Classic Moth Boatbuilding; June 2011 Update

Recent Classic Moth boat building news floating around the net.

Joe Bousquet was the chap who re-released the squirrely narrow waterline 1960's Mistral design on the reconstituted Classic Moth class some fifteen years ago. Except for one year when Jeff Linton won with a Florida Wedge design, the Mistral or one of it's variants (Mousetrap) has won the nationals ever since. After fifteen years, Joe's original Mistral "Try-Umph" needed a redeck as the 3mm (1/8") plywood can take only so much of asses and knees crashing down over time. Joe details the redeck job in this post from his blog "MadMothist". Joe lightened things up by sistering foam with his rolled tank frames. Here is a pic I stole from Joe's blog of Try-Umph's deck and frame layout (which in it's basic form has been copied by almost all of the Mistral builders).



Mike Parsons also did a redeck on his Mistal. Mike has done several deck versions; this year must be his third or fourth. His previous version had used 1.5mm (1/16") plywood on the foredeck that for weight reasons had only one coat of varnish. That one coat of varnish quickly disappeared and last year the deck took on the hue of weathered teak and became a sponge, perpetually wet when coming in from the races. Mike went back to a 3mm deck over the winter and using his carbon laminating prowess, lightened the mast step and daggerboard trunk so the actual new weight was slightly less than the old version. A pic of Mike's Mistral with the new deck taken at this years Brigantine regatta.



And finally, Patrick Burger, he of the weird but wonderfull FrankenMoth/Mothball design sprung at this years Midwinters , decided to up the ante, and has built himself a Mistral, but not just any old Mistral. Patrick has built the first foam/glass Mistral that I'm aware of in the Classic Moth World. Shortly after the Midwinters, Patrick scarfed up a plywood Mistral hull from Rod Koch that had spent too long out in the Florida sun and was unsalvageable. Using the wood Mistral hull as a plug, Patrick taped down some contoured foam and glassed both sides to lift a new hull. The hull and deck are now complete and pictures show some radical visual differences.

Patrick has put in a V-transom with the hull continuing aft as planing strakes. The sidedecks are narrow with no decking surrounding the daggerboard trunk, hence the cockpit looks enormous compared to the tiny footwell of the Bousquet layout.



This side on shot shows the reverse sheer with the V-transom shape.



With the large cockpit of the Burger Mistral, one truly gets the feel of how narrow a hull the Mistral is (not a flat area anywhere).

Patrick is a painter by trade and used finishes not typical in the Marine Industry on his Mothball. I'm sure the color layout he chooses will be another interesting facet of this Classic Moth build.

More on the Mistral design can be found here

Music Whenever; World Order "Machine Civilization"

Earwigoagin's staff indie music expert (daughter Robyn) sends along this highly complex choreographed Eastern statement on how modern industrial society makes us automatons (I think that sort of explains it). Has some well coiffed but excitable poodles making a cameo appearance.

Tragedy at SSA

This is a tough one to write. I debated whether to post this at all. Severn Sailing Association's junior sailor, Olivia Constants drowned this past Thursday when her trapeze harness snagged some rigging after her 420 turtled. I don't know the family but there is a universal sadness, disbelief, even bewilderment, among our sailing community when someone so young dies doing the sport we love.

My heart goes out to her family and friends.

Buyer Beware

An amusing video snippet, taken from an old French movie, where the con artist is both a sailmaker and a yacht broker (an odd combination today but maybe not so odd when this movie was made).

Music Whenever: Dinner Belles "Till the Dawn"

Definitely a happy-go-lucky hippie vibe as a background to this music video.

Before the music starts, you hear this comment "You've got a fair share of water damage in here". There's a tie-dyed shirt, a toddler running amok, and a huge stuffed bear.

Band is from Ontario's farming belt and this is one great tune about love gone wrong.

Dinner Belles - Til The Dawn from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Another blasting video; The Cherub class

The Cherub is a twelve foot development class, originally started by the renowned Kiwi designer, John Spencer. It's still mostly an Antipodean class with a smattering in the UK. With it's light weight and assymetric spinnaker, it has a reputation of one of the great blaster dinghies in the world, without going into the complex and expensive world of the skiffs.

I crewed a regatta on an English Cherub in the 70's, a plywood V-shaped Forman 4 design. They had enormous spinnaker poles that hung off the boom and, for the crew, it took forever to push them out (the gybes entailed taking them all the way in again and pushing them out....if I remember correctly). They flew shikes (shy kites) a flattish triangular spinnaker set up for reaching rather than running. Unfortunately, the regatta was in light air, but I was still impressed at the power and responsiveness of this 12 footer.

Forty years on the class has evolved into a very impressive speedster and because of the smaller size of the sails, the Cherub attracts lighter weight crews.

Let's go to the videotape of a very skilled coed crew having a great time.

Wowee! Lets just absorb the experience of going very fast in a small racing dinghy. Just look at the wake disappearing astern, listen the whine of the foils at speed, feel those big wallops of spray, the hull slamming as it skips from wave to wave.......and then, for some reason, it all stops!

Sailing the Heritage Race on the Classic Chesapeake 20

I see that Tillerman lamented he hasn't done much sailing. Well neither have I this spring, for many of the same reasons; graduations (TOH to Chris and Sally on successfully completing their advanced degrees), family trips and just lack of motivation.

Depend on a good friend to get you out of a funk. Bob Blomquist, star of several previous posts, featuring his Bolger Light Schooner and other boat building project, called up and asked if I wanted to crew on his Chesapeake 20 for the long distance Heritage Cup out of West River SC. In the 21 years that Bob has raced the Chesapeake 20, I had never crewed for him in a race. I had almost raced with him twenty one years ago when Bob was trying out his first 20, but those races were cancelled for two much wind. We ended up bombing back and forth on a reach until we sucked the very long mainsail bag most of the way into centerboard trunk. So much of the black bag ended up trailing astern that it looked like we were being chased by the serpentine Chessie Bay Monster. It was so bad that we had to park the Chesapeake 20 on the shallows while I dove over, swam under the boat and dragged the rest of the sail bag out through the bottom of the centerboard trunk.

The Heritage Race is a grand long distance tour of West River and Rhode River. The usual course length is about 8-9 miles. All fleets out of West River SC are welcome to take part and this year saw the Nacra 20 and F16 catamarans, the Albacores, the Flying Scots and the Chesapeake 20's milling around before the mass start off the club dock. Bob pulled off the perfect dock end start at the gun and in the light northerly we beat up to Rhode River. We had pulled out to a 200 yard lead over the fleet as we started on our approach to Rhode River. As we tacked over to starboard to head into Rhode River, we gradually became becalmed and our race fell apart from that moment on.

A wind line appeared from the East as we crawled into Rhode River. We weren't sure if if this wind line was going to filter down to the fleet, but it did and the cats and some of the trailing Chesapeake 20's roared up to us. We stayed in the middle of the river but the new breeze hugged the eastern shore and those furthest tucked into that shore sailed around us. Further up the river this breeze petered out and the old breeze, now backed into a light westerly sprung up and favored those on the other shore. In the Chesapeake 20's, Clay Taylor caught a nice westerly puff at the turn to Flat Island and sailed out to a 100 yard lead that he never relinquished. Our middle of the river strategy put us even with all the rest of the Chesapeake 20's but at Flat Island, two of them were able to carry more wind around the island and we exited Rhode River in fourth. The course was shortened but we couldn't make any inroads on those ahead on the run back to the club. A very tricky light air race, especially in the Rhode River, but still the perfect antidote to being too long away from a sailboat.

The Chesapeake 20, our local Classic class, has it's origins in a development class at West River in the 1930's and 1940's. The history of the Chesapeake 20 class is best digested if you peruse the class website.

The modern Chesapeake 20 is a light air demon, perfect for summer racing on the West River. Carrying a large main on a Star mast with a short waterline hull for a 20 footer, I can think of only one other class that has evolved into a faster light air package than the Chesapeake 20, that being the Thames A-rater of England.

The modern Chesapeake 20 has one trapeze but no spinnaker and usually one or two crew.

Here is an head on archive picture of the winner of 2011 Heritage Race, Clay Taylor.



A beam on photo of the Cheaapeake 20. Unfortunately it looks like the jib tack fitting has let go.



Two Chesapeake 20's at a start. You can get a good idea of the transom shape and the bumpkin needed to support the backstay and still clear the leech of the main.



Clay Taylor has been the driving force behind restoration of some of the old Chesapeake 20's. I can't remember which 20 restoration is documented by the following pictures. You can get a good feel for the hull shape of this Hartge design.