2018 MASCF

I've mentioned this several times before; this blog is not about timeliness. Here are some photos from the 2018 MASCF (Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival) held six months ago, October, 2018. MASCF is hosted by the CBMM (Cheasapeake Bay Maritime Museum) and is a good event to see what the non-racing boffins are coming up with, particularly the plywood DIY crowd. On the Saturday, when I made it over, there was little wind, but the on-shore kibbitzing was good.

There are a lot of riffs on the design of the basic Bolger Brick. There is the Puddle Duck Racer. Maybe the most popular is Michael Storer's OZ Goose. There was a larger, 3.6 meter, version at MASCF, promoting the formation of a racing league for these types.



You can't complain about the cockpit space on this small boat!

Definitely a paddle and oar day.

Another simple flat bottom design is the DC Dinghy. Posts on the DC Dinghy, here and here.

David Gentry does skin on frame boats. He designed this very pretty Chautauqu sailing canoe

David writes that he raced Chautauqu in the 300 mile Everglades Challenge. No way the blogmeister would even consider doing such a long trip in such a small boat.

John Harris, the ever prolific and out-of-the-box thinker, owner, and head designer of CLC boats, had this interesting craft, Pingu on the lawn of CBMM. From his writeup on CLC' website:

"Thus the subject design, the Nesting Expedition Dinghy. At 10'6" x 42", it's designed to be the smallest possible boat that will sail and row well, sleep a single person, and carry a week's worth of supplies. The bow and stern are removable, and stow in the 6-1/2-foot middle section. At worst, I can stash it in my little garden shed. At best, I can ship the thing to Europe to cruise the French canals."

For a more complete description of Pingu Click here.

Two leeboards, and a narrow, deep hull. Looks to me as definitely a flat water cruiser.

A mostly traditional, lashed up, proa, shared the lawn with Pingu.

Jim Thayer designed a commodious dink, the Wee Punkin, back in the 1990's. He did an improved version, the Punkin Eater, which showed up at the 2018 MASCF. Build is lapstrake sides married to a smooth bottom.

A really odd, but cool in its own way, circular cockpit.

A flattish hull shape.

2014 MASCF - The Sailboat Race

The sailboat race at the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival starts around 1 p.m.on Saturday and is a quick, short jaunt, usually two legs, around the Miles River with the finish off the Museum docks. This year the fleet launched in sunshine which quickly clouded over, the sun peeking through occasionally for the race and then reappearing after the boats had finished. Luckily, the wind which had been blowing hard out of the northwest in the morning had moderated. About forty of the Festival sailboats, sailed out, turning the corner just outside of St. Michaels harbor to make the start.

I was able to again wrangle a ride on the Race Committee boat, the Volunteer, a thirty foot open workboat built by Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum staff, ably handled by Asst. Curator Rick Scofield and Boat Donations Manager, Lad Mills. Although I have a reasonable knack for identifying sailing dinghies, I have difficulty in identifying the subset of designs by traditionalists such as Ian Oughtred and John Welsford. For the following photos taken before the start, readers may want to chime in with the boat types and I will add them later to this post.

Smiles! This is one thing that strikes a competitive racer, such as I, when viewing the fleet before the start. There were so many beaming smiles! This may be a Welsford Pathfinder yawl.

Smiles from a San Francisco Bay Pelican, a flat bottomed, dory sided centerboarder, known for their yacht-like stability.

A traditional gaff-rigged catboat.

A green catboat with a balanced lug and lapstrake topsides. According to the Woodenboat Forum, this is a Tom Hill Modified River Skiff. 

Spirit is a design by West River, Maryland icon, Capt. Dick Hartge. Capt. Dick Hartge built Spirit in his retirement in Florida. It is a stretched Chesapeake 20, adding 2 feet to the length, finishing in a pretty canoe stern. Restored by a group in Calvert County, Spirit, under one reef, easily won the sailboat race.

A regular attendee to MASCF, Bonito, a DC-10 dinghy.

The C. Lowndes Johnson Eighteen Footer number 1. Pete Lesher with a crowd of family and friends. The Eighteen Footer's would finish 2nd and 3rd in the race.

Eighteen Footer number 2.

The start. In the foreground may be blogger Eddie Breeden and son. See his 2014 MASCF photos over here at Lingering Lunacy. We can see a 13' Blue Jay starting in the background.

Another photo right before the starting gun. The Classic Moth is just left of center, to leeward of an ACA sailing canoe.

DC-10 plans; New Address

For those that might be interested in DC-10 plans, here is an updated address where they can be purchased;

Doug Cooper

Eldred Cooper Boats

P.O. Box 611

Falmouth, MA 02541

From Tweezerman's archives, another picture of the DC-10

DC-10 dinghy

Some of you may have noticed that I've been switching up my header photo. The current photo gracing the header of this blog is of a DC-10 sailing dinghy sailing at the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival at St. Michaels.


The same lady owner of the DC-10 has shown up every year I've attended and I've been very impressed with the DC-10 design as a very capable small singlehander for almost anybody. Although the DC-10 was designed specifically to be home built, the DC-10 hasn't achieved any great level of popularity. I have read that it is used as a frostbite dinghy out of Falmouth Massachusetts.

Messing About in Boats magazine wrote about the DC-10 in a 1993 issue, back when I subscribed to MAIB and other boating and sailing mags (I don't subscribe to magazines now because I'm a pack rat and my wife is much happier, and life becomes easier, when I don't leave little piles of magazines in every room of the house). Articles in MAIB cast a wide ranging net over the boating scene and I recommend looking into subscribing if your interest in boating is similarly broad brush.

The one page article on the DC-10 as excerpted from the January 15, 1993 issue of Messing About in Boats...................


The address of the designer, Douglas Cooper, listed in the article is probably not correct and I'm not sure if plans are still offered. I will do some research on the designer