South African Jack Koper designed three plywood scows, starting in the late 1950's with the junior scow, the 11'9" Dabchick, and then followed with the 15'6" Tempo scow and then with the 14' 6" Sonnet Scow (featured in the header photo). All three enjoyed great success in South Africa and the Tempo also achieved some numbers in Europe, notably Holland and Germany. The Tempo has faded from the scene but both the Dabchick and Sonnet still have good fleets in South Africa (500 built for the Sonnet). Those readers who guessed the photo might be the American Y-Flyer scow were close -from the photo they look similar - but off by 4 feet in length.
I kinda love the new header photo with the big sweeping headsail and everyone just sort of lazing on the rail.
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ReplyDeletevery nice to read my way thru your site, as i consider a boat to build. i won the dabchick national champs once upon a time (they are still wooden). my dad now sails a sonnet as a family boat (they are now fibreglass).
ReplyDeleteanother two amazing "indigenous" boats were the extra and the sprog, i guess having sharpie type hulls. and since the 80s made in fibreglass.
there were large scows in durban historically. i think they had been inspired by australian fleets.
thanks for the site,
Charles,
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you. Dabchicks are neat scows and sometime I'll do a post about them.
The Exact class is one of those rare main/jib singlehanders (the Dabchick being one also). I do like the South African dinghies.