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!
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."
As Tillerman correctly guessed, the previous header photo was of the diminutive (6 feet 4 inches - 1.93 meter overall length) Cape Cod Frosty dinghy; the skipper deep in concentration, peeking out from behind the daggerboard. The Frosty name fits the function. The Cape Cod Frosty was originally designed in 1984 as a frostbite dinghy and, after a brief burst of popularity throughout Cape Cod, Ohio, and Maryland, is now found (during the winter months) fleet racing in a small lagoon off the fast-flowing Piscataqua River, on the border of New Hampshire and Maine.
I have always been fascinated by, what I term, micro-dinghies; those sailing dinghies less than 8 feet (2.43 meters). Immensely impractical (8 feet length overall is the smallest dinghy that most people can fit into and seems to sail well), I have been enthralled at those who attempt to design, build and sail Lilliputian vessels.
In 2003, on a whim, I drove over to the Maryland Eastern Shore, where there was a Frosty for sale from the now defunct Salisbury fleet. The price was right - $200. I arrived there as night fell and in the dim radiance of a flashlight, checked that the boat had no holes and all the sailing pieces were there. The check was written and off I drove, a proud owner of a 6 foot sailboat on the roof of the car. Only in the daylight of the next day could I see that the builder had managed to give the bow transom a considerable deviant angle from that of the stern transom. Somewhat disappointed at now owning a crooked boat, I nonetheless sanded and stripped the paint off, put a coat of primer on and worked on the mast step before losing interest and moving on to my Maser project. My Cape Cod Frosty remains to this day as a modern sculpture in white primer, perched upright on it's transom in my basement, much to my wife's chagrin.
In 2004, now as a owner of a somewhat deformed Cape Cod Frosty, my curiosity at sailing these craft could not be thwarted. I finagled an invite to the Frosty nationals where they kindly lent me a working (and also completely competitive) Frosty for the regatta. The Frosty Nationals are traditionally held at the end of their frostbite season, around the mid to end of April if memory serves. I finished a creditable 8th out of 19 in my first and only Frosty regatta. To my surprise, where I thought there wouldn't be much speed difference in such a small dinghy, the top six boats had a clear advantage and the leaders could open up 1/2 leg leads on short frostbite courses. Here is a scanned photograph of the blogmeister rounding the weather mark in one of the 2004 National races.
Another strange characteristic of the Cape Cod Frosty is that it sails best with the helm's weight forward; the bow transom is always immersed at least 1/2 way, pushing up an immense bow wave and one feels as if you're always sailing downhill. Race committee is done off a large floating square dock that is towed to the center of the lagoon; the floating dock is large enough to fit 10 Frostys pulled up. There was enormous incentive to finish in the top ten each race as one could pull his Frosty up on the dock, get out and stretch one legs. The tailenders were left to cope with creeping paralysis as they remained shoehorned into these tiny craft, race after race. Finally, toward the end of Saturday's racing, the RC took pity, kept the leading sailors off the dock and allowed the tailenders some respite; some had to pulled out of their cockpits, succumbing to Rigor Frostitus. I had a great time at the Cape Cod Frosty nationals. I would do it again but am now wondering whether my knees or hips would be up to the task. Here is another scanned photo showing the bow down attitude of the Cape Cod Frostys. The blogmeister is in the second row coming up to the weather mark.
A photo looking down on a onshore Cape Cod Frosty klatch, a trio with camp chairs, the scene replete with a quaint New England barn door. One can get a true sense of how small these dinghies are.
The Frosty is one sheet of plywood, stitch and tape construction. The original design didn't have any flotation. As you can see in this boat building photo, the design has been modified to add enough flotation to make them somewhat self rescuing. (I'm not sure how easy it is to climb into these boats from the water after a capsize - I didn't capsize during the 2004 Nationals, the wind being a kind 5-12 knots for the regatta.)
I haven't posted about the Sea Snark for some time so when I came across this video of that great little 11' foam lateen-rigged dinghy racing in the 2012 Archipelago Raid, I knew I had blog-worthy material. The Archipelago Rally is a small boat fun race out of Rhode Island with an emphasis on kids and parents participating. If you are an adult sailing by yourself, it looks like you are encouraged to dig up or modify something unusual. As a result there is a melange of small sailing boats - right up my alley.
This is a video of, what I assume, are two sisters racing the Sea Snark. In the video you can see various sailing craft such as a Boston Whaler Squall, a C-class open canoe, a 16-30 decked sailing canoe and a traditional flat-bottomed saling skiff, all passing our intrepid Sea Snark sailors!
The older skipper sister asks;
"So how is everybody else doing?"
And the younger sister crew replies;
"Better than us!"
And here is another, longer, video of the 2012 Archipelago Rally with a detailed look at the variety of boats making the trip including some of the history of the Sea Snark dinghy.
Bob Ames, who is a naval architect by day, (and night also when he draws up racing sailboats) is also an amateur videographer of note. The following video is the last in a series of four he put together about log canoe racing and, according to Bob, is to be the last one in the series as he is relinquishing a spot on the log canoe team in 2013 to drive a sport boat next season. No better way to time waste a winter evening on the Internet than watch a series of spills, mayhem and Maryland Eastern Shore culture on one of the oldest continuously raced sailboats in the world.
I was watching the following video on the modern J-Class and pondering this irony of history; some of our most colossal, awe-inspiring examples of art, engineering, and beauty have been created by the super-rich. It couldn't be any other way. The masses would never have the wherewithal to accomplish this expensive bigness.
Such is the case of the largest of the racing yachts, the J-class. The class of the super-rich in the 1920's, the class of the America's Cup and the Lipton's and Vanderbilt's, the J-Class flourished up to the Great Depression and, now, with the rise of today's super-rich, this large expensive colossus has taken off again with many new J's under construction in this, the second decade of the third millennium.
My sailing (and social) tastes being more plebian in nature (see the current header photo of the 6-foot Frosty dinghy), I still cannot help to be awed at the size, power and beauty of these behemoths and if I ever get an invite to tour one of these modern J-class, you will see me toss aside my social consciousness for the moment, and, with my mouth agape, and a boyish giddiness I would poke around one of these modern classics, imagining a Charlie Barr, braced to the wheel, wind whipping over the gunwhales, eyes alternatively taking in the sea-state and the massive sails, and a boat and crew, looking forward, going on forever.
John Summers, one of several friends who is conversant in all things to do with sailing history, put this very appropriate quote in a comment (which I have moved to the main post);
As Douglas Phillips-Birt said of that era in "An Eye for a Boat:"
"Yachting was as exclusive, as brilliant, as undemocratic as a
Florentine palace. Some of the most original and talented minds in
several countries devoted themselves to the creation of the yachting
fleets. . .Yachting had its roots in wealth, and there is no need to be
so fervidly democratic as to condemn it for that reason."
As in the previous post on the Monotype d'Arcachon, we remain in the French Bassin d'Arcachon. The header photo for the past month was of the traditional waterman's small workboat of the area, the Pinasse, a narrow double-ended canoe-like craft over twenty feet long carrying an enormous dipping lug sail (the foot is a long as the craft). I have featured the Pinasse in a previous post. (I have spelled it two ways, Pinasse and Pinnasse - it looks like Pinasse may be correct, derived, I assume from Pinnace, which means ships tender.)
I've mentioned in a previous post that the modern Laser singlehander has turned 40 years old but, under the radar, there are local traditional small sailing craft that are celebrating their centenarys, their origins going back to the beginning of small boat racing. One of these, the French dinghy class Le Monotype d'Arcachon, marked their 100 years in 2012. Designed in 1912 by Joseph Gudeon as a trainer for the Bay of Arcachon, it appears upwards of forty of these 14 foot dinghies survive (see below) and continue to race today. Looking at the numbers on the sails, about 300 were built. These dinghies were solidly built with the weight quoted as 225 kg and used a balanced lug rig. A very pretty sailing dinghy.
A French video of the centenary regatta. (As I mentioned before, I'm a typical American monoglot; I am hoping, if the video shares more history on the Monotype, then those with French language skills will share this by adding a comment to this post.)
Update: The fellow who blogs about Laser sailing in Dubai has kindly done a broad translation of the video. I have dragged his comment into the main post.
"Glad to help with the French. The man in in the interview, Mr. Lacoste, has a lovely accent from the southern part of France. He explains that they are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the boats which have a long history in the Arcachon region. The boats today are recent ones - the original ones have all disappeared. About 500 were built and in most cases were kept by a sailing family for use by the children, while the parents sailed a Dragon or other boat. They are made only for recreation - not working boats. Today they have about 40 boats in the association, with about 20 showing up regularly for regattas. They come mainly from the Archacon area, but some from Bordeaux and further away".
Bald but my eyebrows are growing at a prolific rate. Sailed Windmills and Y-Flyers in the 1960's. Founded Miami University (OH) sailing team. Sailed International 14's and Lasers in the 1970's. Sailed International Canoes in the 1980's to mid 1990's. Sailed Classic Moths since 2002. Enjoy boatbuilding though I'm very, very slow at it (the Internet doesn't help matters). Name in real life: Rod Mincher
After choosing this username (Tweezer is the name of my Classic Moth), further research on the Internet turned up that Tweezerman is a corporate name for a line of pedicure products. Let me emphasize that I do not work for, nor endorse these products.
