The Playboy Bunny

Next year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Teacup Regatta, the regatta famous for introducing the world to the Laser (originally named TGIF, Thank God it's Friday). The above photo is from the article on the Teacup Regatta in the December 1970 issue of One-Design and Offshore Yachting. OD-OY came up with the idea of pitting all the 1970 American off-the-beach sailboats in a regatta and judging competition and did all the leg work in putting the event together. The Teacup Regatta was held on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about a two hour drive from Chicago. In 1969 Hugh Hefner had opened a huge Playboy resort on Lake Geneva, hence this photo of a trio of Playboy Bunnies taking a spin on one of the competing dinghies between races.

This photo jogged the old memory banks about my own Lake Geneva and Playboy Bunny story. Two or three years later, as a poor college student on summer break, I decided to enter the O'Day cup, a singlehanded championship of the old USYRU (U.S. Yacht Racing Union). You qualified in ascending elimination rounds (club to district to region and then to the finals). I didn't have any lofty aspirations; my racing skills were somewhat rudimentary, but it was a cheap way to get in some sailboat racing as the host club supplied the boats and entry fees were either free or nominal. My local club, Berlin Yacht Club, put my name forward and I awaited being told where to go for the Ohio-Pennsylvania district eliminations. It turned out that there was only one other club to put up a name and he dropped out. Without sailing a race I had qualified for the Midwest Regional O'Day eliminations.

The Midwest Regional O'Days were to be held by the Lake Geneva Y.C. in Lasers, a 500+ mile trip from my home and I didn't own a car. During the 1970's this was no problem  as hitchhiking was a viable means of getting around. I had already crisscrossed the Midwest several times on the kindness of others stopping to give me a lift. I duly made it into Lake Geneva. (This may have been the time the rides dried up late at night and I had to spend the night at the Milwaukee Airport; elevator music, bright lights and trying to sleep across three hard seats.) The regatta was midweek and there were four or five of us racing in typical on-off, shifty lake conditions. I finished third or a close fourth, the memory is hazy, but I was fine with that. I had no plan B if I had improbably qualified for the finals and had to figure out how to get to a regatta during the school year and far away.

The Lake Geneva YC had their midweek evening summer series during the O'day eliminations and I got a crewing job on a M-16 scow. (Which has now morphed into the very popular cat-rigged MC scow; the M-16 was main/jib). I remember being miffed at having to handle leeboards on every tack and came away with a better appreciation of my Dad's Y-Flyer scow which was my Berlin YC racing ride.

In the fog of long-ago recollections there is one searing memory from that race and that is of another fellow crew. One of the leading competitors in the M-16 scow class had married a Playboy Bunny who was now his crew. We were far enough back in the race that we didn't cross tacks often with the couple but I did join the gaggle of sailors that surrounded her (bikini-clad) apres-racing. I came away with the impression of a separate female race; not so much titillated by her but more having encountered something genetically unique. Hugh Hefner's vision of an ideal American woman was rooted in the 1950's and 1960's, all jutting breasts, small waist, small butt, very much top-heavy. I had the good sense, even back then, to realize this wasn't the real world.

I never went to the Playboy Club at Lake Geneva during that trip. No money and besides, when hitchhiking, travel times were always open-ended. No time to dawdle. Best to hit the road when things were wrapped up. The Lake Geneva Playboy Club closed in 1981.

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Two videos of the Lake Geneva Playboy Club.

Header Photo: Fireball World Championships in Montreal

Urs Hardi

Until it crossed my FB feed, I didn't realize that the International Fireball class had held their World Championships in North America this past August; hosted by Pointe-Claire Yacht Club in Montreal, Canada. Winds really picked up for the last day of the championship when this photo was taken. Brits, Ian Dobson and Richard Wagstaff won with Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic and France representing a good mix of countries rounding out the top ten; .

I came into contact with the Fireball as a teenager in the late 1960's when my Dad moved the family to Youngstown, Ohio, a steel town in Northeast Ohio. In this most unlikely of sailing cities, there was an active Fireball fleet sailing on Pymatuning Lake, north of town. It was a fleet nourished by an even more unlikely sailor, Ken Turney. Ken loved the Fireball. He had his own boat shop in Youngtown's southern suburb, Boardman where he imported glass Fireball's built in Calgary. Ken was blue collar through and through. He had been a machinist at one of the steel plants and his standard outfit was a one-piece coverall, grungy, longitudinally striped in grey/black, with the neckline unbuttoned to reveal a grand tuft of silver chest hair topped with a broad Slavic face. Ken even raced Fireballs wearing this coverall. (One of my friends, in a not so charitable teenage side comment, remarked that it appeared Ken had a pet squirrel permanently tucked into the V-line of his coverall.) Ken would hold court at his cinder block boat shop, talking about Fireballs to one and all, building a small hot bed of performance dinghy sailing in this inland steel city; in a country not known for performance dinghies.

I actually didn't race the Fireball that much. I crewed several times on the Lake in very light winds. Unfortunately, I've never been on a Fireball in trapeze weather. Fifty years on, Ken Turney's legacy ticks along. A small group of Fireballs are still sailing out of the Pymatuning Sailing Club.

Other Earwigoagin Fireball Posts

• Remembering Peter Bateman.
• Fireball to Classic Moth.
• WOOD Regatta.
• RazMoth II

The Boat behind "The Dog House"

Joe Rouse's recent post about a guy who built a big Dudley Dix keelboat in his driveway brings back memories of my other encounter with a backyard boat builder putting together a large boat.

When traveling north for regattas from Annapolis there are two routes; the faster, busier, somewhat more expensive Interstate 95 through Baltimore to Delaware; or the slower, more scenic route up the Eastern Shore using the Bay Bridge to Route 50, into Delaware, to Route 13 and then to Route 40. I prefer the Eastern Shore route. One of the highlights on many of these trips thirty or so years ago was stopping at "The Dog House", a hot dog emporium located on the busy retail strip of Route 40 in Delaware, about two miles or so before the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge would put you on the New Jersey Turnpike, a two hour and change drive to New York City and then to points further north. It was a convenient travel stop, either coming or going, and, in that innocent time before I learned about nitrates, the chili dogs were very good.

The Dog House:

Google Street View ©2016 Google

In the years of going back and forth for the International Canoe racing in Rhode Island, Buzzards Bay, and City Island we would park with our trailers off to the side of "The Dog House" because there was no room out front. One year we realized that there looked like an upside-down boat in the suburban back yard of the house directly behind "The Dog House". We scrambled up the tallish, wood privacy fence to take a look and, sure enough, someone was building what looked like a Colin Archer, full-keel cruiser in ferro-cement, somewhere between 30-40 feet (9-12 meters) in length. Every year after that for, maybe, eight years in a row, we would scramble up that fence behind "The Dog House", and peer into the backyard to gauge his progress. One year, just before twilight, we were on our way home, heading south, made the customary stop at "The Dog House" and, after eating, climbed the fence to discover the builder was hard at work. We asked some questions across the fence and then he kindly invited Bill Beaver, Dick White and I into his backyard to have a close-up look. In the fading light we could see the cruiser was right side up by this time and the deck was more or less complete. I can't remember in our conversation if he said how long he had been building her, he definitely looked an older gent; all I remember was his dream of going ocean cruising in this hand-built boat was still burning bright. There was no doubt he was going to keep at it. I did wonder at that time, given the narrowness of his side yards, how he was going to get that cruiser, when finished, out of the back yard.

I retired from International Canoe racing long before Bill Beaver and several years later, in the summer, I got a call from Bill after one of his road-trips.

"It's gone," he said.
"What's gone," I replied.
"The boat... the boat behind The Dog House."

From a previous Earwigoagin post, Dr. John Vardiman building an Alden schooner in his barn.

Wing Flapping on a Magnum Narrow Skiff Moth

I have owned several Classic Moths, a scow Moth, and yes, even a narrow skiff Moth. The narrow skiff Moth was a Magnum 2 built by John Claridge and originally sailed at the 1976 Moth Worlds by the builder. The Worlds were held at Ware River, Virginia and John sold the Magnum to one of the local Moth sailors after the regatta. I rescued the Magnum from the Old Dominion University boat house in Norfolk sometime in the mid 80's and getting it back on the water became a joint project with Bill Beaver. By the time we finally got sailing, it became obvious the very lightweight hull of  the Magnum 2 was creaky and leaky. I never did fully trust hiking off the wings. I think we eventually gave the Moth away. Bill Beaver went on to build two more narrow beam Moths to his own design and then did his own foiler project. I, on the other hand, migrated to the more sedate side of  Mothing with a scow and then eventually the Classic versions.

The original wooden Claridge Magnum II on top of Bill Beaver's Volvo 122 at West River S.C. As always, Tweezerman (back when he still had some hair) in his natty sailing gear.

Launching at West River with a offshore breeze. I'm desperately attempting to get the rudder in while the Moth is sailing; a dumb idea and usually worth a capsize or two. (We never did get a lifting rudder fitted.)

The original Claridge ad featuring the builder sailing his Magnum 2 that ended up in our hands.

Image from Madmothist blog

I wrote this short piece, about my first sailing experience in the Magnum 2, for an Australian Moth newsletter. It still cracks me up whenever I read it.

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November 1987 - SSA Closing Day

Last fall (November 1987) I threw my Magnum 2 together for the first time in order to make the end-of-year handicap race at Severn Sailing Association. I was tying the last pieces on at the last minute (those who know me can picture the rigging job!) and I just barely made it to the start but to no avail. There was no wind and, at the end of the day, I felt like I had tried riding an unicycle.

After starting with the Snipes, Daysailors and Lasers, I moved forward in the Moth to reduce wetted surface and this set up a chain reaction not unlike the swinging pendulum of a clock, though with a much faster period of movement. First the leeward wing dipped into the water as a small ripple of a wave sent the Moth lurching. To counteract, I moved my torso slowly to weather, cognizant that this was a tender craft - little did I know how tender! Immediately the Moth lurched the other way , dipping the weather wing in the water. I reacted by adjusting my weight with even more care but the Moth seemed to consider that, even this deliberate movement, was much-too-much and flopped back, dipping the leeward wing in the water. This was repeated several times and, with all this awkward flapping of wings, my amused fellow competitors thought that this aquatic Moth was attempting to take flight. In desperation I moved to the stern where there was more boat and things settled out.

Phew! Now I had time to look around and it wasn't pretty. Ultralight dinghies possess no momentum and, in a glassy calm and, with every passing motor boat wake, the Moth would slowly be pushed backward. What looked to be my competitors amazing speed away from me was, instead, my amazing speed backwards.

To compound this comedy my cockpit had filled with water (remember this is a twelve-year old Magnum 2 and at the time it did not have a full double bottom - it does now!) The episode of wing flapping had alternatively scooped water on the wing covers that then ran down to the deck of the Moth and filled the center cockpit well.

I hadn't realized that there were two small drain holes from the center well to the forward double bottom; hence there were no plugs in them and I was SINKING! Not to worry. I had made, at the most, 100 yards from the clubhouse docks, of which 50 had been lost in a magnificent display of wing -flapping and reverse sailing. The remaining 50 yards to safety was made by sculling and hand paddling.

Throwback Thursday: International Canoe US 132 "Rosie Cheeks"

Sometimes the question of what next to post on this blog just falls into your lap. Case in point - Andre' Cloutier of Ravenwood Canoes up in Canada posted last Sunday about a 1980's International Canoe he now owned and was intending to restore. As I perused the post and looked at the pictures I realized this was the last International Canoe I owned, US 132, Rosie Cheeks. Originally owned by Chris Converse, who built the aircraft plywood interior into a single skin King Ferry fiberglass hull, this was one of the top U.S. International Canoes in the 1980's.

Somewhere around 2001-2003 time frame I bought,on the cheap, only the hull of US 132 from Steve Clark. My kids were in college, there wasn't much extra cash kicking around, and I had been out of IC's for about 8 years. I was under no illusion that, as a competitive endeavor, putting US 132 back on the water was probably doomed.  A lot of development had gone into the International Canoes in those intervening twenty plus years and what was fast in the 1980's was not likely to be fast in the early 2000's. I threw some experimental stuff on the hull I still had kicking around. (A rotating mast, a wowee-looking NS-14 mainsail; problem was I was under the permitted sail area with this rig.)

As soon as I got on the water, my speculation was confirmed. US 132 was just not up to snuff with the fleet. But the International Canoe is a fun dinghy to just sail, really a neat ride, especially upwind, that I still have fond memories of US 132. I found some pictures of my last travel regatta in International Canoes. Chesapeake fleet stalwarts, Bill Beaver, George Saunders, and I went out to Geist Reservoir, Indianapolis, Indiana for the U.S Nationals. It was intended to support the small Midwest fleet but the turnout was not good. We had, if I recollect, about 9 International Canoes, that sailed the weekend in very little wind. Rosie Cheeks finished somewhere middle but like all road trips there are some great memories.

International Canoe sailors do a lot of standing up between races when the wind is light.

There was some breeze after the racing concluded.

This was typical of the racing. I'm trying to hold off my two Chesapeake team-mates in their two carbon/honeycomb hulls (plus, as I stated above, my rig was undersized). Didn't work for too long.

Most of the fleet scattered over the Indianapolis Sailing Club lawn.

After the racing on Sunday concluded, the wind filled in to about 8 knots, coming down the lake. I went up and down the lake for about an hour, nothing too strenuous, but enjoying the heck out of the daysail (I had crewed a Y-flyer Nationals on Geist when I was in my early twenties, about 1971 - thirty years later the shoreline was now dotted with expensive waterfront homes.)

I came back from this regatta convinced, with some remorse for the International Canoe is a great dinghy, that given the reduced time and money I wanted to put into competitive sailboat racing, the Classic Moth was where I would devote my efforts.

Stuart Walker's Tales of Cars and Trailers and International 14 Destruction

This past Wednesday, Stuart Walker gave a talk on crewing at Fawcetts,the local chandlery, but two weeks before that I sat down at Stuart's table during a pot-luck dinner (non-sailing related event) and, given the two of us, the talk turned to sailboat racing. Stuart, as expected, has a wealth of stories and somehow the conversation turned to sailing dinghies and cars and trailers. I present two of Stuart's stories.

Sometime in the late 1950's, an International 14 team from Montreal, Canada, was trailering their 14 down to Massachusetts for the Buzzards Bay Bowl, one of the premier events during the early years. As they were getting close to Marion, passing through one of the small Massachusetts's towns, they noticed a fire truck, sirens going, in their rear view mirror. They pulled over on the shoulder to let the fire truck go by, but, instead, the fire truck pulled in right behind them. Sixty years ago there were no custom formed bunks on trailers; this 14 team adopted a common practice of placing a mattress on the trailer and then strapping their 14 on top of mattress on top of trailer. At some point in the trip, this duo, rocking down the highway at a high rate of speed, had tossed a cigarette out the window and, unluckily, it had landed on the mattress, where it started smoldering. The smoke from the fire had been blown flat at sixty miles-per-hour but when they slowed to navigate through the towns, it was obvious to bystanders watching them go by that this car was towing a trailer and boat that was definitely on fire, hence the fire truck was called and responded. Stuart dryly noted that enough of the bottom of this International 14 was charred to be a total write-off.

In story number 2, Stuart told of an English gent who, again in the early days, was finishing off an International 14 in a workshop situated in a room at the back of his garage (to save a few quid, the DIY crowd would buy a cold molded shell from the professionals and then build in the interior, centerboard trunk and gunwhales). The International 14 was nearly complete, just short some varnish coats when the builder's mother somehow drove her car through the garage door, through the intervening wall to the workshop, into the boat, through the back wall to the house, depositing the whole mess in a pond in the back yard. Sailing stories become more and more apocryphal with age, so to see if I could corroborate Stuart's account I went back to the list of English International 14 numbers that Tom Vaughn put together in his International 14 history.

Sure enough, K 736, named Delight built by Ian Cox (a very accomplished 14 skipper) was "Destroyed in accident" in 1960. The next year, Ian Cox, had put together K 753, this time, given the anguish and teeth gnashing that must have happened after the first 14 was destroyed, Ian named the new 14 Despair, (just as Stuart had told the story).

Stuart turns 90 years old in little over a month. He still races his Soling at every opportunity, especially enjoying the winter racing. I asked Stuart if he ever kept track of how many races he's done over his lifetime. He said he doesn't have an exact number but he estimates he has over 6000 hours of racing!

The Ironing Board

The previous post about Ian Bruce reminds me that the Laser dinghy is now 40 years old (the actual anniversary is somewhat muddled - do we go with the first appearance of the "Weekender" at the TeaCup regatta in Wisconsin in 1970 or with the very successful introduction of the production "Laser" at the New York Boat Show in 1971). Tillerman made an oblique reference to the Laser reaching age 40 in this homage to his forty year love affair with Tillerwoman. The Laser is now so ubiquitous, found in every nook and cranny sailing water throughout the world, it is hard to imagine a world where the Laser was the newcomer.

I remember reading about the new "Weekender" dinghy in ODandOY (for young whippersnappers, this was the One-Design and Offshore Magazine, the forerunner to the now Sailing World magazine, of which Bruce Kirby was the editor and the organizer of the TeaCup regatta.) Although the Laser topped the results, there didn't seem to be much to choose from between the Laser and the other singlehander making it's debut on the national scene; the West Coast designed and built Banshee (based on a Flying Junior hull).

I saw my first Laser the first year they came out, 1971, though the dates, times, chronology and characters have been clouded by the years. It was Septemberish and I, as a Midwestern college student from Miami University of Ohio, who couldn't get enough of dinghy racing, had finagled an invitation to the University of Wisconsin Hoofers Intergalactic Tech Dinghy Championships. And as was common and completely normal for a college student who didn't own a car in those years, I hitchhiked those 400+ miles through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and into Wisconsin (this may have been the trip where I spent the wee-morning hours trying to sleep on the hard seats in the bright lights and elevator music of the Milwaukee Airport - hitchhiking being a very non-linear form of travel - but this may have been on another hitchhiking foray into Wisconsin).

The Hoofers Club Intergalactic Tech Dinghy Championship put their 40 or so Tech dinghies on the line, a singlehanded championship that featured mostly current Hoofer's skippers or alumni such as the Harken brothers, Peter Barrett, Charlie Miller and I'm sure there were some scow champions sprinkled in as well. The weather was warmish, the breeze about 8-10 and I finished somewhere in the middle, middle-to-back. A great regatta. There is always something special about the Midwest lake sailing hospitality. On the way back out, I arranged to stop at Peewaukee, Wisconsin where Vanguard/Harken Blocks and North Sails Midwest (Peter Barrett and Charlie Miller) were neighbors in a business complex. Vanguard was closed when I showed up but there was someone at North Sails to show me around the loft. Tucked in one corner was this oddball dinghy with a completely flat deck.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Oh, this is the new Laser dinghy." came the reply.

"What a weird looking deck!" I was having a hard time getting my brain around something so flat looking.

"Yeah," the North sailmaker said, "Around here we've nicknamed them the Ironing Boards."

I nodded in agreement. At that moment I couldn't imagine a boat so different looking (yes, even ugly) ever getting off the ground.

Later that fall I hitchhiked into Annapolis to crew in an International 14 regatta. Good friend Sinjin Martin, who had been selling Ian Bruce's International 14's to the local fleet, was Annapolis's first Laser dealer and they had been selling like gourmet cupcakes. He stuck me in a Laser for a test sail. Light, fast, responsive; when I stepped back onto the dock at SSA I knew this was a special dinghy.

And that ugly flat deck - that kinda grew on you.

Stuart Walker and Sinjin; Together Again

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.

Minisail Scow Revival; Part 2

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 seat support) back in the late 1980’s, and sailed her for a while off the coast of Wales in the Irish sea. The waves 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 board again, 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 GRP Monaco design with a wooden bolt-on seat. By now I was sailing at Whitefriars SC, a small lake situated on the Cotswold Water Park, north of Swindon, and I have 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 took the Minisail to a few meetings. The one that stands out in my memory was a fantastically windy CVRDA National 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 reach and it all became worth it – spray everywhere, passing much bigger boats as though they were standing still – boating heaven! Shortly after this, I found that I had too many boats, and (in retrospect, foolishly) decided to sell the Minisail. And so another decade passed… Thoughts during the period of non-Minisail ownership often drifted back to the delights of the scow, 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 Minisail for sale, for a crazy low price. Well, I had to go and see it, didn’t I? I got there expecting a bit of a wreck, 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 a garage in the early 80’s, and not used since. Apart from a small patch of lifted varnish, the hull was perfect. 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, made from 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 style of 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 on the road. Llyn Clywedog, in West Wales, is a glorious expanse of water created in 1969 as a reservoir. It is surround by mountains, making the strong winds swirl in interesting ways! The Minisail, with her stable, flat bottomed early planning hull form, turned out to be the ideal boat for the water. As I’d found all those years before, the pain of upwind was worth it for the rush down the reaches, and the adrenaline filled 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.........

1981 International Canoe Worlds; The Epilogue

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

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).

1. Ease main while scooting back into the boat.
2. Get both feet aft of the seat.
3. Blow the jib sheet.
4. 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.
5. Cross to the new side (some cross on their knees, some walk around the end of the boom),
6. 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).
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.

The Greatest Sailing Stunt; Peter Bateman in the Fireballs

I came across an old post that I wrote to the Fireball website on the occasion of Peter Bateman's death 11 years ago. The post, written in 2000, was one of my first posts to that newfangled Internet. The sailing yarn is set at one of the early CORK (Canadian Olympic Race Week Kingston) regattas held at Kingston, Ontario.

"It was the CORK regatta in the early 70's. It had been a breezy week and if I remember correctly Peter had a clear lead in the Fireball fleet. The last day of racing dawned in the midst of a violent storm. I was hunkered down in the Kingston Yacht Club (the International 14's were based at KYC) with a crowd of restless sailors waiting for the races to be cancelled. Sheets of rain would obscure the yacht club jetty and we were watching the anenometer as squalls would hit, pushing wind speeds in the 40's. We were cheering the anenometer as it hit new highs and one vicious gust drove it near 60. It was equivalent to a thunderstorm squall that had decided to camp over Kingston for the morning.

In this maelstrom, through the rain streaked windows of Kingston YC, there appeared a ghostly apparition of a sail. Most of us dismissed it as a grey, rainy, obscured trick on the eyes but this apparition grew more distinct and we could no longer dismiss it. Some crazy bastard was sailing his racing dinghy into the club in this gale!!

It was Peter Bateman and crew in their Fireball. They had sailed over from Fort Henry (a distance of approx 2 miles) where most of the CORK dinghies were based. He pulled up nonchalantly and, in rain that was still zinging horizontally, inquired, with that typical British reserve, whether there would be racing that day.

In my many years around this sport, I have never witnessed such a display, which could be characterized both as one of the greatest demonstration of seamanship in a dinghy and also as one of the most foolhardy.

Nevertheless, in my mind, it was the greatest in-your-face, one- upmanship, you bunch are a bunch of wusses, come out and play if you dare, throw down the gauntlet challenge I have ever witnessed in sailing

I never introduced myself to Peter and I don't know if anyone did ask him about his jaunt over to the yacht club but that episode will always be part of my sailing lore.

Racing was cancelled for all classes that day except for the International 14's. The International 14's went out for their long distance race that afternoon in bright sunshine and 30 knots. As a pickup crew I just remember the 6 or so capsizes on the first reach before we retired. Just a handful finished and it was captured on film by Warren Miller."

Peter Bateman won a World Championship in Fireballs early on, and was quite possibly reigning World Champion when he sailed this CORK regatta. Back in the day, he was considered one of Britain's elite sailors though I don't think he ever made it to the Olympics.

To make ammends for the Classic Moths butchering a Fireball and to show that I have a great deal of respect for the Fireball as a racing dinghy (I sailed on one in Ohio when I was a teenager), here is a very good YouTube video of the class.

All Paths Lead to Tillerman................

Today marks the second anniversary of this blog. I started Earwigoagin to deliver a response to one of Tillerman's writing assignments....... who would you invite, living or dead, to a dinner party?

I reprint my first post below. Definitely my dinner party is almost entirely populated with sailing technologists and tinkerers. After two years, I've added some more Classic Moth sailors. They're in charge of the beer.

_______________________________________________________________

I've created this blog mainly as a response to another writing assignment from blogger Tillerman. www.propercourse.blogspot.com There may be other uses for this blog but for right now lets dig into Tillerman's assignment .... who would you invite to a very special dinner/party? For this party you can get to mix the living and the dead, the friends and the strangers.

Tillerman's a dinghy sailor, I am also a dinghy sailor. Where Tillerman immerses himself in the one-design Laser class, I am usually found in some class where people design or build their own equipment, whether it's hulls, sails, blades, etc.

So my dinner party would definitely have an abundance of what the English call "boffins", in this case those who like to experiment with sailboats, preferably small racing dinghies.

Large parties work best and hopefully all guests are voluble, completely free with their opinions and willing to listen. Wives/ girlfriends are always welcome and indeed are essential. Unfortunately, I don't know any female sailing boffins so my guest list is definitely sexist.

You must start with your COF (circle of friends) boffins which in this case would be Bill Beaver, John Z, George Saunders, Steve Clark, John Kells, Bob Ames, Bob Blomquist, Paul Miller with some left coast COF boffins such as Erich Chase, Del Olsen, Fran DeFaymoreau (4 Naval Architects in this group and everyone has built, in most cases, multiple racing dinghies). I would also add local acquaintance, Aussie Tony Arends. I'd also invite Classic Mothists, George Albaugh, Mike Parsons, Ed Salva, Greg Duncan and Bill Boyle (but he doesn't seem to do parties very well).

Now onto to the special guests;

Austin Farrar - UK deceased - Austin was the premier designer in the International 14 class in the 1950's, was the first one to put a wing mast on the C-class catamaran "Lady Helmsman" founded the sailmaking firm Seahorse sails and was involved in a myriad of experiments. To use that overused phrase; Austin was always an "out of the box" thinker.

Ben Lexcen - i.e. Bob Miller - Australia deceased - Top designer/sailor in the Australian 18 skiffs. Designed the Contender which won the IYRU singlehanded trials in the early 1960's. Designed the wing keeled Australia II that wrested the America's Cup from the Americans. From everything I read, Ben Lexcen was a larger than life character and you need some of those at a party.

Ian Howlett - UK - designed America's Cup 12 meters, IOR tonners, premier yacht designer. House designer for most of the Topper companies dinghy designs. Final kicker in my book is he races an 11' British Moth. What other big name designer gets his jollies from racing an 11' dinghy?

Bruce Kirby - CAN/US - Top designer in the International 14 in the 1960's and 70's. Designer of the Laser. Designer of the Canadian entry into the America's Cup. Designer of the successful Noank Sharpies shoal draft cruisers. I met him in the early 1980's and came away with the impression of a personable, self effacing fellow with loads of stories to tell.

Tom Shnackenberg - NZ - The boffin in charge of New Zealand's America's Cup dominance. Not sure how forthcoming he would be at a party like this but, if he opened up, the stories he could tell...

Eric Arens - US - Eric is actually in my COF but I rarely get to see him. I crewed for Eric in Int. 14's in the 1970's. Eric still sails Int 14's today as crew - age mid 60's! Eric has been commodore of both Severn Sailing Assoc and Richmond YC, is a senior US sailing judge and loves the give and take with interesting people at a party. He's retired now but was a PHD physicist at NASA Goodard Space Center.

Jeff Linton - US - Jeff is a pro, has won several World Championships, has won US Sailing's sailor of the year award, but also designed, built, and races a Classic Moth. Jeff and his wife, Amy, have a wealth of stories to tell. Jeff is very approachable which is not always a characteristic you find in professional sailors.

Chris Thompson - AUS - Chris has written an unpublished history of dinghy sailing, a superb tome of research and writing. Chris races the original Windsurfer and Lasers. I would need someone to keep Tillerman occupied!

Mystery guest - It's got to be one or two of the Frenchmen involved with the design or building of the Vendee Globe 60 footers. Not sure who? as I don't know the players. Someone with good English as this is a Anglo-centric party. Someone who can bring the wine maybe?? What glorious machines those Vendee Globe 60 footers are and the French need to be recognized for driving these designs to the pinnacle they represent in ocean racing.

Other's on the invite list are all sailing dinghy designers with pages of design accomplishments. (but I 'll spare the details);

Jo Richards - UK

Phil Morrison - UK

Paul Bieker - US

Chris Benedict - US deceased.

Sea Story; Larry Haff on how Lake Sebago got it's name

At this years MASCF, I bumped into open ACA canoe sailor Larry Haff. I haven't seen Larry for two years and he related this gem about how Lake Sebago, NY got it's name.

Lake Sebago is one of two American Canoe Camps (Sugar Island is the other one) and sits about 30 miles out from New York City. It is a great paddling lake and top notch paddlers come out to train on this lake. For sailboat racing; it's the pits, literally, as Lake Sebago sits in a bowl where the wind seemingly never shows up. Over the years, Larry has been driven bonkers by sailing too many ACA open sailing canoe events at Lake Sebago .

Upon doing some reasearch? Larry Haff told me with a straight face that "Sebago" is the Native American word for "where the wind goes to die".

Sea Story; Jorg Bruder doing sail adjustment at the Sunfish Worlds

Rod K, past Sunfish NA champ, told me this one at this years Classic Moth Nationals. Brazilian Finn sailor legend, Jorg Bruder, decided to race the Sunfish World Championships sometime in the late 1960's, early 1970's. Back then the Sunfish sail was a sorry bedsheet (unlike the broad seamed racing sail they have today). Upon being issued his sail before the championship, Jorg;

1. Chewed on the luff tape the entire length of the sail.
2. And then Jorg stretched and tied the three corners of the sail to three palm trees and proceeded to shovel wet beach sand onto the sail. He left the sand in the sail overnight.

Thats what I call sail adjustment....................

Old Lightning sailing off Mumbai

I came across this video of an old Lightning sailing off Mumbai (Bombay) India. The Lightning itself looks like a snapshot from the 1950's or 1960's; wooden mast, boom, shrouds lashed to eyes, though the sails look like more recent castoffs. It begs the question of the origin of this Lightning, a quintessential North American dinghy. How did she find her way to India? Was it imported by an American, perhaps State department? or businessman? Or was it built in India?

This crew have to play dodgem with very busy ferry traffic, all of them chock-a-bloc with humanity. Mumbai and it's surrounding townships are estimated to have around 19 million people, making it one of the most populous cities in the world.



My other post about Lightning sailing was also about an old wooden Lightning.

I was on RC duty at SSA late October for a bitterly cold and rainy Lightning regatta. I thought my old Line 7 foul weather gear would be up to the job but I was proved wrong.

Sea Snark Stories; John Z

Follow on to my Sea Snark thread . Who would have thought the Sea Snark was such an utility boat! Received from John Zseleczky, naval architect;

Rod mentioned that there are a host of people out there with fond memories of their Sea Snarks. I’m one of them. Actually I’ve owned two, both given to me. Did anyone ever pay for a Sea Snark? My first Snark was used for about five years until it blew off the dinghy rack in a big storm. At that time I was under the misguided impression that someone might try to steal it so I had a lock and wire rope running through the daggerboard trunk and around the rack. In the big winds the wire ended up cutting my boat in half – into bow and stern sections. It seemed like a big job to cut up the rest of the boat for the dumpster so instead I gooped up the break with epoxy and sawdust. That became a main structural member and the boat went back in service for another four or five years.

These things really stink as sailboats with their tiny spars, itty bitty boards, lack of freeboard, etc but they excel in lots of other areas. Here are a few things I’ve put my Sea Snarks through:

• Yacht tender – hundreds of miles running back and forth to the boat on the mooring using a double paddle
• Mushroom anchor barge – loaded a 200 lb mushroom and lots of heavy chain in the old Snark, swam it out to the prescribed location and flipped it over; presto!
• Jumbo cooler – Terri and I had a wedding party at our community beach; I had two Snarks then, one served as the cooler for ice and beverages and one went up on the table with ice in the bottom to keep the buffet cold
• Pool toy – kids love to play king of the hill, flip each other over, etc
• Dinghy rack hoist – my Snark was on the bottom shelf of our dinghy rack during hurricane Isabel. The storm surge that followed brought the water level 8’ above normal. My Snark refused to stay underwater and lifted the whole dinghy rack up.
• Rowing shell – after my second kid was born I was broke but had visions of building a rowing shell. I built a pair of hollow-shaft basswood Piantedosi-type oars but the rowing shell never got built. Instead, I built a sliding seat rig with outriggers and plopped it in the Sea Snark. This thing flew! I rowed all up and down the Severn with it, including a trip around St. Helena’s Island with my 18 month daughter napping in the stern sheets.

True Sea Snark connoisseurs scoff at the idea of encapsulating styrofoam cooler material in plastic. The plastic coated ones never lasted long anyway. Does anyone know the true lineage of the Sea Snark. I’m convinced it’s a 25 lb miracle of naval architecture and would love to hear about its origin. Einstein said “make everything as simple as possible but not simpler” … maybe the Sea Snark was one of his ideas.

– John Z

Sea Snark; Start of a Thread

A YouTube on refurbishing a Sea Snark popped up recently and jogged my memory. This quintessential piece of sailing Americana has all been ignored by the sailing cognoscenti, a trend I hope to reverse by opening up this blog to Sea Snark stories.

When my sailing friends gather and we all are well into our cups, inevitably Sea Snark stories start spilling forth ..... what do you expect for a solid styrofoam dinghy with a pencil thin mast and usually a tobacco brand plastered over the lateen sail. So pony up your Sea Snark stories. Put them up on your blog. Add them to comments on my threads. Go over to my profile and email them to me.

Click here to see other Sea Snark stories on Earwigoagin.

To educate those who may not have had the opportunity to sail a Sea Snark.

First the Wikipedia entry for the Sea Snark .

Next the YouTube that jogged my brain, this fellow actually glassed over a Sea Snark. You get a feel for how tiny these boats are;



And another You Tube. This one advertises Pepsi;

Wooden Tom Allen Lightning

Two weeks ago, at the SSA Tuesday night series, I was bringing up the rear of the Laser fleet in my wooden Classic Moth when I crossed paths with a Lightning racing in the two sailed fleet. I crossed astern going upwind as the Lightning was running downwind under spinnaker. Two things caught my eye; a young toddler was perched on the back deck, happily pulling the spinnaker guy back and forth despite the admonitions of a crew intently trying to keep the spinnaker flying. Secondly, the Lightning was an old woodie, usually an indication that the crew are rank beginners who found a great deal, bought the old warhorse and then decided to try racing it.

Back on shore, I met two of the Lightning crew (woodies seem to gravitate to woodies) and they immediately put to bed my initial misperceptions. They were knowledgable and enthusiastic and actually searched out the old wooden Tom Allen Lightning (my guess, circa 1960's). They are convinced a wooden Lightning can be as fast as the current glass models and so, here they are, men on a mission.

The sight of the wooden Tom Allen takes me back to the 60's, to my later teenage years in Youngstown Ohio. Of all things, in this steel town in middle America, I joined a Sea Scout troop with Dr. Charles Maltbie as "scout master". Maltbie was a cracker jack Lightning sailor, won the Districts and had finished top ten in the Nationals. He owned a beautiful yellow wooden Tom Allen Lightning and as Sea Scouts we spent a fair number of weekends racing Lightnings out of Pymatuning Yacht Club. Winter time, Dr. Maltbie, a very good woodworker, had us building a Blue Jay which we subsequently launched and sailed (If I remember correctly, it was also painted yellow).

Back then, Pymatuning Yacht Club, was THE YACHT CLUB in NorthEast Ohio/Penn region. The Lightning and Thistle fleets were big and competitive and PYC had the reputation of where the most serious and best racers sailed. It was also a mobile home park. There was enough property that members set up small mobile homes and the yacht club became a summer weekend retreat. For young teenagers, it was like summer camp, except your parents were not too far away. For fellow "Sea Scouters", Buzz Brown, Klein, Stuart, Trevor ..... great memories.

Over at the APS blog, James just attended the 2009 Independence Day Regatta at Pymatuning YC and writes about it here.

Welcome TP

I ran into my old friend TP on Friday and he said he heard I had a blog but hadn't read it yet. Well our meeting must of jogged something because he went home and added two comments to two of my posts (immediately shaming my three other regular readers who remain silent to this day). We go way back .... we have lots of sea stories to banter around when we get together and he has added one as a comment to an ancient battle in Lasers .

His Blogger ID "Windrustler" is his famous Super Casson International 14 (well .... famous to the Annapolis fleet at that time) which he raced at top level (actually in a fight with John Gallagher for top dog positions of 1 or 2) in the 1970's.

Tom, your comments are so prolific, you are now signed up as guest blogger on this site.