Hal Wagstaffe's 1962 New Zealand Classic Moth Design

Moth Classique

These Classic Moth lines plans popped up on FB. A multi-chine plywood, very much a middle of the road design, "Puriri" looks very worthy of someone building a reproduction. She would definitely fit in the Gen I division of the American Classic Mothboat rules. Puriri is an indigenous New Zealand tree.

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More Classic New Zealand Moth designs can be found at this post (from Nedslocker). Includes Bruce Farr's first dinghy designs.

Classic Moth Design and Builds; Winter 2019

What's happening in the Classic Moth world in the winter of 2019?

Frenchman Bertrand Warion has designed and has in the molds, a cruising Moth designed for hopping around the rivers in France. The Bertrand Cruising Moth is overbuilt compared to a racing Moth (as would be expected). Bertrand envisions encountering lots of debris; logs, trees, cows, couches coming down the swollen rivers, given the increased rainfall. Global warming has blessed some parts of the world with rain and more rain.

His plans show a simple low-Vee design with a keel strake protecting the forward third of the hull. A nice rear seat completes this laid back design.

Substantial stringers and keelson show this Moth is designed to take some serious abuse.

Brit John Butler was a serious designer playing the narrow waterline International Moth design game in the 1970's and 1980's. Now that John is in his 60's (age) he has designed a stitch and glue Moth he says will;

• Fit the U.S.A Classic Moth rule (non-wing).
• Fit his somewhat increased girth since his young International Moth racing days.

Pics from Facebook.

Here is John's 1.5mm mock-up of his stitch and glue design. Note the flat bottom and intermediate chine in the aft third of the hull.

The German Tiger Moth was a modification on the Swiss Dunand Moth. Pics of the plans showed up on Facebook. Compared to the Dunand, the German Tiger Moth has narrowed the front sections and rounded the aft sections. There is also some very slight hollows near the chine. (I wonder how they build this?)

Finally the Dragùr "Disco Volante" Moth. A very simple scow design from 1958. Not a race winner but  would be a very simple build and still fun to sail.

And finally, Mark Hughes put these very credible Classic Moth hull lines out there.

A Brief History of the Extreme-V Classic Moth

Moth Classique

The Swiss-Dunand Moth represents a radical design jump in Moths. Not seen before in Moths were the very deep V sections of the Dunand, married to high rocker, resulting in a very narrow waterline. It was a design type that was to dominate the non-wing Moth era in the mid to late 1960's. From an historical viewpoint, it would be nice to credit a designer or group of Mothies for the development, but it appears this slice of European history hasn't yet made it completely out to the English speaking world. From what I have been able to determine:

1. The Swiss Mothies were the first ones to develop this shape as a light-air lake flyer. It became an all-around design in the Dunand version and Swiss Jean-Pierre Roggo would win the Moth Worlds three years running, from 1964 to 1966. Besides Roggo, other Swiss Mothies sailing the Dunand were Claude Barth, Dennis Weber and Hogg
2. In the winter of 1966, Benoit Duflos designed his very deep-V version Moth and the Duflos would dominate Europe through the rest of the 1960's. The Duflos was tortured into a shape beyond what you could bend a single sheet of plywood and was built using a horizontal slit about mid panel each side.
3. In 1970, Brit Derek Chester would design the Mistral as a version of the Duflos that could be tortured up. Although in the 1970's, the Mistral design didn't find great success in Europe, the Mistral became the marquee racing design in the American Classic Moth Boat Association from 1999 onward.

The lines of the Duflos: (again use the pop-out icon to print or download).

1960's Duflos on trailer (with typical buff body of all Mothies of that age).

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Some questions about the early history of the very deep-V?

1. Who was Dunand?
2. In the Swiss fleet, was there some precursor to the Dunand design that showed the way or does the Dunand design all alone represent a radical leap of faith? My assumption is the Swiss were initially working off the Fragniere design.
3. There is mention that Jacques Fauroux had a deep-V design in the early 1960's. Where does this design fit into the chronology?

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Mention must be also made of Chris Eyre's Lucky Sixpence design of 1966. This was another chined deep-V design, though Chris was working with wings in mind and his design had much straighter topsides.

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Fellow Moth historian, good friend, George Albaugh,

who lives just down the road put these comments up, with the blogmeister adding my two-cents worth. Other fellow Moth historians, Doug Halsey and John Claridge, chime in as well on this discussion.

One. GA: Warren Bailey's "Mach One" design (World's winner in 1954) had so much rocker in the keel that the forward panels had to be pulled up "pram" style and then a false pointy glass nose was grafted onto the boat to give the hull a sharp stem look. "Mach One" had a deep vee that was similar to that of the Mistral/Duflos and may have been deeper than the Swiss design. The Cates-Florida design is a very watered down version of Mach One.

Tweezerman: You make a good point that Bailey's "Mach One" might be considered the original extreme-V. It was definitely considered more extreme than the Cates version that came after the original - but how extreme? Extreme enough to be lumped in with these later designs? I think not, but we only have photos of the "Mach One" to pore over and when I think tamatoo, you think tomato. We do know the Swiss Dunand's came over in 1965 and thumped the Cates. Would they have done the same to the Mach One? It would be correct to say the "Mach One", the "Cates", and the "Fragniere" were deep-V but I don't think the "Mach One" is extreme enough to achieve the reduction of wetted surface these designs achieved.

GA: As for whether or not Mach One was a deep-vee, narrow water line boat compared to the Mistral, we'd need access to Warren's half model which his son George has, rather than my memory. I think the most dated aspect of the Bailey design would be the small, pinched transom--a feature replicated on the Cates-Florida design. The Mistral would plane sooner.

Two. GA: Duflos' boat was designed in '62 rather than '66. He tweaked the design in '72 to accommodate the the then newly adopted Aussie tall rig.

Tweezerman: This is where the history is somewhat muddied. I do have a design list in my archives, listing the Duflos as a 1962 design. I also have in my archives a history that lists the Duflos as a design done in the fall of 1966 and introduced at the Cannes Ski-Sail Regatta, April 1967. I'm going with 1966 for two reasons. If the Duflos was introduced in 1962 it should have been competing with the Swiss Moth and most likely winning. There is no record of that occurring. Also, Chris Eyre wrote a report of the 1967 Europeans where he mentioned the Duflos as a new design, at least new to the English. If the Duflos design had been out for four years by 1967, I don't think anyone would have considered it a new design.

GA: I have plans from Benoit Duflos dated 1962.

John Claridge:The first [Duflos] I saw in the UK was built for Bridget Quick, again by Bill McCutcheon, in I think 1966.

Doug Halsey: I also have plans from Benoit Duflos dated 1962, and a 1966 newspaper article (in French) referring to the 1962 date. Marie-Claude Fauroux sailed the Duflos at the 1966 Worlds in Lausanne and was extremely fast, but inconsistent. She won 3 of the 6 races, but was out of the top 10 in the other 3 and finished 4th in the final standings. (Lots of us, other than Roggo and Ganter, were very inconsistent.) Benoit Duflos and Jacques Fauroux were also there, but were not in the top 10 overall. (I'm not sure if Jacques was sailing a Duflos, or if he was there for every race though). I have newspaper articles with results of individual races, photos, and longer discussions (in French), and some shorter clips from the London Times, which I will scan and probably post somewhere when I get a chance.

Three. GA: The designer of the Mistral--a clever attempt to capture Duflos' elegant but difficult to build shape, using flat ply panels, was Derek Chester, NOT Merv Cook! The Mistral design went through two versions (we use the Mk II version here) and was followed by the Mirage which while mimicking the Mistral shape was much narrower. The Mirage required wings and even so was difficult to sail in a breeze. Few were built as faster narrow winged Moths like the Stockholm Sprite hit the race course at about the same time. The main appeal of the Mirage was that it was so narrow, one could get both hull panels from a single 4 x 12 sheet of ply.

Tweezerman: Busted on that one! I got to the end of writing the post and went with my faulty memory instead of fact checking. I've done the correction in the main post. I've tried to remain with designs that were done in the non-wing era. Below is the lines of a modified Mistral - the Y2KBug. The transom has been flattened on this mod

4. Four. GA:  I have never seen any of Jacques Fauroux's boats from the early '60s but several French designers beyond Fauroux and Duflos were building their own boats then. One of the unifying aspects of French and Swiss Moths of this era was the love of the free-standing or "Finn rig" mast. Later on, towards the end of the low aspect era, both Jacques and his sister Marie-Claude were racing Duflos Moths. Marie-Claude is one of two women to win the World's out right.

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1971 Fauroux: Neil Kennedy, digging through his extensive yachting library of Nedslocker, sends along this design sketch of the 1971 World Champion Jacques Fauroux extreme-V Moth. For the 1971 Worlds Jacques had done a modified Duflos, with even more rocker than the Duflos and a more circular midsection. He had built her out of 2mm. ply at a hull weight of 22 kg. Width was 5 feet (1.52 meters) with 4 inch (.1 meter) gunwhales.

Seacraft Magazine, March 1972

Europe Dinghy: 2018 Europeans

Every once-in-a-while I throw some love out at our most popular Classic Moth, the Europe Dinghy. Not quite fifteen years after losing Olympic standing, the Europe Dinghy remains a popular singlehander in Europe. The following video is some good hi-speed action from Race 2 of the 2018 European Championship on Lake Garda.



And the Race 3 video has more slo-mo and close-in shots of competitors.



Although you won't see any at a major championship, there are some very beautiful wooden Europe Dinghies. And Classic Moth plans over here.

Moth and Sailfish Scows at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta

Time to wrap up the scow thread which I've kept Earwigoagin on for a month or so. This post I stay with the Australian Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta and the other two vintage scow classes competing; the Australian scow Moth and the Australian Sailfish design.

As mentioned before, the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta celebrated the 90th year of Len Morris building his "Olive" which would become the Inverloch 11-footer class and then, when they spied the Rudder magazine article with Crosby's plans for his Skimmer Moth, the Inverloch group appropriated the emblem and become the Australian Moth class. The original "Olive" is still in one piece and was on display in the gymnasium at the Inverloch Regatta. The original definitely has high freeboard. Nowadays we would probably say the design is more pram-like than scow-like.

Len Morris's second Moth design, the Mk II, built post WWII, would take Australia by storm and was definitely more in line with the low freeboard American scows. Graeme Cox brought along an early Mk II. Note the low roach mainsail on the MkII (#3021) compared to a later 1960's scow design (#3396, an Imperium perhaps?).

Graeme Cox's MkII from the stern.

Phil Johnson, in his beautifully restored Cole Mouldie Moth, won the "Best Moth" prize at the regatta.

Nine Australian Sailfish made it to the 2018 ICWDR, down slightly from the eleven that showed at the 2017 ICWDR. Nine Sailfish still made up the largest class attending in 2018. There was even a brand new build. Brian Carroll, son of Jack Carroll, one of the designers of the Australian Sailfish brought the freshly launched "Jacks Toy" to Inverloch.

The new build Sailfish sported SUP non-skid tread, certainly a big help in staying on these slippery, narrow, beach boats.

Two different scows at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta: Rainbow and A-12

While I'm on a scow kick, mention must be made of two different scow designs that competed in the Australian ICWDR out of the South Gippsland Y.C. One of the kingpins of the Classic Wooden Dinghy event, Andrew Chapman and family, had two restored Rainbows in the regatta. (Correction: Andrew did the restoration of one "Annie", his son-in-law, Jonathan, a fine craftsman in his own right - music instruments - did the restoration of the other one, "Moonraker".) The Rainbow is an Australian 3.65 meter design that was popular as a junior trainer in South Australia in the 1960's. Andrew sailed one Rainbow with his grand-daughter and, his daughter Trilby, sailed the second one with Andrew's other grand-daughter. I asked Andrew what he thought of the Rainbow scow as a parent/kid sailing dinghy and he was enthusiastic.

"The Rainbow is lovely small boat to sail. It is very forgiving and a lot faster than a Mirror and Heron without using the trapeze and/or large spinnaker. I think it is an ideal boat for an adult and young kid or young teenagers. Trilby and I sailed with each of her two daughters and we plan to introduce them to using a trapeze on a beat and then the trapeze with spinnaker on reaches. We are also putting them on the helm and they enjoy sailing the quicker boat and they are not overwhelmed by the boats size. When they are comfortable using the trapeze and spinnaker trapeze combination the next stage will be the Gwen 12 then Cherub. I think the Rainbow is a very good small boat and it is one that is very easy for home builders to make.

Andrew Chapman and grand-daughter in "Annie".

Trilby and daughter in "Moonraker"

Three very different Australian scows in one shot. Trilby with the Rainbow on the beach, a modern carbon foiling Moth scow, and, in the background, a Classic wingless Moth scow.

Plans for the Rainbow scow can be found here.

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The A-12 scow was Frank Bethwaite's follow-on to his Northbridge Junior scow. Designed to be a higher performance dinghy, the A-12 was longer, 12 feet or 3.65 meters, sported Frank's signature rotating mast and had a trapeze. Neil Kennedy from Nedslocker dug out a November, 1970 issue of the Australian Modern Boating which featured the class when newly introduced. Some photos from that article:

An A-12 scow has shown up at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta for the last two years but, as Andrew Chapman writes, in the beginning no-one knew what type of scow it was.

"At the first regatta Andrew Kean sailed the boat as a Moth, with two tone blue sails, because that what it was sold to him as. He did wonder why someone had put a trapeze fitting on the mast. Apparently he never thought to measure the length. He sailed it again in the most recent regatta as an A12 with blue and white sails with a different rig.

From the photos it looks like Andrew was able to find a genuine Bethwaite rotating rig and A-12 sail.

The A-12 with the original Moth rig; a blue sail, wooden spars.

The A-12 on the Inverloch beach next to an Australian Sailfish.

For the 2018 regatta, Andrew was able to plug in the correct rig; aluminum rotating mast with a very big sail.

I'm not sure any plans exist for the A-12. None have come forward yet.

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George McGee adds more info on the A12. (From a comment I dragged to the main body.)

"I raced an A12 at Northbridge sailing club in the mid seventies. My boat came from Starbord Products with 2 rigs. The first rig was the 85 sq foot two tone blue sail with the over-rotating wooden mast. The second rig was a 65 sq foot two tone sail with a shorter wooden mast. (Not sure of the 65sq foot size). When the smaller rig was used the boat was classed a J12 rather than A12. NSC had a number of A12s and J12s competing on Sundays in the mid seventies.I spent many a happy afternoon on the A12 redefining the term "screaming reach"

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Classic Moth News: Fall 2017

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For you design geeks...

Andrew Slavinskas is continuing a discussion of Classic Moth design over at Woodenboat Forums. Lots of hydrostatic analysis including some of the Tweezer design.

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New England News...

New Englander Yarrow Thorne has refurbished his Crosby Skimmer Moth and also picked up an Etchell's Connecticut Moth that was languishing up in the Northeast. Both were entered in the Archipelago Rally pursuit race in Rhode Island at the end of October. Unfortunately the Connecticut swamped and couldn't be self rescued, a bad habit of the vintage Moths since many had no built-in flotation. (Why would you worry about getting the Moth up quickly since the sailing season back then was Memorial Day to Labor Day and the water was warm.)

Yarrow racing his Skimmer Moth in the Archipelago Rally.

Photo by Rufus Van Gruisen

The Skimmer on the dock at the Rally.

Photo by Rufus Van Gruisen

The advantage of vintage Classic Moths is they float upright when moored out. Yarrow's fleet; the Connecticut is in the backgroud.

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Meanwhile over in Merrie Old England...

Over at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis, Jake Stow is building a Mistral.

The English are busy digging 1960's Rondar Skols and mint condition Shelleys out of backyards and putting them back on the water .

Stuart Mander's barn find, a beautiful double-bottom wooden Shelley.

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A glass Skol

A Skol getting the longboard treatment.

Jim Champ has launched his UnSkol with the new hull sections he designed.

Ian Marshall has had a successful run in the English CVRDA (Classic/Vintage Racing Dinghy Association) events, sailing a Classic Moth Shelley Mk I with a tall rig.

The Classic Moth class has a good number of one-off designs. It was a easy class (inexpensive, un-complicated, with the freedom to build in wood) to show that you had invented a better mouse-trap.  English helms-woman Vanessa Weedon Jones owns this interesting double chine plywood Moth, Yellow Peril, that was professionally built in Derby. I like the free-standing wood mast.

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The Chesapeake Bay Classic Moth Fleet...

The Chesapeake Bay wrapped up the season at Chestertown with the Patterson Regatta in mid-October where we had 11 Classic Moths. Even the blogmeister was finally able to get his Maser together for that regatta. (The last two years, this is the only Classic Moth regatta I've been able to make.) Mike Parsons, this year's National Champ, continued his run at the top of the podium with a clear win in the Patterson.

An indistinct I-Phone photo of the fleet on Chester River in gentle breezes for the 2017 Patterson Cup.

Here is a photo from Earwigoagin's archives of the blogmeister with two of his Classic Moth's, a modified Stockholm Sprite and the Tweezer at the 2009 Chestertown/Patterson Regatta. (Both no longer in my fleet.) Joe Bousquet is adding some welcome informed advice. I always liked the yellow painted spar of Energizer (the Stockholm Sprite on the left, the spar was a cut down Finn spar.)

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Post about Classic Moth plans over here.

Bilbon Classic Moth Offsets

Plans de voiliers classiques Moth, Plans de dériveur classique Moth.
Concours de Plans pour Moth Classique lancé par "Le Chasse Marée"

Every winter I try to put together offsets of another Classic Moth. This is Bilbon, a design by Christophe Couton, which was the best of the new designs in the 2001 design competition sponsored by the magazine Le Chasse Marée. This Classic Moth design sports a pram bow and looks to be a stable design with it's wide beam. I've modified the design slightly to put a small curve in the bottom panels. The offsets are at the end of this post in a PDF file.

A very simple hull shape should make for a straightforward build.

Marc Morell

Bilbon sailing bow-on to the camera with the pram bow featuring prominently. Chrisophe modeled this design on the Herbulot Caravelle design which also features a pram bow, but is a larger, main and jib dinghy which is popular in France. I like Bilbon's purple paint scheme. Moth no. 111 is the all aluminum Gouget design.

Marc Morell

Looks like Christophe used simple pine frames sistered together on the centerline. A center traveller controls the mainsail and the mast is stepped on the keel.

Marc Morell

Another view of the interior.

Marc Morell

Use the arrow icon on the top right to put this PDF of the offsets into another tab for printing.

RazMoth II Drawing: Classic Moth News - Winter 2017

Plans de dériveur Classique Moth

Bertrand Warion sent along his working drawing of the RazMoth II. Lesser mortals would want more detailed plans, with scantlings and dimensions written on every piece of wood, but, for an experienced Moth boat builder, this is all you need to produce a working Mothboat. These drawings show the strong Fireball influence in this design. We also have in the Earwigoagin archives, the Mothball, a Moth dreamed up by Floridian Patrick Burger, who chopped off the back five feet from a Fireball to make a Moth. There is some similarity between the two.

The section spacings are hard to read on the drawing but should be:

• Curve of nose piece - 3.7 cm 
• Station 1 - 85 cm.
• Station 2 - 137 cm.
• Station 3 - 190 cm.
• Station 4 - 261 cm.
• Transom - 331 cm.

Another photo of the RazMoth II under sail with a storm brewing on the horizon.

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Construction of RazMoth MkII

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RazMoth: Classic Moth News: Winter 2017

Contstruction de Moth Classique

Bertrand Warion (French designer of the Mariposa Moth) is at it again. A couple of months ago I received an email from Bertrand detailing the building of a new Classic Moth design (the RazMoth Mk II):

"Mariposa is now out my mother's garden and back in my new home (it’s been 3 years,a lot of other work and lot of things to do). As soon I finish my home renovation (rebuilding another part of my home) I am thinking of building a new deck for Mariposa for a little more hiking comfort.

"This summer a new Classic Moth (RazMoth Mark II) was built in my backyard in 10 days. It was to a design previously built by myself in 2000/2002 with some modifications.

"The new owner is very happy with RazMoth Mk II (he is a surfer, not a sailor but learning rapidly).

"The first trial of the RazMoth Mk II was in July, on a little "ducks lake" near my home and then one week on the rivers "Garonne" and "Gironde". We also sailed on Lake Sanguinet and Arcachon bay this summer. It is an easy Moth to sail, very easy to surf....

"This winter my young friend will build his own mast. (We were using Mariposa’s mast to begin with). It will probably be a free-standing mast (he is also a carpenter and joiner).

"Regards b. warion

RazMoth Mk II is a very simple, very easy to build Classic Moth. It has a shape similar to the Fireball (flat rocker panel, multi-chine shape) with a scow bow. Bertrand supplies details of the specifications for the RazMoth Mk II:

"The new RazMoth Mk II is made of exterior grade plywood, 5mm, glued with epoxy and glassed on the bottom. All stringers are 25mm/15mm. The hull weight is 45kg (for a total weight of 54/56 kg (with the mast weighing 5kg). The mast is a carbon windsurf shape with an aluminium sail track glued on with some "home depot" polysilcone compound

Some photos of the Moth build.

Setting up the frames. Only five including the transom.

Laying in the stringers. You can see the flat rocker panel and the multi-chine hull shape.

Right side up without the intermediate plywood panel installed.

Hull sides and flat rocker panel attached. Looks like Bertrand's backyard back up next to a vineyard. Now, that's cool!

Sea trials for RazMoth Mk II at the "Duck Pond". I have the same color "Crocs". Must be something about crazy Classic Moth sailors.

The original RazMoth Mk 1.

Bertrand writes of the Mk 1:

"RazMoth Mk I in 2002. The boat was made of very low quality interior plywood and destructed 3 years later (really low cost boat). I sailed the first RazMoth with my great dog "Tango" (we were both young back then!)"

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Simple plans/drawing of the RazMoth.

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