Winslow Homer's "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)" - The Error

Wikipedia Commons

I would bet that several of Earwigoagin's readers have a print of this iconic painting hanging up in their house. Painted by Winslow Homer in the 1870's, this oil painting depicts an American catboat returning from a recreational fishing expedition. For me, this painting pushes so many buttons about the joy of sailing, moreso than any other sailing painting. But there is a major, glaring error.

It was my friend, Tom Price, that pointed out the error in this painting. The tiller is over the traveller bar. You wouldn't be able to tack this catboat without the traveller block catching up on the tiller!

I was over at the National Gallery of Art for a Cezanne exhibition when I decided to go search out the original "Breezing Up".  Getting up close I could see that the tiller was painted very translucently. You could see the traveller bar under the tiller. There may be several reasons. Tom Price maintains that Winslow Homer never quite finished the painting and he may have intended to go back and bring the traveller bar to the fore. It may be that Winslow Homer decided the aesthetics of having the tiller go over the traveller bar out-weighed any realism it sacrificed. When Winslow painted the tiller translucently it was his way of saying to an astute viewer, "Hey I know this won't work but deal with it."

It is interesting to note that there hangs next to "Breezing Up" a smaller, somewhat identical painting by Winslow Homer, the catboat in this painting named "Flirt". In this smaller study before he painted "Breezing Up", Winslow Homer has painted the tiller correctly under the traveller bar.

As an aside, if one takes a closer look at the way Winslow Homer painted the faces of the two boys sitting/laying forward and the skipper, it seems these three are looking intently to leeward, at something off to the left of the painting. Given the darkish clouds in the painting, was it some nasty weather to leeward, a thunderstorm perhaps? Or was it an approaching boat that may have been on a collision course?

It seems to me that Winslow Homer was trying to introduce some tension into "Breezing Up". It may be wrong to assume this picture is about a lanquid, relaxing, sailing vibe, as we have traditionally interpreted "Breezing Up" . Unfortunately this intense staring tension of skipper and crew doesn't translate unless one is in front of the original and looking closely.

Click here to see what Wikipedia has to say about the painting.

I've dragged Tom Price's comment over to the main post. (After all he is an artist.)

"The dynamic tension of the sun on the boys vs the darkening clouds, The pull on the rope tiller extension and the bow of the sprit under compression all contribute. Substituting an anchor for a 4th boy sounds like a compositional ploy or maybe he just thought an anchor was easier to paint than a boy after the first state."

Header Photo: Start at Largs Bay, 1986

The previous header photo was of a start at the 1986 Moth World Championships at Largs Bay, Adelaide, Australia, the last time the scows and skiffs would mix it up. More photos from that regatta can be found here.

Moth and Sailfish Scows at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta

Time to wrap up the scow thread which I've kept Earwigoagin on for a month or so. This post I stay with the Australian Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta and the other two vintage scow classes competing; the Australian scow Moth and the Australian Sailfish design.

As mentioned before, the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta celebrated the 90th year of Len Morris building his "Olive" which would become the Inverloch 11-footer class and then, when they spied the Rudder magazine article with Crosby's plans for his Skimmer Moth, the Inverloch group appropriated the emblem and become the Australian Moth class. The original "Olive" is still in one piece and was on display in the gymnasium at the Inverloch Regatta. The original definitely has high freeboard. Nowadays we would probably say the design is more pram-like than scow-like.

Len Morris's second Moth design, the Mk II, built post WWII, would take Australia by storm and was definitely more in line with the low freeboard American scows. Graeme Cox brought along an early Mk II. Note the low roach mainsail on the MkII (#3021) compared to a later 1960's scow design (#3396, an Imperium perhaps?).

Graeme Cox's MkII from the stern.

Phil Johnson, in his beautifully restored Cole Mouldie Moth, won the "Best Moth" prize at the regatta.

Nine Australian Sailfish made it to the 2018 ICWDR, down slightly from the eleven that showed at the 2017 ICWDR. Nine Sailfish still made up the largest class attending in 2018. There was even a brand new build. Brian Carroll, son of Jack Carroll, one of the designers of the Australian Sailfish brought the freshly launched "Jacks Toy" to Inverloch.

The new build Sailfish sported SUP non-skid tread, certainly a big help in staying on these slippery, narrow, beach boats.

Two different scows at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta: Rainbow and A-12

While I'm on a scow kick, mention must be made of two different scow designs that competed in the Australian ICWDR out of the South Gippsland Y.C. One of the kingpins of the Classic Wooden Dinghy event, Andrew Chapman and family, had two restored Rainbows in the regatta. (Correction: Andrew did the restoration of one "Annie", his son-in-law, Jonathan, a fine craftsman in his own right - music instruments - did the restoration of the other one, "Moonraker".) The Rainbow is an Australian 3.65 meter design that was popular as a junior trainer in South Australia in the 1960's. Andrew sailed one Rainbow with his grand-daughter and, his daughter Trilby, sailed the second one with Andrew's other grand-daughter. I asked Andrew what he thought of the Rainbow scow as a parent/kid sailing dinghy and he was enthusiastic.

"The Rainbow is lovely small boat to sail. It is very forgiving and a lot faster than a Mirror and Heron without using the trapeze and/or large spinnaker. I think it is an ideal boat for an adult and young kid or young teenagers. Trilby and I sailed with each of her two daughters and we plan to introduce them to using a trapeze on a beat and then the trapeze with spinnaker on reaches. We are also putting them on the helm and they enjoy sailing the quicker boat and they are not overwhelmed by the boats size. When they are comfortable using the trapeze and spinnaker trapeze combination the next stage will be the Gwen 12 then Cherub. I think the Rainbow is a very good small boat and it is one that is very easy for home builders to make.

Andrew Chapman and grand-daughter in "Annie".

Trilby and daughter in "Moonraker"

Three very different Australian scows in one shot. Trilby with the Rainbow on the beach, a modern carbon foiling Moth scow, and, in the background, a Classic wingless Moth scow.

Plans for the Rainbow scow can be found here.

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The A-12 scow was Frank Bethwaite's follow-on to his Northbridge Junior scow. Designed to be a higher performance dinghy, the A-12 was longer, 12 feet or 3.65 meters, sported Frank's signature rotating mast and had a trapeze. Neil Kennedy from Nedslocker dug out a November, 1970 issue of the Australian Modern Boating which featured the class when newly introduced. Some photos from that article:

An A-12 scow has shown up at the Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta for the last two years but, as Andrew Chapman writes, in the beginning no-one knew what type of scow it was.

"At the first regatta Andrew Kean sailed the boat as a Moth, with two tone blue sails, because that what it was sold to him as. He did wonder why someone had put a trapeze fitting on the mast. Apparently he never thought to measure the length. He sailed it again in the most recent regatta as an A12 with blue and white sails with a different rig.

From the photos it looks like Andrew was able to find a genuine Bethwaite rotating rig and A-12 sail.

The A-12 with the original Moth rig; a blue sail, wooden spars.

The A-12 on the Inverloch beach next to an Australian Sailfish.

For the 2018 regatta, Andrew was able to plug in the correct rig; aluminum rotating mast with a very big sail.

I'm not sure any plans exist for the A-12. None have come forward yet.

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George McGee adds more info on the A12. (From a comment I dragged to the main body.)

"I raced an A12 at Northbridge sailing club in the mid seventies. My boat came from Starbord Products with 2 rigs. The first rig was the 85 sq foot two tone blue sail with the over-rotating wooden mast. The second rig was a 65 sq foot two tone sail with a shorter wooden mast. (Not sure of the 65sq foot size). When the smaller rig was used the boat was classed a J12 rather than A12. NSC had a number of A12s and J12s competing on Sundays in the mid seventies.I spent many a happy afternoon on the A12 redefining the term "screaming reach"

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The Japanese Coca-Cola Moth

It appears that the Japanese Moth class got it start in the 1960's as a scow class sponsored by Coca-Cola. Here is the Japanese history as told by Ohno San;

"This photo (shown below) is from Kensaku Hashimoto. His dad was the Japanese distributor of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola-Japan got the lines drawing of the Peter Milne “Hurricane” scow Moth and sponsored the Okumura boatbuilders to build, in fiberglass, about 60 of the Milne design scows. As you can see from the photos, the Coca-Cola Moths had sails with a red stripe but didn’t sport the Coca-Cola logo.

Wooden masts and wooden booms.

This scow shown below may or may not be one of the original Coca-Cola Moths but it does have the double chine characteristic of the Milne "Hurricane" design. Also the halyard seems to be stored as in the other photos of the Coca-Cola Moths.

The number on this scow, 272, is a bit high for a Coca-Cola Moth but it does sport a red stripe on the sail. (The red stripe being higher up than the lower number Coca-Cola Moths.)

Mainer NZ Moth Update

John Hanson read my last post on NZ Moth's deck layouts and sent along the latest on his NZ Moth build in Maine, the U.S. state that sits at the apex of chilly New England.

"We got the sides on, before Sam away to school. We have a 420 mast and some foils. I am not allowed to work on it without Sam. Shop’s too cold anyway. 

Neil from Nedslocker sent along a 1963 article that also shows some internals of a NZ Moth.

New Zealand Scow Moth; Some Deck Layouts

The New Zealand scow Moth is a one-design adaptation of the Len Morris Mk II Moth design though the rules were loose enough that they pushed the original Mk II lines around a bit. (An astute observer could also say that the Bethwaite design, Northbridge Junior, is also another adaptation of the Mk II scow.) Cockpit design on the New Zealand Moth is wide open and I came across these recent photos of the fleet of New Zealand Moths at Stewarts Gully, NZ. Some very inventive hiking arrangements here.

Three New Zealand Moths bow-on. It looks like 958 has shortened the luff of his sail to get a fat-head top.

A concave cockpit with stand-up rounded decks for hiking. The New Zealand Mothies do seem enamored with sticking wind indicators on the foredeck.

Another concave cockpit with semicircular hiking bumps. A nice long lever vang.

This one has narrow side decks just barely raised from the cockpit floor.

A conventional cockpit design with a repair just aft or where the skipper sits. A second layer of ply reinforcing (lightened with circular cut-outs) was supposed to be strong enough but doesn't look like it was up to the task.

Another shallow side-deck. I like the contrasting colors.

A more severe concave deck with shallow raised bumps for hiking.

You really, really have to work hard on the plywood to get this kind of double curve.

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John Hanson and son are building a New Zealand Moth in Maine.