Header Photo: The Tempo Scow

The previous header photo was of the Tempo scow designed by Jack Koper of South Africa in the early 1960's. He did three home-built scow designs, all extremely popular in South Africa. The Tempo made it into the northern hemisphere, becoming popular in Germany and Holland and in a twist, the Tempo, in modern times, is now only found in these two countries and not in the home of origin, South Africa.  The Fireball was introduced around the same time as the Tempo scow and sits in the same space, a 4.88 meter, two man, single trapeze, spinnaker performance dinghy capable of being home built. The Fireball became an international class, the Tempo is bumping along close to extinction.

Amazingly, last year, I came across a forlorn, rotting Tempo sitting around the back of Bacon and Associates (the Annapolis firm that is the top broker of used sailboat sails, fittings, and other sailing paraphernalia in the U.S.); a Tempo that was home-built in Maryland in the 1970's. Unfortunately this Tempo was too far gone but if it retained a good proportion of her plywood in decent shape I would have finagled slotting this Tempo amongst my bevy of Classic Moth's. (Yes, my dear, that is one of my Classic Moth's, the length just appears as an optical illusion!)

I hope the Tempo sticks around. It is a true scow whereas the Fireball is more of an unique transom bowed, flat rocker panel, multi-chine dinghy. The Fireball, with it's high level of competition, no longer sees a home-built wooden dinghy among the top finishers in a major regatta. It would be nice to see a two man, single trapeze class where a wooden boat still has a chance. It would also be great to see the Tempo plans available as an Internet download. Earwigoagin would offer the services of this blog if someone wants to send the blogmeister a copy of the Tempo plans.

Photos of the Tempo scow that I have culled from the Internet:

A wooden home-built Tempo sitting in front of a fiberglass Tempo. The roundish gunwhale shape was carved out of a solid piece of wood.

The history of the Tempo scow.

Tempo Scow whooping it up!

I have posted about the three South African Jack Koper designed scows and below is a video of two German gents having a grand old time reaching along in the Jack Koper Tempo scow. The first thirty seconds of the video is relaxed and then a grand breeze filters down the lake, sending them into giddy hyperspace. As I have said before, I am monolingual and don't have a clue what they're saying as they bomb along. It would be fun to sail on a Tempo.

I'll have more to say about Jack Koper's smallest scow, the Dabchick in a later post.



A more recent post on the Tempo scow.

Header Photo: South African Sonnet Scow

South African Jack Koper designed three plywood scows, starting in the late 1950's with the junior scow, the 11'9" Dabchick, and then followed with the 15'6" Tempo scow and then with the 14' 6" Sonnet Scow (featured in the header photo). All three enjoyed great success in South Africa and the Tempo also achieved some numbers in Europe, notably Holland and Germany. The Tempo has faded from the scene but both the Dabchick and Sonnet still have good fleets in South Africa (500 built for the Sonnet). Those readers who guessed the photo might be the American Y-Flyer scow were close -from the photo they look similar - but off by 4 feet in length.