Bruce Kirby Speaks at the Webb Institute

If you have a spare hour to listen to a lecture by Bruce Kirby on yacht design (and the Laser and the Torch), the Classic International 14 blog has the video.

Header Photo: Linton Leading Classic Moths on a Reach

I haven't seen the inside of a Classic Moth for a while. This is one of my stylized photos of Jeff Linton leading the fleet down the reach at the 2013 Gulfport Midwinters. I've forgotton now but this might be a Lenny Parker photo. Linton is driving his modified Mistral.

Hawaiian Sailing Canoes, Always On Big Water

I've posted before on the Hawaiian outrigger canoes. Here is a video of the traditional Hawaiian sailing canoes, focusing on one in the catamaran configuration. It gets interesting at the back end of the video as the wind and wave conditions approach nuclear in the channel; two helmsman fight to maintain control on the long steering oar aided by another auxiliary helmsman in the leeward hull with a big ass paddle adding some oomph when needed. Got to keep those bows heading straight while surfing down big waves. Spray everywhere. Fascinating!

Ka Ohana Holokai Pailolo Crossing from Scott Wong on Vimeo.

I'm back!...........Well sort of

Some may have noticed my absence from these pages. Some may have guessed that I was once again helping coach womens spring lacrosse at Wheaton HS. We finished with 3 wins and 8 losses this spring; the wins were by bigger margins over the same teams we beat last year, the losses were by about the same as last year.... there was progress but with injuries not as much as I had hoped. There was some frustration on my part but hey, I'm a volunteer coach and there are bigger things in the scheme of high school life than wins and losses.

I must admit I didn't spend much time on the Internet the last couple of months. I didn't monitor my blog and (sorry) I didn't read other blogs on my blog roll. I did read books and that was a very good thing and (tip of the hat to Tillerman) I did have the first grandbaby to occasionally cart around to look at the leaves and flowers and breezes of spring.

So Earwigoagin is back but not as the consistent blogger of yore. I still have a pile of books to read.

Header Photo: Bahamian C-class Work boat Racing

This photo is of two Bahama's C-class catboats going at it with crew perched on pries (the International Canoes call them sliding seats, the Log Canoes call them boards, the Australian VJ, Payne Mortlock and Skate classes call them planks; same difference). About 20 feet long they carry a huge cat rig. I've posted before on the huge Bahamanian A-class and the Family Island Regatta.

Videographer Onne Van der Wal has posted a short trailer on racing these over-canvassed beasts. Note at the 36 second mark, two unfortunate crew being peeled off their pries by the boom of a competitor to weather and at the 39 second mark, a C-class gets his outhaul caught on the mast of another C-class, with a predictable disastrous outcome. Great fun in some difficult sailing craft. A tip-of-the-hat to these plucky and skilled racers.


Bahamas Family Island Regatta for Vanishing Sail (rough preview version) from Onne van der Wal on Vimeo.

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!

Header Photo: British Moth at Chippenham SC

I have posted before about sailing on small water, for example, Cooper River just outside Philadelphia Pennsylvania. But in all my searching on the Internet, I have yet to find another sailing club that sails on anything smaller than Chippenham Sailing Club in England, a club that makes do with racing small dinghies on the upper reaches of the Avon River where the average width is between 17 and 20 meters (at least according to Google Maps measuring tool). So where the winding river would offer up a beat, the British Moth pictured here in a beautiful roll tack, would have approximately 4 boat lengths to go before preparing to tack again. I've never even sailed, much less raced on such a tiny body of water. In such close quarters. it must be a hoot!

Here are the Google coordinates for Chippenham SC.

A comment pulled into the main post from Die Hard Dinghy Sailor:

"British Moths still sail on the upper Thames above Oxford, at Medley S.C. ( I used to sail there), but that was postively huge compared to the narrow reach just a couple of miles upstream, above the famous 'Trout' inn (as featured in 'Inspector Morse' on occasions) and the site of our school sailing club. We sailed Fireflies, and they were pretty poorly maintained, so what with the narrow river, frequent tacking, gusty winds...we got pretty good at handling tricky situations! But I never liked Fireflies after that."