Geezer Racing: The Gentleman's Way

The formula:

1. Get a small two-man dinghy with, and this is important, NO SPINNAKER!
2. Make sure the wind is light so NO HIKING! (Well, maybe some leaning out is OK.)
3. Assign one geezer as PORT helmsman and the other as STARBOARD helmsman which eliminates any one person actually crossing the entire boat on tacks
4. Enjoy whatever the competition brings!

Header Photo: The Norfolk Punt

The previous header photo was of the Norfolk Punt, a racing dinghy class found on the Norfolk Broads, England and derived from the bird gunning punts that were in use there in the late 1890's, early 1900's. The Norfolk Punts are 22' long, double-ended and like the International Canoe, the modern boats have no resemblance to their heritage except for the canoe stern. The Norfolk Punts of today are very much a modern racing dinghy with double trapezes, assymetrics, and a tall, overpowering sailplan. Although the modern class is a development class there does seem to be a good mix of vintage punts racing though I have no idea how they handicap Punts with hulls from 1935 versus a punt designed in the last ten years. The Punt featured in the header photo looks like a 1960's Wyche and Coppock single chine design.

The photo of the Norfolk Punt below gives a good idea of what the original sailing Punt looked like; reverse sheer, decks sloping outward, high coamings. With this Punt you can see the gunning punt lineage. This Punt looks short so it may be a reproduction.

Here is a modernized 1930's Punt hull with carbon rig and trapeze. It retains the reverse sheer and high coamings.

A video of a modern double trapeze Punt with the video also ending with a modern double trapeze teabag capsize.

Classic Moth Plans: Mistral Hull Panel Offsetts

Despite being the tippiest Classic Moth design out there, more Mistral designs are built in the U.S than any other design - by a long shot. Although a competent Laser or Sunfish racer has no problem handling a Mistral (after an initial "let's get acquainted session" to get over the wobbliness) other, less experienced sailors, get sucked in by the simple stitch and glue, bend-em-up, building process. Sometimes they have been very surprised when they get on the water.

More information on the Mistral design can be found here.

The front end of a Mistral - this is Mike Parson's.

The back end of a Mistral - this is John Z's.

For those not to be dissuaded by my introductory warning and desire to build a Mistral, here are the Mistral panel offsets in both DXF and PDF formats.

(Note!: These offsets are only the beginning - you will need at least three bulkheads, a transom, and framing around the mast step to finish up the shape.)

The section dimensions of the fast Y2K Mistral can be found here.

A DXF drawing of the hull panel (you will need 2 identical panels to form a hull). Use the pop-out icon (top-right) to open in another tab to print or download.



A PDF file with the offsets. Use the pop-out icon (top-right) to open in another tab to print or download.



A short synopsis of Derek Chester's original instructions for the Mistral build. Again, use the pop-out icon (top-right) to open in another tab to print or download.

What makes this blog run?

What makes this erudite sailing blog possible? How does Instagram save all those millions and millions of selfie photos? Where is the cloud? (Many of us don't trust it wherever it is.) How can Gmail save all my emails, even the ones I didn't mean to send? Why does Facebook still have THAT PHOTO of a certain college party after all these years

This video does the best of any to explain the technology of acres and acres of data farms that makes the cloud possible and has taken us beyond the single computer workstation (and shlepping a floppy disk hither and yon) into the hyper connected world. (It must be noted that this video is also a Google advertisement.)

Edensaw Boatbuilding Competition: A Sailing Dinghy Wins!

Most wooden boat shows have live boatbuilding; usually it involves a group of families assembling a quantity of small rowing skiffs which are then launched at the end of the weekend. At the Wooden Boat Festival hosted by the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townshend, Washington, Edensaw Woods sponsors a boatbuilding competition where they move away from the typical novice boatbuilding event and open it up to a diverse group of boats from professional designers and being built by skilled woodworkers. In this year's competition, built alongside the traditional dory and Irish curragh were two sailing dinghies. One of them, Richard Wood's Zest singlehander, won the competition

Here are two of the boats on the beach after the time-limit for boatbuilding expired, ending all construction. On the left was a dory built only with hand tools. On the right is a 14 foot, V-sectioned sailing dinghy designed by sometime Classic Mothist, Stephen Ditmore. As the photo reveals, Ditmore's team got the hull done over the weekend but the decking and rigging awaits.

Winner of the competition, designer Richard Woods on board at the initial push-off of his Zest dinghy. This is definitely a racing singlehander with hiking wings. (The hull is a relatively narrow, flat bottom shape.) The hull was completed by the team over the weekend and Richard was able to scavenge sailing parts from some of his other projects to get this design sailing in short order. I think the pushee in the photo is Michael Scott who owns several sailing dinghies including a couple of Classic International 14's and who is constantly feeding news tidbits to the blogmeister.

Instead of painting over the freshly applied epoxy, the Richard Woods team decided to apply a silver vinyl decal material over the hull (purchased at an auto supply store). Very distinctive, hence the boat's name Silver Bullet.

Designer of the other sailing dinghy at the competition, Stephen Ditmore sailing his Classic Moth design. Unfortunately we have only seen his Moth show up once at Brigantine, New Jersey.

The wrap up video from the Edensaw competition.


Third Annual Edensaw Wooden Boat Building Challenge! from Al Bergstein on Vimeo.

Geezer Bloggers gather around a Penguin Dinghy

I went over last weekend to help George A. of Mid-Atlantic Musings> move one of his boat collection into a U-Haul. It wasn't a Moth but a Penguin and was being collected by her new owner. George's Penguin dinghy was one of six originally built in the 1960's by a guy named John Walton in Brigantine, New Jersey. This Penguin, most likely being the sole survivor of the six, was being rightfully reclaimed as a family heirloom by John's son Bill, who had flown up from Texas.

In the photo below, George is going over the history of the Penguin with the blogmeister. Turns out George helped build the six as kid. He was on the centerboard trunk building crew. (Forgive the odd colors of the photo but I wanted to highlight the beautiful interior wood of the Walton Penguin and was working from a very dark I-Phone photo.)

Photo by Bill Walton

And from the 1960's, here is the blurb on the Penguin from the magazine One Design and Offshore Sailing annual small class review, .

Some other posts about the Penguin dinghy.

Classic Moths in the Mist

At this year's Classic Moth Nationals we had a marine layer settle in Saturday night, giving us fog on Sunday morning, a rare event for Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The fog started to creep out towards Pamilco Sound around 9 a.m. and racing commenced, on time, in sunshine.

I took a couple of photos.

The fog didn't stop the sailors kibitzing about Mothboats.

Two transoms in the mist. The Laser transom of the Maser and the wide Europe Dinghy style transom of the Mousetrap Mistral.

The view from the Pugh's pier.

The original post of the 2015 Classic Moth Nationals can be found here.