saturday, a one-lap sailing race in the river starting around noon that is quite a hoot. I have done it twice in my Classic Moth Tweezer where I was racing in a division featuring a motley assortment of larger craft including Thistles, Core Sound 17's, Blue Jays, Celebritys, log canoes.

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MASCF ---- October, 2, 3, 4, 2015

Registration

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Tweezer trying to stay ahead of a log canoe - MASCF sailing race

Polly's Folly - mid-October, Megunticook Lake, Camden, Maine.

Hosted by John and Polly Hanson. This is a small affair, hosted out of their lake-front cabin around the time of Maine's fall foilage.

Archipelago Rally - early-November - Somewhere in the state of Rhode Island.

In a twist on normal advanced scheduling, the organizers wait until about two weeks before the event before announcing the location. A one lap race, usually going around something.

Coco Keeling Islands Racing Canoes

This is a neat video of racing canoes on the Coco Keeling Islands, a small group of islands in the middle of nowhere, Indian Ocean, about 1/2 way between the west coast of Australian and Sri Lanka. They look to be a hybrid of western and native influences. The double-ended, narrow hull features a chined, deep Vee with a large, straight keel log, made necessary because it doesn't appear that they carry a center board or daggerboard. The rig is a squat main/jib, Bermudian in planform. These canoes seem strictly for racing.



Cocos Keeling Islands - Hari Raya Jukong Racing 2015 from Rik Soderlund on Vimeo.

Elf Classic Race - Video of the 2014 Version

Back in 2011 I covered the start of the inaugural Elf Classic Yacht Race run in June from Annapolis, across the Chesapeake Bay to the always popular Eastern Shore harbor of St. Michaels. The centerpiece of the race and the race's namesake is the restored 1888 Lawley topsail cutter, the Elf. I didn't catch the start of this year's race but in addition to Elf and the participation of the two reproduction Sandbaggers, based in Annapolis, a very brave Log Canoe crew ventured way, way out of their traditional confines of Eastern Shore river racing and dared the Bay crossing as well.

I came across this very good video documenting the 2014, Elf Classic Race.

Header Photo: Tweezer Gone ..... North!

The previous header photo was of Classic Moth, Tweezer, drifting on Megunticook Lake, Camden, ME - Photo by Polly Saltonstall.

My Classic Moth Tweezer had been languishing over at Chief Boatbuilder Bill's Delaware residence since I redirected my attention in Classic Moths to putting together and racing a Gen I Maser. Bill raced her sporadically for a year or two but she had been inactive for the last couple of years.  Tweezer was sold this summer to Will Sturdy of Maine, who, upon Internet research, looks to be a boat-builder and also a stunt-kite designer and builder par excellence. The clear-finished, cedar-strip Tweezer will be in good hands.

This October, I was reading Carl Cramer's Woodenboat of the Week blog and came across a post of his that mentioned a Classic Moth attending a relaxed fall regatta, with the name Pollys Folly, sailed in Camden, Maine. Curious, I made an inquiry of publisher, John Hanson, one of the organizers. He confirmed, via email, that the Classic Moth racing at Pollys Folly was indeed Tweezer and directed me to his wife's (Polly Saltonstall) blog for a complete report and photos on this fun regatta.

From John Hanson's email:

"We have a small camp on Megunticook Lake, Camden, ME. that we call Polly's ( my wife) Folly. We have been doing the Fall Regatta for 10 years and we get anywhere from 10 to 20 boats of various types from single shells, kayaks, Blue Jays and usually a good fleet of Lasers. Since we began, the Laser fleet has taken on a life of its own. ... But that was never the intent with Polly's Folly, we just wanted to get more people out in small boats to end the sailing season with a bang and a barbeque, the more diverse the better."

More Polly Saltonstall photos from the regatta named after her. Tweezer, heading for the barn despite the calm, being paddled with the daggerboard.

John Hanson has a pretty sailing canoe with the ACA lateen rig. He steers the way pure canoeists do, with a paddle.

Tweezer, starting her journey north. Will Sturdy picked her up at the Brigantine Regatta, N.J. this past June. Photos by John Z.

2014 MASCF - The Rescue

After watching the start to the sailboat race for the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival sailboat race I had the option of being dropped off with the race committee at the corner of the Chesapeake Maritime Museum harbor to watch the finish or, stay with the CBMM workboat, Volunteer, and motor through the fleet as it beat toward the finish. I chose the latter but as soon as we poked our nose out of the harbor there was, dead ahead, a sail with no hull, a sight that brokered further investigation.

It turned out it was one of the racers that needed assistance and it was also someone I knew. Larry Haff, a canoe sailor, was racing his homebuilt Polynesian outrigger canoe and as we drew near, we could see his main hull awash, Larry sitting forlornly in what was now a bathtub with the outrigger bobbing alongside, completely detached. The outrigger attachment point had failed when Larry had hardened up to go upwind and he was now discovering that he didn't have enough buoyancy in the main hull to support his weight and the sloshing water. I wondered how difficult this rescue would be as we would have to maneuver this longish workboat alongside but Lad Mills did a great job. Thankfully, the aft freeboard on Volunteer is low, the aft deck wide so we were able to work efficiently to get the rig out of the canoe and onto Volunteer, the outrigger stowed onboard and then, with some tugging and grunting, roll Larry up onto Volunteer's deck.

On our initial approach, the crew on Volunteer viewing the half sunken canoe. From left to right, Tweezerman, Rick Scofield, Lad Mills with Larry Haff in the water. Photo lifted from the CBMM Facebook page.

Rig and outrigger secured on Volunteer, Rick watches closely that the canoe main hull, still with very little freeboard, doesn't veer off or dive under the water as we slowly tow her in.

Lad Mills at the helm. Larry Haff  adding another pair of eyes astern. Other than the outrigger attachment failure there didn't seem to be any other major damage.

Larry Haff's outrigger canoe, back on shore, loaded up for the journey back to Massachusetts and some engineering modifications over the winter.

Header Photo: International Canoes Racing the 2011 Travemunde Worlds

Photo by Robert Müller, of two old-rule Nethercott IC's racing the previous IC World Championship in Germany. Photo was lifted from the World International Canoe website.

I had a debrief phone call from Earwigoagin's 2014 IC Worlds correspondent, Fran De Faymoreau and he offered these conclusions from the just completed World Championship at Richmond YC, San Francisco.

• The Chris Maas wedge design is clearly superior in anything over very light conditions. The top two were Chris Maas designs with Mikey winning in a slightly older model with slightly fuller forward sections. The Germans have developed a Chris Maas variant in which Peter Ullman fashioned a late regatta surge into a fourth overall.
• The Clark clan, father Steve, sons, Dave and Willie, were sailing plywood wedges. They were fast but prone to suffering breakages. They were also slightly heavy, around 5kg over weight.

Some of my own observations from very far away.

• It looks like Colin Brown (GBR) won the over-60 award, finishing in 12th place. An absolutely amazing feat given the very tough conditions. (This is an educated guess and someone may have to correct me on this.)
• Tweezerman has always liked the idea of a Persistence trophy, particularly in heavy-air regattas so Earwigoagin would like to recognize John Gilmour (USA) of Richmond Y.C who finished every race to place 20th overall. TOH to John and Tweezerman promises to supply you with a craft beer whenever we cross paths.
• Tweezerman was also very surprised to see a suit of IC sails of his design and manufacture that were used in the 1993 Worlds (under the Shore Sails label) split between two Nethercotts (one had the mainsail, the other had the jib). Obviously these sails were well beyond the use-before date but still heart warming to see your own fabric creation kicking around twenty years later.