Another Moth Nantais Build

Contstruction Moth Classique

Plans de Moth Classique

More news about the French Nantais Moth Classique keeps surfacing. Guimbert Alexis, a 23 year old house carpenter in France, sent along some pictures of a Nantais Moth Classique he built last year. He built it to have a craft to learn sailing and the workmanship is superb! I must admit that I haven't ran across too many young boatbuilders in the U.S, particularly those building sailing dinghies. I would like to see more young people have a go at it. The Moth Classique is an ideal boat for a first time project as, not only is it a small project, but the Moth Classique also offers so many different designs for different sailing abilities as well as different building techniques.

The Nantais Moth sports the bubble deck that was popular in the 1940's. This has the big advantage of keeping the skipper out of the water on what is essentially a low freeboard hull. Also the old Moth rule limited the height of the gooseneck to 9" above the deck (correction; from George A's comments, original rule was 12" boom height). This resulted in the old rule Moths having a very low boom. Our current Classic Moth rules in North America eliminated that restriction, making it easier to push the boom up to a height where it doesn't box the ears and force the skipper to kiss the floorboards on a tack.

Setting up the station frames, center plank on...........




Hull planked in plywood and flipped...........



Deck framing complete.................




Deck on.................



Nantais Moth Classique out on the water.............





Again, congrats to Guimbert Alexis on a beautiful Moth Classique!

The lines to the Nantais.

Links to previous posts on the Nantais Moth Classique can be read here and here.

In 1943, American Roger Gintling, published building instructions for his Moth "Little Mae Too" in one of the popular do-it-yourself magazines of the day. It is a close "kissing cousin" to the Moth Nantais. I've posted on the details of the Little Mae Too over here.

Historic Nantais Moth Under Build, British Columbia, Canada

 Construction de Moth Classique

Plans de Moth Classique

Dave from British Columbia sent me some pictures of a Nantais Moth he has under construction.

The Nantais Moth Classique is a French Vintage design from the 1940's and the story behind this design is both historic as well as somewhat mysterious.

If you read any history of yacht racing; the sport basically shut down during WWII......except in occupied France where the Nazi's decided (correctly as it turns out) that letting the French build 11' Mothboat sailboats was not, in any way, shape or form, going to come back them as a military weapon. And the French built them in numbers. I'm not sure how many were built during WWII but 1000 of the Nantais design were eventually built.

I'm sure there are plenty of sea stories out there from French Mothboaters, now in their 80's, of how they built and raced Mothboats during a World War where everything was severely rationed. Where did they find the wood? What did they make the sails out of? Unfortunately I'll never get to hear these stories from this side of the Atlantic.

Dave of Vancouver builds his boats outside. After planking the Nantais hull in plywood, Dave has ceased operations as the fall temps in Canada have reached too low for epoxy to kick off in any reasonable time.

The Nantais skeleton before plywood.



Plywood sheathing on.



Photo from inside the hull showing frames and stringers.



I'll be waiting for the spring for new photos from Dave on this project. And if any Frenchmen read this blog, shoot me some more history on the Nantais Moth Classique. It would be much appreciated.

Also, Vintage Moths are a good way to go for those who would like to build an excellent sailing dinghy but are a little leery about their ability to handle a tippy hull. I have some plans for a Vintage in my hands that I'll see if I can post as a DXF in some later post.

Click here for more posts that reference the Nanatais Moth.

Boatbuilding: Update on the Nantais Classic Moth

Plans de Moth Classique

---

David Simms of British Columbia, Canada, sends along an update on his build of the French Moth Classique Nantais design. My first post on Dave's boatbuilding can be found here.

"I've attached a couple of pictures of the Nantais, in its present state... All of the frames are made of laminated 1 cm x 1 cm, straight-grained Douglas Fir. I'm amazed at how light, and STRONG, they are. Presently, the fairing has been nearly completed and the frames have been sealed with epoxy. There are fewer than a dozen screws in all of the deck framing. I have rough cut the plywood for the deck and I've also sealed the inside face of the decking with epoxy. 

[Second picture] A bit of humour, here. I'm struggling to move the boat into one of my sheds, for winter storage. This little struggle has convinced me that my original thoughts of building a boat that could be transported on top of a car were somewhat unrealistic. Given that I'm not related to Charles Atlas, I'll soon be looking for a trailer."

Lines drawing of the Nantais Moth. Typical of Moth design for France and the U.S in the 1940's. (The Dorr-Willey, Ventnor, and the Abbots representing similar U.S. designs, Click here to view a post on the 1940 Moth designs.), the hull has a scow type stem married to deep V sections.

Les Moths Classique: Les Rendez-vous de l’Erdre

---

Blog post on the original French Moth get together, the 2001 Moth design competition sponsored by the French magazine "Le Chasse Marée".

---

To celebrate the 90th birthday of the Moth class, seven very different Classic Moths of the French section gathered at Sucé-sur-Erdre, mid September, for a congenial get-together. Though racing was not the central reason for this rendezvous, there was some racing in very light air. Sucé-sur-Erdre is about 15 km north of the city of Nantes. Nantes is considered the traditional center of Mothboating in France as it was there that 150 of the Nantais Moth were built during World War II. Bertrand Warion sent along a report and photos and I poached some photos from David Balkwill (who I think is an English expat living in France) that were posted on Facebook.

Bertrand Warion stumbled upon this Moth as a shell in Switzerland twelve years ago. She is a version of the Swiss Dunand design. The hull is glass and Bertrand got her back on the water with some new wooden decks and a Europe Dinghy rig.

Philippe Meunier

Calimero, owned by Jean-Jacques Cadoret, is a French cruising Moth from the 1960's; a "Moth Béarnais de Camping". George did this blogpost on the history of the French camping Moth. Lots of package in a small form, I can see this Moth being an ideal weekend gunkholer for river exploring.

Philippe Meunier

Crocodile is flat bottomed Moth, designed and built by Charentais Olivier about five years ago.

Philippe Meunier

You need some flat, wide sections to make the "Moth Béarnais de Camping" work. You can see the metal keelband up forward to protect the hull on beach landings and the use of a centerboard.

Bertrand Warion

The Moth owned by Jean-Yves. Named Felix, he built this Moth when he was 12 years old. It was designed by his father and from this shot shows some relationship to the British Moth.

Philippe Meunier

On the left is Julia, a Moth designed and built by Didier Leveille for the 2001 Moth design competition, sponsored by nautical magazine, "Le Chasse Marée". On the right is Calimero, the cruising Moth.

Bertrand Warion

Julia at speed (most likely the fastest she went during the mostly windless weekend). Didier designed Julia somewhat after the Laser with flat sections throughout. I do like the artistic sail logos. I'll have to find out what they mean. A photo of Julia's sections here.

Philippe Meunier

Launching. Jean-Yves in number 131. Bertrand Warion's red deep-V design is being remarkably docile. Usually these Moths flip right over when left unattended.

Bertrand Warion

Nola, the stunningly restored Nantais Moth of Jean-Jacques, sailed here by David Balkwill. David was none too impressed with this vintage Moth. (I dragged his opinion over from the comments.)

"My experience sailing the Nantais Nola was astonishing. I've sailed Moths, both British and International, since the seventies, but this one from 1941 was by far the most uncomfortable. We had very light winds, but after three days on the water I was covered in bruises from all the corners and edges I was squeezed up against; in conditions where you can't move or you stop the boat!

Philippe Meunier

Rigging and launching was from Didier Leveille's house on the river. On the left is Crocodile. On the right is a wooden Europe. Not sure of the builder of the Europe Dinghy but the skipper was Frédérique Larrarté,

Bertrand Warion

Let's close this blog post with the most popular Classic Moth, Frédérique Larrarté with her ubiquitous Europe dinghy.

Philippe Meunier

Follow Up; Nantais Moth

Moth Classique

Plans de Moth Classique

Referring to the post of the Nantais Moth Classique under construction in British Columbia, I got a nice email from Romain Berard (who I assume is French but I forgot to ask).

"If you read French, you can buy this book: http://www.chasse-maree.com/Les-livres/Construction/Restauration-Construction/Construis-toi-meme/Fiche-produit-detaillee.html

This is a new reprint of a series of do-it-yourself books written during WW2 on how to build various small boats. Included are the plans and detailed explanations to make a Sharpie (both 9 and 11 m2 versions), a dinghy Herbulot, a Caneton, the Nantais Moth Classique, the Mousse and also the beautiful Aile keelboat."

I have the book. In it the author speaks about shortage of materials (it seems he can help the would be builder to get a voucher for some) and a note mentions an American bombing over Nantes.

In the bill of material required for the moth, 9m2 of cotton is mentionned for the sail.

Thanks Romain. Here is the link to the book (link didn't show up as clickable above).Undoubtedly an interesting book for historical yachting nuts like me, particularly if you have some French language background. Romain also sent me some photos of his current ride; one of my favorite traditional dinghies featured in several posts on this blog, the International 12. He says the wooden International 12's are very expensive. Sometimes you pay for beauty!

Classic Moth Plans; "Little Mae Too" Vintage Design

---

Click here for the metric offsets for Little Mae Too

---

As mentioned previously, American Roger Gintling published plans for a Moth in 1943. It is very, very similar to the Moth Nantais that was built in France during World War II. My scanned copy doesn't give the magazine name that these plans originally appreared in.

Yes, the "Little Mae Too" is an old design, but, except for the scow bow, the V'eed hull sections of the "Little Mae Too" are similar to the Sunfish or the Snipe, two dinghy classes extremely popular to this day.

Vintage Moth designs are stable and good weight carriers. Just the ticket if you want to build a small sailboat for your cabin by the lake or something for the kids to kick around with.

One doesn't have to copy the bubble deck design of these vintage boats, a curved foredeck with a flat aft deck would look nice. And it would be good idea to at least have two air buoyancy tanks by closing in some frames with plywood.

The following scan of "LIttle Mae Too" plans isn't the sharpest but, combining this PDF file with some of the photos of the Moth Classique Nantais construction, one can get a good idea how to build a "Little Mae Too". I've also fed the line plans through MaxSurf design software which I've put at the end of the PDF file, also with some metric station spacing.

To print or download this PDF, move your mouse over the top menu bar. Click on the upward-facing arrow icon in the top-right to open the PDF in another tab on your browser. You can print or download the PDF from this new tab.

---

For a review of Classic Moth designs, click here.

Concours de Plans pour Moth Classique lancé par "Le Chasse Marée"

The Design Competition for Classic Moths sponsored by the French traditional yachting magazine, Le Chasse Marée, September, 2001

I was under the mistaken impression that there were only two singlehanded dinghy design competitions over the last fifty or so years; the three IYRU singlehanded trials in the 1960's that would select the Contender to replace the Finn (NOT!), and the more informal singlehanded trial weekend in 1970; the American TeaCup regatta sponsored by the One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman magazine in which the Laser, and the cut-down Flying Junior, renamed the Banshee were introduced.

It was up to a transplanted Frenchman on the Left Coast, Dominique Banse, to correct me. He sent along a 2001 article from the French traditional yachting magazine, Le Chasse Marée which reported on a singlehanded design competition they hosted for Classic Moths. The regatta was run by the sailing club, ASPTT Voile de Nantes, and over twenty Moths showed up; some old, some new. Eighteen different Moth designs had been submitted to the magazine but only six new Classic Moths actually showed up to test their designers thinking on the race course. Unfortunately several of the new ones were not ready when they rolled in on the Friday and it took the midnight oil to get them on the water. Not the best way to prove your racing mettle!

Two of the designs, Mariposa and Francois Vivier's Moth Grand Largue were aimed more at being a lively daysailor rather than an all-out racer.

Below are some of the photos taken by Marc Morell during this Classic Moth regatta.

The French vintage Moth Nantais is very similar to the American Dorr-Willey and Ventnor vintage Moths. The red hull Nantais has an enormous bubble-deck (which was one way to keep these small dinghies dry before the invention of bailers and double-bottoms). Mariposa, which was featured in a blog post on Earwigoagin is the blue hull on the right.

Marc Morell

The purple, transom-bowed, plywood, V-shaped Bilbon (foreground, designed by Christophe Couton) was the best of the new designs at the competition but I'm guessing it was still off the pace compared to the Olympic Europe Dinghy (leading to the left).

Marc Morell

The transom-bowed Swiss Fragniére was the most popular French Moth of the late 1950's to mid- 1960's.  Here is one with a wooden mast approaching the finish line. A 1960's video short featuring some Fragniére's can be seen here.

Marc Morell

On shore before the racing, from left to right;

• The older, 1960's Swiss Fragniére, 
• Julia, the yellow Moth modeled after the Laser shape, designed by Didier Laveille. 
• The purple Bilbon from Christophe Couton. 
• Another new design, the black hull Berga' Moth put together by Jerome Amouraben from the Nantes School of Architecture.

Marc Morell

Julia, the Moth with Laser-like hull sections.

Marc Morell

The English translation of the Chasse Marée article on their Classic Moth design competition. (Again, many thanks to Dominique Banse for working hard to get this one right!):

A Classic - Classic Moth News Short

Voiliers Classiques Moth, Dériveur Classique Moth.

Plans de Moth Classique

---

A Moth European Championship sailed in Algiers, Algeria (at that time a département - administrative region - of France - see Tillerman's comment). Looks like the late 1950's, early 1960's. We can see the transom-bowed French Fragniere Moth design as well as the scow bowed Nantais design. (The British Queen Mother makes a short appearance at the beginning of the video.)




Further French Moth stuff here.

Classic Moth plans

Plans de dériveur classique Moth, Plans de voiliers classiques Moth

Before diving into this very lengthy post, you might want to Click Here To View Classic Moth Images courtesy of Google.

You also might want to Click here for a YouTube video with commentary on some of the various Classic Moths racing at the U.S. Classic Moth Nationals in Elizabeth City.

(Addendum September 2012 - I first wrote this post in 2010. Since then various boatbuilders have popped up, building reproductions of vintage designs. Francois Vivier has also produced a kit Moth. In the two years I have made many more posts about Classic Moths on Earwigoagin and it might be worth the reader to investigate. For more articles on the Classic Moth from this blog, use the Blogger Search Box at the top left  (next to the orange B icon). Type in "Classic Moth" to pull all the articles on the Classic Moth from this blog. Or go to the Labels on the right side of the blog and select "Classic Moth" I keep adding plans and sections for various Classic Moths. Use the following links.)

• Little Mae" PDF plans from magazine.
• Little Mae" Metric station offsets.
• French Vintage Classic Moth "Nantais" build - classique Moth voilier.
• French Fragniere Moth Classique - sections and offsets.
• Francois Vivier Classic Moth kit -conception classique Moth voilier.
• Some other posts with references to Classic Moth plans.
• Offsets for the Zippy design, a modified Proust - conception classique Moth voilier.
• Zippy sections in PDF format.
• Plans for Willam Crosby's vintage Skimmer scow design in PDF format.
• Plans for Len Morris's original Aussie scow, the MK II in PDF format.
• Duckworks Magazine offers a set of Classic Moth plans by Paolo Lodigiani.
• The Florida Cates offsets and partial plans.
• Mistral Hull Panel Offsets
• Mistral Y2K Section Offsets
• How to Bend Up the Mistral Hull Panels
• Plans for Benoit Duflos' flat-bottom Moth-Pop
• Drawing for RazMoth by Bertrand Warion
• Offsets for Bilbon by Christophe Couton
• Lines for the Swiss-Dunand
• Section drawing for the Duflos
• Brewsabee, another narrow waterline Moth
• Puriri, a 1962 New Zealand multichine design

(editors note - I've dragged the Conclusion to the top of the post - August 2013) CONCLUSION - Let me be clear. The Classic Moth is a short hull and a light hull. At the Gen2 (higher performance racing) level, the Classic Moths are challenging craft to sail but very rewarding at the same time.  A Laser is like an aircraft carrier compared to the more twitchier Gen 2 designs, the Mistral, Energizer, Tweezer or even the Shelly. 

But there are more stable Classic Moths that we classify as Gen 1. I've never sailed a Mint or a Proust design but I would assume that they would be very much the same stability as a Laser or Sunfish. Or, an even older design, a reproduction vintage design such as the Little Mae or Nantais Moth would be the most stable and perfect for kicking around on the lake. 

So there you have it. The Mistral, Shelly and Florida Cates have more or less complete plans. Other designs you would probably need to work off a set of lines drawings and use your builders experience. George Albaugh is our plan librarian. His email is linked from Classic Moth website.  George is also another sailing blogger. You can view his Classic Moth posts over at Mid-Atlantic Musings.

All lines drawings (except the Europe dinghy) were done using MaxSurf's NURBS software.

---

Quick review of some of the more popular designs and the availability of plans. (Updated September 2012)

(Note; To give a rough idea on the tippiness of a hull, Joe Bousquet developed a scissor-like device he placed over the midsection to visually show the amount of V. I've included his pictures of the various V's from the Mistral, Shelly, Europe, Energizer.)

(Another note: To scroll through hi-res pictures, just click on a picture. Once the hi-res picture comes up, click again in the picture to step through all the pictures on this post.)

---

MISTRAL - easiest to build. Developable plywood. Stitch and glue. Two 3mm plywood panels are bent up to shape, a centerline piece attached to hold the run flat, a spreader bar at the gunwhales is used to get the correct shape when bending up and glassing. A weekend of work will give you the rough shape. Adding two permanent bulkheads, a temp bulkhead and the transom finalizes the shape. Many people have hacked the hull shape by pushing here or pulling there so we have some semi Mistral hullls out there. Here is a link to a blog post of a local Annapolis Mothist, John Z building a Mistral. A Mistral or some variation of the Mistral has won the Nationals the last umpteen years.

However, the Mistral is a very deep V design. Very floppy and has a tendency to scare newbie Mothists who try to sail her. Many have come ashore and either; 1) rapidly put the boat up for sale or 2) put the Mistral back in the garage for a while and then discreetly sold her. Not all mind you, as we have a core group of about 6-8 who regularly sail a Mistral (or modified Mistral design, i.e. the Mousetrap or Y2K designs) and are able to race them hard in all conditions and win. It helps to have some Laser or Sunfish experience but this is not an ironclad requirement. If you pick a Mistral to build, consider yourself warned. If you decide to proceed, George has the plans (see bottom of article).

The Mistral on the Bousquet V-meter.


Top View of a Mistral Mod Design, the Mousetrap by Jeff Linton.

Picture of the tank framing for Joe Bousquet's Mistral. Note the sistering of insulation foam with the plywood frame to provide gluing surface for the plywood decks.

Not all Mistrals are built in plywood. This one was done in foam core/glass, with the hull splashed using an existing wood hull as a mold. Note the very interesting transom design.

Here are the lines to a modified Mistral, the Y2KBug built by Walt Collins. (Pretty extreme wouldn't you say!)

• A discussion on the differences between a Mousetrap and a Mistral.
• A short video of a a Mistral hull modified with a flatter Europe type transom.
• Mistral hull panel offsets can be found here.
• Mistral Y2K section offsets can be found here
• How to Bend Up the Mistral Hull Panels
• More Mistral images from Google.

---

ENERGIZER -Just a hair more stable than the Mistral is the Energizer design. A modification of the 1970's Stockholm Sprite, it is a full chine design but still very V'd. Two have been built with some success. No plans.

Energizer on the Bousquet V-meter.


The original Energizer was the first Classic Moth I owned. Here I am sailing Energizer at Chester River in Maryland.

The Energizer hull shape from the stern.

A lines drawing of Energizer showing it belongs to the deep-V family of Classic Moths.

---

TWEEZER - Yep, this is my design. I called this design Tweezer D as it was the fourth generation in what I drew up, but the D version was only one built. A Gen 2 design racing against the Mistral, Energizer designs. Stability somewhere between the Mistral and the Shelly (though some other sailors have told me it is close in stability to a Shelley). Flatter rocker in the Tweezer has proven to be quick in a breeze but suffers against the Mistrals and even the Shelly in the lighter stuff (non-hiking breeze) which, on the East Coast, seems to be the majority of our conditions. I may be biased but it is a hull with little vices and I enjoyed racing this design. Round-bilged and the original was built using cedar strips.

• A Post about Tweezer.
• View the YouTube of Tweezer's construction.
• Tweezer's new owner.

Picture below is of me lollygagging around on Tweezer, before a start at E-City.

 

And the Tweezer D hull lines:

---

SHELLEY - A wider, flatter chined design with moderate rocker from the brilliant New Zealand/English dinghy designer of the 1960's, John Shelley. Much more stable and, in the hands of Joe Bousquet, has done very well in the National championships. George has the Mk3 plans.

Shelley on the Bousquet V-meter.


A McCutcheon built Shelley in dinghy park at the Gulfport Midwinters.

The lines for the Shelley Mk III.

Bill Boyle is doing a new build of a Shelley MkIII which he is documenting in a blog. Click here to check out his progress.

---

MINT - Qualifies for Gen 1 (our Classic Moth division for the more stable, higher wetted surface hulls that are not Vintage). A Bill Lee national championship winner, the Mint is a reasonably docile design from the 1950's. Never built one but the bow sections go very fine and look to present some challenges to the home builder. That being said, 6 hulls were built in Elizabeth City in the 1990's. George has the section lines.

A picture of the beautiful restoration of the first Mint built.....


And John Pugh sailing a Mint at the E-City Nationals.

The hull lines of the Mint showing the concave sections up forward.

---

FLORIDA CATES

The most successful American design of the 1960's. Florida boatbuilder, Harry Cates, evolved the shape from Warren Bailey's Mach 1. massaging the shape to make it easy to home build in plywood. Charlie Hunt drew up the plans. A Gen 1 design, the Cates is another V'd shape with a distinctive small topside panel with chine. The transom is small, reminding one of a Sunfish transom. The Cates is very beamy at the gunwhales forward. Low freeboard, a wet boat, but most sailors find it reasonably sailable, with plans available. George A. has the plans (see contact info at top of post).

Gary Gowans has built two of them, with slight modifications. He won the Gen1 class at the 2014 Championships over an Olympic Europe.

A topside shot of a Cates. Bill Boyle in 1965.

The lines to the Cates show a considerable V, hollowed bow sections, and a tiny topside panel. Beam is 1.72 meters.

The top down view shows a pinched transom and wide side-decks.

The sideview shows moderate rocker. The tiny topside panel that disappears at the bow is also clearly shown.

The offsets to the Cates design can be found by clicking here.

---

MODERN FLORIDA -There are two designs by famous Florida MORC designers; OH Rodgers designed the Florida Wedge (a low rocker design, very stable, but slow in waves and squirrely downwind in a breeze). Four hulls were built by the St. Petersburg fleet and Jeff Linton won the 2003 Nationals with one. I'm not sure if any plans exist.

A stern view of the Florida Wedge showing the flattish, low profile, transom and no stern tank:

Paul Lindenberg designed a Classic Moth which has a resemblance to the Windmill hull. Lindenberg will sell his Classic Moth plans for $400. I don't have an address.

Lindenberg's website does show some Classic Moth building.

A transom photo of a Lindenberg Moth (from George A.'s blog). Note the anti-reflective strips on the transom for safer trailering.

---

SAVANNAH WEDGE - A Moth copy of the Zuma dinghy built by AMF in the late 1980's, this Classic Moth was designed by Lane Reeves with two built in Savannah, Georgia.  This Wedge design had a wide, flat transom, low freeboard, double-bottom and reverse stern. The Savannah Wedge is not competitive as a Classic Moth racer, too much wetted surface, but with it's double bottom this is a very capable kick-around-the-lake daysailor. No plans existing that I know of.

Briggs Monteith begs to differ with my assessment - I have dragged his comment to the main post:

"I know this is an old post but as for the Savannah Wedge not being competitive, I finished third in a Savannah Wedge in the '99 midwinters sailing one that I borrowed from Jerry Carter. The boat was amazingly quick I thought, It beat Mean Tangerine and Randall Swans Vanilla. in extremely light air conditions. I think the boat has suffered from sailors who didn't understand the boat." -Briggs Monteith

---

SKOL; The Skol was a British production fiberglass Moth from the early 1970's. The Mk II, the most popular version, was a de-tuned Mistral with very round sections.  The Mk II had a tub cockpit with a back tank. Here are two pictures of a just retrieved, hence dirty, Skol Mk II. The winglets are illegal in the U.S. Classic Moth Association Rules. (We have a 1" hollow rule.). There are no known plans but a used one would make a good re-decking project (see the last photo is this section).

The original ad for the Skol Mk II

Here in the U.S. Joe Bousquet did a decks-off/plywood redeck restoration of a Skol Mk II, shown here sailing in the 2014 CMBA Midwinters.

A transom shot of the same Americanized Skol. A very round transom, equivalent to the Duflos or Mistral shape.

---

EUROPE Dinghy- The ex-Olympic Europe is based on a 1960's Europa Classic Moth and there is an active section of Classic Mothists who have purchased plastic Europes, modified the sail to fit the Classic Moth and are sailing them mostly as stock (though we do have three modified Europes, Mark Saunders has done a Europe hull lighter with a wooden deck).

Wooden Europa dinghy on the Bousquet V-meter.


Walt Collins with his Olympic Europe.

The lines to the Olympic Europe dinghy.

---

PROUST DESIGN - In 2009, Jim Young built an old French design he found on the Internet. Despite the name he gave her (Tippy), this Classic Moth was anything but. A stable, buoyant design which Jim built modern, in foam/glass. Details on "Tippy" can be found over at this blog post. I've also put up offsets, both metric and English, for my version of the Proust, the Zippy.Also the Zippy sections are posted here.


Tippy at the 2008 E-City Nationals.

The simple single-chine sections for Zippy. There is no compounding of plywood here. This design has ample flotation forward, which makes for a safer hull, particularly downwind in a blow. (For reference, buttock lines spaced at 150mm and waterlines spaced at 60mm.)

---

TITAN - The Titan design is another stable design from the 1960's. It is a round-bilged design, a pretty hull, but the original hulls were built very heavy in fiberglass. Reports from Mothists who have sailed them find the Titan well mannered. The design has some similarity to a small Uffa Fox International 14.

---

RESTORATION - Many of the 60 designs have reappeared as derelict hulls and have been restored rather than homebuilt from scratch. The oldest designs for Vintage (Ventnor, Connecticut, and Dorr Willey designs) must be restored to qualify to race in  the Vintage division (you can still race a reproduction Vintage in the Gen 1 division). 

Here is one of the original ads for the Ventnor Moth.

Bill Boyle has done quite a few Moth restorations and has written about them.

1. Click here to view his restoration of a Fran Abbott Moth.
2. Click here to view his restoration of a Fletcher/Cates Moth.
3. And his latest restoration of a Ventnor copy.

---

DESIGN YOUR OWN - With the introduction of free hull design software, the more adventurous can design their own Classic Moth. The American rule limits length to 3.3528 meters, beam is limited to 1.524 meters, no concavity greater than .025 meters aft of the daggerboard trunk and hull weight (including fittings) is no lighter than 34 kg.

John Watkins published this set of Classic Moth lines to the WoodenBoat forum in 2015. This design would fit very nicely into the U.S. Gen 1 division.

MARIPOSA

Mariposa is a French Classic Moth three plank design by Bertrand Warion, featuring a flat rocker panel married to developable bow sections, built stitch and tape. The design was one of several new Classic Moth designs built for the "concours de plans Moth Classique" sponsored by the French traditional boating magazine, Chasse-Marée in 2001.

RAZMOTH - another French design by Bertrand Warion. This one is patterned after the Fireball and has a flat rocker panel. RazMoth is another simple flat, two chine, easy-to-build plywood shape, ending in a scow bow. The RazMoth design is on it's second iteration.

BILBON - was another French design built for the "concours de plans Moth Classique" sponsored by Chassse_Marée magazine in 2001. Designed by Christophe Couton, a professional draftsman, it is a simple flat V, easy-to-build plywood shape, ending in a pram bow. Bilbon was one of the faster new designs that appeared at the 2001 design competition.

Here is a middle-of-the-road round bilge design I drew up. A very conventional dinghy hull shape. For reference the waterlines are drawn spaced every 60 mm. and the buttocks are drawn at 150 mm. spacing

Click here for the DXF file of this round bilged Classic Moth design.

I've also pushed around the lines to the Fragniere design by adding a flat rocker panel.

Click here for the offsets for a three plank modified Fragniere Classic Moth design.

---

William Crosby's SKIMMER - A very early Moth design, published in The Rudder in 1933. According to Crosby, hundreds were built but very few have surfaced in modern times. A scow type, this would make a good off-the-beach boat but is not competitive in the Vintage Divsion when compared to the deeper V vintage designs like the Dorr-Willey or Ventnor.

Skimmer Plans can be found here.

A Skimmer found in a barn in Cape Cod. Note the lack of cockpit.

---

MASER - And for those with the true hacker spirit - there is the Classic Moth that uses a sliced and diced Laser hull - deemed a Maser.

A Maser at the 2011 Midwinters. You can sort of see the Laser transom, still intact.

---

MOTH CLASSIQUE: The French have a rich tradition with the Classic Moths and their designs. The French Duflos was the fastest Classic Moth before the arrival of wings. Click here to view Part 1 of Louis Pillon's fascinating history of the French Moth class. I have come across two small jpeg's of French Moth designs on the Internet.

The first is the vintage, scow bow Nantais design which has been mentioned before in this post.

The second is the Fragniere design, a unique transom bow design which was most popular in France before the appearance of the very narrow Duflos and similar designs. Click here for the offsets for the Fragniere.

Here are some photos of a recent build of the Fragniere design. Following the plans, the Fragniere has a full length cockpit.

French designer Francois Vivier has designed a Moth Classique to be built in kit form. Here is the side view of his Moth Grand Largue.

Benoit Duflos, who pioneered the very fast, very Vee'd, very tippy racing Moths of the 1960's also designed a more stable, flat-bottom Moth for the home-builder. Called the Moth-Pop, plans for the Moth-Pop can be found in the links at the top of this post. Here is Benoit's iso-view of the Moth-Pop

The lines plan for the Moth-Pop.

---

The 505 Moth - John Westell, the designer of the 505, also did a 505 type Moth. I haven't come across any that have survived to the modern day.

Image courtesy of David Henshall

---

SCOW Moth - The scow Moth was THE Moth of Australia and New Zealand until the narrow waterline winged Moths proved faster in the mid 1980's. Len Morris was the founder of the Australian scow Moths with his Flutterby design which he built in 1928. His post World War II MK II design was very popular and is still an easy-build proposition out of plywood. Plans for the MK II can be found by clicking here.

The sections for the MK II show a simple flat-bottom scow with vertical sides.

A double bottom MKII built in the 1950's.

---

Classic Moth Sailplan

All dimensions in mm. For the original post on the Classic Moth sailplan, click here.

---

Where to put the mast and daggerboard in a Classic Moth?

Luckily, John Shelley's construction drawings for the Shelley Mk 1, which he used in a patent application, have now surfaced on the internet. His mast and daggerboard placement as indicated in the drawings below are good placements, though, if you went around the fleet with a measuring tape, you would find this might vary by up to 75 mm from boat to boat. 

Center of mast back from stem - 695 mm.

Leading edge of daggerboard back from stem - 1453 mm.

---

What constitutes a Gen I Classic Moth design?

"What constitutes a Gen I Classic Moth?" As of now, and for the foreseeable future, the good old eyeball. Among the class, we have discussed various parametrics, but the difficulty of measurement, and the almost certain chance of designers trying to skirt any numbers written down (bumps, lumps and so on), have kept us to a subjective division. Most of the designs featured on the this design page are Gen 1 designs. They include the Europe dinghy, the Proust (Tippy or Zippy), the Shelley, the Florida and Savannah Wedge, the Maser, the scows, the Cates, the Mint, the Nantais, the Little Mae, and the Titan. The age of the design does not matter for Gen 1. The primary determinant is waterline beam. If it looks narrow, it doesn't fit Gen 1. Sailing a Gen 1 design should be relatively straightforward for anyone with dinghy experience.

The Gen II designs (narrow waterline) on the Earwigoagin design page are the Mistral, the hard-chine Energizer, the Tweezer, and the wood-decked, modified Skol. They are definitely a tippier proposition to sail and race, but rewarding for those who like a small boat challenge.

---

Other links to other Classic Moth design posts from Earwigoagin..........

1. My answer to my first email inquiry about Classic Moths..... Classic Moth Designs Part 1 
2. And also a good read.......Why a Classic Moth is Better than a Laser.